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Fates Parallel #4
Fates Parallel Vol. 4: A Xianxia/Wuxia Inspired Cultivation Adventure Series
The world of cultivation is bigger than they ever imagined.
After the apocalyptic descent of gods and demons upon their world, Jia and Eui find themselves embroiled in a conflict beyond their wildest imaginations. Emerging from two years of forced training in the unclaimed wilderness, the two outcasts must return to the nation that rejected them, reconnect with their old lives, and somehow gain the support of an entire nation. The fate of the world might just depend on it.
Yoshika's adventures continue in this progression fantasy adventure about friendship, love, self-discovery, personal growth, and of course magical martial arts!
After the apocalyptic descent of gods and demons upon their world, Jia and Eui find themselves embroiled in a conflict beyond their wildest imaginations. Emerging from two years of forced training in the unclaimed wilderness, the two outcasts must return to the nation that rejected them, reconnect with their old lives, and somehow gain the support of an entire nation. The fate of the world might just depend on it.
Yoshika's adventures continue in this progression fantasy adventure about friendship, love, self-discovery, personal growth, and of course magical martial arts!
- GenresFantasy
735 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 7, 2023
56 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 29, 2024
This book seemed to slow down a bit, which I had mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it was nice to explore more of the world, get more information on wtf is happening, and delve deeper into some of the characters. On the other, did more than 700 pages passed and they haven't even made it to Qin/the gang is only half assembled.
Assembling my thoughts by character/plotline:
Kaede: I'm pretty content as to where they ended up. Honestly I feel like Kaede's relationship with/interactions with Yoshika have been one of the weaker aspects of the past few books, as it seems very whiplashed. There was a lot of admiration, then the 'I'll serve you for 100 years' if you help me rescue Eui thing which (thankfully) got dropped (although for kind of hand-wavey reasons), then cooperation without friendship, to Jia becoming, like, weirdly hostile toward her (especially in comparison to other people who are objectively worse than Kaede), to Kaede apologizing for reasons, to Yoshika realizing she didn't handle it perfectly, etc. Honestly I was kind of on Kaede's side for most of it. Now they seem to be on more even ground, and have solidified their friendship, and the weirdness seems to have been cleared out, so I'm grateful.
Rika and Ja Yun: Ja Yun was a new character introduced, and honestly I'm kind of meh on her. Mostly a personal thing, I'm not particularly fond of most super self-deprecating/uncertain/wishy-washy/woe-is-me/sad-sack type characters. Hopefully the bond with Muddy/Iseul will add some interest going forward. Rika remains cheerful and generally fine, but I feel of the main 'friend group' I kind of know her the least? Or she seems the least complex/relevant? And now she's going to be in a love triangle with Ja Yun and Eunae. Okay.
Eunae and Haeun/the Seong family: I'm so intrigued by the Seong family generally! With their family dynamic, potential power struggle post-elemental coup, etc. Haeun is adorable, though the plot spent quite a bit of time on her for an elementary-school aged character. It makes me wonder if there is going to be more significant time skips, to show her unified power exponentially growing, or what's the point really (this goes for Narae too). I'm also really intrigued to see how the bargain that the fox spirit and Yoshika made will go, given the fox spirit said something about how now she 'can't' break her promise, and Yoshika doesn't remember said promise. I'm glad she's getting dragged along with Yoshika - I was worried she'd be sidelined for the next book back in Gyoreo. I also, honestly, kind of sympathize with Misun a bit. While she's not the nicest, it would really suck to be the babysitter of your little sister who can (and does) enthrall everyone around her at a whim. I honestly wonder why she Eunae the queen's favorite, because that sounds really rough. Hopefully Eunae can learn to control it better so she can actually make eye contact with people.
Jia's sisters: Glad they were rescued, they joined Jia's domain as her precious family awfully quick for people who she either hadn't seen in 7 years (Jung) or had never met at all (Narae). What I said re: Haeun applies to Narae too.
