They are hunted and executed, and their magic is illegal.
Anti-cultivation propaganda posters are plastered on every street corner. The Counter-Cultivation division investigates, the elite Black Corpses are sent in for the kill. None are spared. Mercy does not exist.
But did the cultivators really bring the War of Tribulation? Are they actually responsible for the Heavenly Curse? Are they truly the bloodthirsty psychopaths the government paints them to be?
Wang Fan, a homicide detective, believes that officers like himself are tasked with championing the rights of the common citizens. But when a seemingly routine case goes awry, he finds himself dragged into the darkness of the cultivation world. By the time he realizes the Black Corpses have their sniper rifles aimed at the back of his head, Wang Fan has no choice.
Jeremy Bai is a translator and writer who specializes in Chinese fantasy genres such as wuxia, xianxia, and xuanhuan. Including the cult favorite I Shall Seal the Heavens, he has translated roughly 14,000,000 Chinese characters’ worth of such fiction, which works out to about 8,000,000 English words. He also runs a YouTube channel devoted to explaining the literary conventions and cultural aspects of Chinese fantasy. He lived in China from 2010-2018, and currently resides in Southern California with his wife and children. His pet peeves include bad subtitles in movies, humid weather, and witty humor inserted into About the Author sections.
This was a good book and worth a read if you're into progression fantasy-style novels. I thought it executed the cyberpunk milieu quite well. There were some great action scenes, and the ending was pretty cool and tantalized for the next book.
The prose itself doesn't ever do anything flashy, and at times can certainly be too bland. "His weapon was a bullpup assault rifle that he held with both hands, giving me a clear view of his shoulder and the logo emblazoned there. It was a metal disk with a skeletal figure, flesh hanging off the bones. It was black." Three sentences in a row that begin the same, boring, analytical way. This is when we're first seeing some bad guys, and I want to feel like I should be worried about them. Instead, the prose leaves me kind of disconnected from the scene.
Another example of lackluster prose: "The mood was tense. Our desperate and half-cocked plan had apparently worked, and we were now waiting for Svea to gain access to the data she needed, then sift through it. Tao Heng tried to get some conversations going around the table, but every effort stalled out after a minute or two. Nobody was in the mood." The third sentence shows what the first and last sentences tell, so why not just cut them out? Don't need to tell me the same thing three times in one paragraph.
One of my general frustrations was that Wang Fan never really tried to advance save for a few exceptions. His advancements come not through hard work or cleverness, but through circumstances forced upon him. Then even when he gets those advancements, he hardly even tries to improve upon them. He literally doesn't try and learn any combat techniques until the very end, despite the fact that they keep getting in fights.
Conflict: Oh gosh, this was another thing that bothered me. It was like every single conflict was the same. Person gets captured, now we have to break them out. Repeat for the entire book. Can we get a different conflict rather than just the same one over and over?
There were a number of other individual plot problems I had, like why would he use bonemites when they're sneaking around and he knows he can be tracked through them, but the guy he's with can tell whether or not they've been infiltrated without the mites? Things like that, but I won't go into all of those.
I will definitely consider reading book 2 when it comes out, but I hope it fixes some of the problems from this book.
This was an incredible story with a vibrant world and well-written characters.
First of all, I want to say that even though this book is advertised as a progression Sci-Fi, I think it isn't really about progression. The characters increase their power throughout the story, but it feels more like a plot device than the story's focus.
At first, the book starts as a cyberpunk noir - we have a couple of detectives in a post-apocalypse world. It is fascinating to see how there are some high-level technologies like hovercars, but some other parts of life are far behind. The detectives try to do their job but face corruption and lies from the government. Things go awry very fast.
Supernatural comes to the front within several chapters and takes the place of the noir feeling. Noir is still here, but it is more subdued. The cast constantly expands, but the characters are very distinctive, so it is easy to keep pace with the new appearances.
There are so many good things about this book.
Many things could seem strange, but they have their explanations. For example, why this high-technology world has inadequate surveillance in many places? Why can some weapons be connected to people, and how do they work?
The prologue was great - something is happening, and nothing is explained. But slowly, in the following chapters, we see hints about the meaning of that prologue.
There are fun references to other popular books. Like "an ice cube's chance in the Hellscape". Yeah, I definitely know which series influenced this one.
Nevertheless, there were some aspects of the book which I didn't like.
First of all, the progression of power itself. The main hero (and most of the others) spend only a little time working on their cultivation and abilities. Usually, they get powerups and new abilities whenever the plot demands it. And in general, I think that the power levels of different characters are higher or lower than they should be.
Next is the relationship between the main characters.
Still, these are only minor problems. I really liked the book, and I'm looking forward to reading the next one!
So, this isn't really a true review, as I didn't technically read this book. However, I did read the three books that were combined into this book when it was picked up by a publisher. I do have reviews on the original novels: 1) The Heretic Peacekeeper 2) The Secrets of the True Heaven 3) The Sun's Blood (yes, same name)
So, if you want my feelings on the separate books, you can look at those. If you don't want to take the time to read those, don't worry, I won't be offended. It's not that important. What IS important is that you read this book. It's REALLY good. A cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic, cultivation novel that takes place in a future world where cultivation is illegal, but is practiced underground and maybe, just maybe, those who practice cultivation aren't the big bad guys they have long been portrayed as to the general public.
The behind-the-scenes machinations are done really well, with reveals being well-times and characters who are so well-developed that they are clearly good (The Black Corpses definitely need a re-evaluation and to be outed to the public) or bad (I'm looking at you, Itsuke). Still, don't fret. There are still clear-cut bad guys. Johan Saito is definitely someone I would NOT want to come across anywhere. The friends that Wang Fan make along the way, while side characters, are also well-developed and help to move the story along (though a couple of them did frustrate me with their actions, but that's pretty standard of people).
Anyway, I'm getting slightly off-topic. The moral of the story here? Read the book. That is all. Just read it. Soon. Like tomorrow. Or even today. Today is better. So go, get the book, clear your schedule, and start reading. And I say clear your schedule because this book, as an omnibus edition of 3 previously separate books, is over 1000 pages long. So it'll take you a couple days to read through it. But it's worth it, so don't let that page count scare you away. It's definitely worth it.
It's a cool world with some cool stuff, and I hope the author continues writing. That being said I probably won't be continuing this series. Some spoilers ahead so read at your own risk. I dont want to be too critical but theres a few fatal flaws, for one it's a very long book and I feel like I read the same 20% 5 times. Theres a lot of extremely similar heists, infiltrations, and fights. I mean the main female character is kidnapped 4 (arguably 5) times! Which is another problem the romance aspect is very very weird. I never knew how to feel about it and 900 pages in she referred to him as kinda boring and cliche? One of the weirdest book romances I've read. Also divine sense kinda made no sense like it was arbitrarily as strong or weak as it needed to be in fights. Overall I struggled through the last 30% of the book, but the world is super cool. Like 5/5 world building, 3.5/5 fights/heists and 2/5 relationships. Lot of potential but some weird stuff, still want to rate it highly because I did enjoy it but second book probably not in the cards for me.
Fun first installment. Nice progression fantasy with a good mix of adventure, character building and interesting scenery. Definitely scratches that progression fantasy itch without falling into the annoying tropes most webnovels fall prey to.
Would rate 4 stars but gave 5 because I think the author deserves the extra boost and it is definitely worth reading if you like this type of fantasy.
The reason I didn't give the final star is because of two minor annoyances I had. First I wish the different abilities that the characters have would be more fleshed out and used more creatively. Also would like to see some more different abilities that just 1 or 2 for each type of cultivation. Though I suspect this might be something the story is working up to, could be explained by the fact that cultivation has been suppressed so people forgot a lot of stuff. The other minor complaint I have is that it sometimes got a tiny bit repetitive. It seems to boil down to rescuing, getting rescued or breaking in a lot of the time.
Pretty good. Mixes typical Wuxia with futuristic sci-do. Unique and interesting. Most of the characters are pretty shallow, I especially don’t like Elena, the only character I did like was Wang Fan. The world is pretty complex and there was one moments where I’m thinking what the heck is this or what the heck is going on? I think I might have liked this better if it was in a web novel form rather than a book, but not 100% sure. Slow start but there’s some great fights and plot twists in the latter half. I would be interested in continuing the series, but I’m not very interested right now. Perhaps when I’m feeling up to it in the future.
Incredible world building, very interesting take on a cyberpunk futuristic world with the addition of cultivation. Main complaint would be how the progression of the story is moved forward. Time skips glossing over what could be very interesting story plot, and the main character progressing his own strength and getting vital information through his kidnapping on multiple occasions to quickly and coincidentally get what he needs. This story is still pretty incredible in terms of a unique take on a very rare combination of cyberpunk and cultivation in the midst of a culture driven by a manipulated population.
Fantastic read, action packed, and the length of a novel instead of so many KU books that I read in a few hours. I can’t wait for the second book, and more! I wish there had been more time with cultivation during the fast paced action of the story but I still had a great time. I also wish the pronunciation guide had been at the front of the book rather than the back. Not critical, but enjoyable to pick up very basic mandarin pronunciation and practice while reading instead of piecing it together at the end. Minor gripes for an outstanding novel.
This was a truly amazing story in many regards, but I do have one problem, paliprox. It's basically a drug that can be applied through skin contact in various ways and it disconnects a cultivator from their source of power. To put it bluntly it is pretty overpowered and although I don't have much of a problem with it now, I'd like Jeremy to give some more attention on it in the next book so it doesn't seem like some easily acquired drug that's basically a get out of jail free card. Keep up the good work.
Couldn't put the book down once I started reading it.
I loved Deathblade's previous translation work so I had to pick this up when I saw he wrote his own book. Being used to classic Xianxia novels this one had really good pacing and there wasn't anything unnecessary. I just love this combination of cyberpunk and cultivation! Makes me want to play Shadowrun again. Romance part of this book is a bit awkward but I hope it picks up on next book.
One of the worst main characters I have come across in some time.
Got about three hundred pages in and just could not go on. The MC is useless, selfish, incompetent. Shows no critical thinking or tactical planning. He accomplished nothing throughout the start of the book, just going along for the ride. When he suddenly is able to start cultivating just because it is needed, and even then this is nothing he can commit to, I have up.
"The Sun's Blood" was a fun and exciting read with lots of action. I had never read a "progression" novel before, and I enjoyed the introduction to a new genre and a Google search into a rabbit hole of debate about what a LitRPG (Literary Role Playing Game) novel definition. In this book, the protagonist Wang Fan becomes progressively stronger as he fights against the powers of an evil corporation-controlled government in a post-apocalyptic Earth.
Unique and cool cultivation system. The futuristic world is very dark and interesting. The plot moves pretty slowly but it is still engaging though. It takes quite a bit of time until our MC gets an opportunity to learn cultivation. It took so long that I began to question if it would happen. Once he does, things start to move at a better pace.
I am not an anime fan. This book read like a Manga. The heroes were just dumb. These were supposed be adults. The characters were child like. Future reference to the author, Wang was a cop that didn't know how to shoot. I read this book because my favorite author recommended this book. It a no for me. I won't be reading the next book.
My one line for this book would be: Just hang in there! This one started out slow for me. I wasn't sure I'd keep reading but I'm glad I did. The pacing really picks up after the first quarter of the book and becomes a fun read! Great world building and magic system makes it unique and interesting.
I really enjoyed this book. Great character development and interesting story. It did take me a little to get into it but before I realised I couldn't put it done.
This book is non-stop action. A real page turner. Character and world development are on point. I highly recommend to anyone who would like to read about a dystopian future with wild magic and political intrigue. This book also made me crave oolong tea and congee, for some reason.
Well written and easy to follow, hard to p onut down. Only gripe would be that the pacing stalled a few times, but I still couldn't put the book down because I needed to know what was going to happen next.
Interesting mix of Sci-Fi/Progression/Cultivation with good characters, development, plot and overarching conflict. Would recommend to fans of the genre, and looking forward to the next book!
An incredibly creative story. Containing both gripping plot and vivid characters. I was hooked from the start! If you suspect you would like it from the blurb, I think you will love it!
Can't wait for the sequel I just got into this type book and I'm not disappointed I loved every moment and every bit of action hopefully the sequel comes out soon can't wait to read what happens next
I am so very thankful that this book was so long, as it meant I just kept having more to read. Brilliant characters, wonderful story and pacing that kept me right on the edge of giving up sleep to make sure I read a little further
The first third was amazing, the middle was okay, but there isn’t much progression and the story gets ridiculous so I just wasn’t able to finish this one. Good writing, didn’t love the plot.
Wuxia but in a information age society. Writing is adequate, setting is well conceived, seems like I should like it more than I do. Never got into the main character. The cast is supposed to be adults but many of them seem like YA characters, especially the protagonist.
I got recommended that this is great progression fantasy. I'd say it is a compelling story, *great* worldbuilding. But it feels more like the "cultivation aspects" of the story are more tacked on extras and the progression aspects of the story are its weakest parts.