Yoshika/Jia and Eui and kitty: Like the characters themselves, I have become somewhat resigned to Jia and Eui spending a lot/most of their time as a gestalt entity. I like Jia a lot more than Eui (too much cackling and unhelpful aggression toward those with power), but I do like Yoshika better than Eui alone, so plusses and minuses. They (or at least Jia, Eui seems largely the same) seem to ahve grown some over the past couple years, the fights remain cool, and now they explicitly have the power of friendship as their ultimate technique, which amuses me.
Jianmo and spirits: Jianmo was being shockingly free with information (post-wilderness), which was kind of nice after all the crypticness from most of the characters with authority. He/she's definitely still hiding things, but I don't feel like they're lying per se. Just not telling the entire truth. The spirits remain interesting, glad we learned more about them, appreciate that Jia's cat spirit remains arrogant af, the rat spirit still does nothing for me. The elementals were interesting, if flat, and I look forward to seeing how they will be integrated into the rest of the plot after they had a coup and then backed down to ally with Goryeo/Yamato/potentially the Qin.
Dae: Barely appeared in the book, unfortunately, but it's nice to see what he was up to, and helping take down the Lee gang.
Yae Yun: Appeared even less in the book, unfortunately, as I feel her friendly causticness was missed. As the next big quest seems to be helping her out/going to Qin for her sake, I have high hopes she'll make up for it in the next book. Along with Guan Yi (who continues to exist) and Xin.
I will say that I was not expecting that progress toward the ending set up of the previous book, to find the tomb and get the power of the tear before anyone else does to prevent the world's destruction, was rather minimal. Like sure, half the group was reunited but I didn't expect it to go up the chain to politics of the nations and people in power being made aware of the whole things. As Jianmo would say, I don't dislike it, just wasn't expecting it, and I look forward to the next chapter.
Assembling my thoughts by character/plotline:
Kaede: I'm pretty content as to where they ended up. Honestly I feel like Kaede's relationship with/interactions with Yoshika have been one of the weaker aspects of the past few books, as it seems very whiplashed. There was a lot of admiration, then the 'I'll serve you for 100 years' if you help me rescue Eui thing which (thankfully) got dropped (although for kind of hand-wavey reasons), then cooperation without friendship, to Jia becoming, like, weirdly hostile toward her (especially in comparison to other people who are objectively worse than Kaede), to Kaede apologizing for reasons, to Yoshika realizing she didn't handle it perfectly, etc. Honestly I was kind of on Kaede's side for most of it. Now they seem to be on more even ground, and have solidified their friendship, and the weirdness seems to have been cleared out, so I'm grateful.
Rika and Ja Yun: Ja Yun was a new character introduced, and honestly I'm kind of meh on her. Mostly a personal thing, I'm not particularly fond of most super self-deprecating/uncertain/wishy-washy/woe-is-me/sad-sack type characters. Hopefully the bond with Muddy/Iseul will add some interest going forward. Rika remains cheerful and generally fine, but I feel of the main 'friend group' I kind of know her the least? Or she seems the least complex/relevant? And now she's going to be in a love triangle with Ja Yun and Eunae. Okay.
Eunae and Haeun/the Seong family: I'm so intrigued by the Seong family generally! With their family dynamic, potential power struggle post-elemental coup, etc. Haeun is adorable, though the plot spent quite a bit of time on her for an elementary-school aged character. It makes me wonder if there is going to be more significant time skips, to show her unified power exponentially growing, or what's the point really (this goes for Narae too). I'm also really intrigued to see how the bargain that the fox spirit and Yoshika made will go, given the fox spirit said something about how now she 'can't' break her promise, and Yoshika doesn't remember said promise. I'm glad she's getting dragged along with Yoshika - I was worried she'd be sidelined for the next book back in Gyoreo. I also, honestly, kind of sympathize with Misun a bit. While she's not the nicest, it would really suck to be the babysitter of your little sister who can (and does) enthrall everyone around her at a whim. I honestly wonder why she Eunae the queen's favorite, because that sounds really rough. Hopefully Eunae can learn to control it better so she can actually make eye contact with people.
Jia's sisters: Glad they were rescued, they joined Jia's domain as her precious family awfully quick for people who she either hadn't seen in 7 years (Jung) or had never met at all (Narae). What I said re: Haeun applies to Narae too.
Yoshika/Jia and Eui and kitty: Like the characters themselves, I have become somewhat resigned to Jia and Eui spending a lot/most of their time as a gestalt entity. I like Jia a lot more than Eui (too much cackling and unhelpful aggression toward those with power), but I do like Yoshika better than Eui alone, so plusses and minuses. They (or at least Jia, Eui seems largely the same) seem to ahve grown some over the past couple years, the fights remain cool, and now they explicitly have the power of friendship as their ultimate technique, which amuses me.
Jianmo and spirits: Jianmo was being shockingly free with information (post-wilderness), which was kind of nice after all the crypticness from most of the characters with authority. He/she's definitely still hiding things, but I don't feel like they're lying per se. Just not telling the entire truth. The spirits remain interesting, glad we learned more about them, appreciate that Jia's cat spirit remains arrogant af, the rat spirit still does nothing for me. The elementals were interesting, if flat, and I look forward to seeing how they will be integrated into the rest of the plot after they had a coup and then backed down to ally with Goryeo/Yamato/potentially the Qin.
Dae: Barely appeared in the book, unfortunately, but it's nice to see what he was up to, and helping take down the Lee gang.
Yae Yun: Appeared even less in the book, unfortunately, as I feel her friendly causticness was missed. As the next big quest seems to be helping her out/going to Qin for her sake, I have high hopes she'll make up for it in the next book. Along with Guan Yi (who continues to exist) and Xin.
I will say that I was not expecting that progress toward the ending set up of the previous book, to find the tomb and get the power of the tear before anyone else does to prevent the world's destruction, was rather minimal. Like sure, half the group was reunited but I didn't expect it to go up the chain to politics of the nations and people in power being made aware of the whole things. As Jianmo would say, I don't dislike it, just wasn't expecting it, and I look forward to the next chapter.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 5, 2023
Pretty Good
This was definitely another enjoyable addition to the series, and I really like how both of the main characters have grown, as well as the accompanying character surrounding them. There was quite a few new, surprising and interesting entities that have been presented, and new tenuous allies as well. I think the only thing that wasn’t my favorite is that the author seems to almost kill the main characters in every book besides the third one, I think, in order to create tension and push for an evolution. It starts to feel a bit repetitive after a while. Though overall, still a very enjoyable read.
This was definitely another enjoyable addition to the series, and I really like how both of the main characters have grown, as well as the accompanying character surrounding them. There was quite a few new, surprising and interesting entities that have been presented, and new tenuous allies as well. I think the only thing that wasn’t my favorite is that the author seems to almost kill the main characters in every book besides the third one, I think, in order to create tension and push for an evolution. It starts to feel a bit repetitive after a while. Though overall, still a very enjoyable read.
July 1, 2024
Losing all steam
Series has really lost its direction, more and more meta physical word salad and very little actual things happening. Just bored me out of the series after book 3, which was actually my favourite.
From the looks of how this ended, book 3 was the outlier, and it's back to meaningless word filler.
Series has really lost its direction, more and more meta physical word salad and very little actual things happening. Just bored me out of the series after book 3, which was actually my favourite.
From the looks of how this ended, book 3 was the outlier, and it's back to meaningless word filler.
April 13, 2024
A lack of growth
Despite the "great strides" Yoshika continues to make they consistently feel weak and rather on the useless side, that's the great issue with having so many set backs as it really doesn't feel like they're going anywhere.
Despite the "great strides" Yoshika continues to make they consistently feel weak and rather on the useless side, that's the great issue with having so many set backs as it really doesn't feel like they're going anywhere.
January 31, 2024
Such great writing, love this series
December 5, 2024
Too much politics and world-ending aspects. Stopped at 89% and I don't plan to read the next book.
December 26, 2024
Still solid at book four!
Read
April 11, 2025Great book
It's a really good series. I keep coming back for more adventure each time. I recommend it to anyone interested in this genre.
It's a really good series. I keep coming back for more adventure each time. I recommend it to anyone interested in this genre.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews