Here are 64 books that The Art of Prophecy fans have personally recommended if you like
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My passion for Chinese history took root when I began reading Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, which are all steeped in Chinese historical background. My fiction writing career began with historical fiction based on Chinese history. Through my earlier research work, I discovered that Chinese historians have always given short shrift to the influence of women on cultural, political, and social developments throughout the ages. That led me to decide to center my writing around inspiring Chinese female historical figures. After publishing The Green Phoenix and Tales of Ming Courtesans, I branched out to write wuxia fantasy novels, but with the same objective of featuring admirable female historical/fictional characters.
I am a great fan of the sensational xianxia drama The Untamed, which is why I love this novel from which the drama is adapted.
One thing that I really like about the novel is the character Wen Qing. My heart is captured by her quiet ways of going about her practice of medicine, her deep but understated affection for her brother Wen Ning, and her unwavering loyalty to her good friend Wei Wuxian after facing adversities together with him. She actually saves him twice, the second time with her own life.
What also strikes me as outstanding is the way the novel constantly asks the thought-provoking questions: what is good and what is evil, and why are unorthodox ways deemed as evil?
Also known as MDZS, the blockbuster danmei/Boys' Love novels from China that inspired comics, animation, and the live-action series The Untamed! This historical fantasy tale of two powerful men who find each other through life and death is now in English, for the very first time!
Wei Wuxian was once one of the most powerful men of his generation, a talented and clever young cultivator who harnessed martial arts and spirituality into powerful abilities. But when the horrors of war led him to seek more power through demonic cultivation, the world's respect for his abilities turned to fear, and his…
My passion for Chinese history took root when I began reading Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, which are all steeped in Chinese historical background. My fiction writing career began with historical fiction based on Chinese history. Through my earlier research work, I discovered that Chinese historians have always given short shrift to the influence of women on cultural, political, and social developments throughout the ages. That led me to decide to center my writing around inspiring Chinese female historical figures. After publishing The Green Phoenix and Tales of Ming Courtesans, I branched out to write wuxia fantasy novels, but with the same objective of featuring admirable female historical/fictional characters.
The carefree Lotus Huang comes into her own in this volume as she charms her way with wiles through problems and obstacles she and Guo Jing encounter as a couple, including two girls to whom Guo Jing is betrothed against his will. She is not as frivolous as she appears, and she always watches bumbling Guo Jing’s back.
This is the second English volume in Legends of the Condor Heroes, which is a popular novel by Jin Yong that I had read in Chinese as a child and which I recently re-read and still loved. I picked out this volume mainly because I adored the translation of one poetic passage describing the hallucinating “Ode to the Billowing Tide” flute melody played by Apothecary Huang.
A Bond Undone is the second book in Jin Yong's epic Chinese classic and phenomenon Legends of Condor Heroes, published in the US for the first time!
In the Jin capital of Zhongdu, Guo Jing learns the truth of his father’s death and finds he is now betrothed, against his will, to two women. Neither of them is his sweetheart Lotus Huang.
Torn between following his heart and fulfilling his filial duty, Guo Jing journeys through the country of his parents with Lotus, encountering mysterious martial heroes and becoming drawn into the struggle for the supreme martial text, the Nine…
My passion for Chinese history took root when I began reading Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, which are all steeped in Chinese historical background. My fiction writing career began with historical fiction based on Chinese history. Through my earlier research work, I discovered that Chinese historians have always given short shrift to the influence of women on cultural, political, and social developments throughout the ages. That led me to decide to center my writing around inspiring Chinese female historical figures. After publishing The Green Phoenix and Tales of Ming Courtesans, I branched out to write wuxia fantasy novels, but with the same objective of featuring admirable female historical/fictional characters.
I’m most impressed by the fact that the author, a white American, did meticulous research into Chinese mythology and Daoist practices. The kungfu fight scenes are also arresting.
Xian Li-Lin, a plucky Daoist priestess with superior martial arts skills who is bent on forging her own way in a male-dominated world of 19th century San Francisco Chinatown, charmed me from the start of the novel (which is a sequel but can be read as a standalone). Beset with personal challenges as a lonely Chinese widow with a harsh father, she still takes it upon herself to fend helpless immigrants from the perils of ghosts, evil spirits, and gangsters.
*Winner--First Prize in the Colorado Authors League Award, Science Fiction and Fantasy Category!*
The adventures of Li-lin, a Daoist priestess with the unique ability to see the spirit world, continue in the thrilling follow-up to the critically-acclaimed historical urban fantasy The Girl with Ghost Eyes.
It's the end of the Nineteenth Century. San Francisco's cobblestone streets are haunted, but Chinatown has an unlikely protector in a young Daoist priestess named Li-lin. Using only her martial arts training, spiritual magic, a sword made from peachwood, and the walking, talking spirit of a human eye, Li-lin stands alone to defend her immigrant…
My passion for Chinese history took root when I began reading Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, which are all steeped in Chinese historical background. My fiction writing career began with historical fiction based on Chinese history. Through my earlier research work, I discovered that Chinese historians have always given short shrift to the influence of women on cultural, political, and social developments throughout the ages. That led me to decide to center my writing around inspiring Chinese female historical figures. After publishing The Green Phoenix and Tales of Ming Courtesans, I branched out to write wuxia fantasy novels, but with the same objective of featuring admirable female historical/fictional characters.
The unyielding Fragrant Princess who rejects the Emperor’s advances left an indelible mark on my mind. Although she is not portrayed as a heroine, it is her ultimate sacrificial act of defiance, made in order to alert her lover (rebel leader of the Red Flower Society) of the Emperor’s trap, that deeply moved me.
This was the first novel written by Jin Yong, the wuxia fiction icon and my literary idol. It was also the first novel that I came across and read as a child during one summer vacation. The thrilling martial arts fight scenes and the addictive plot certainly had me enthralled and would send me down the wuxia rabbit hole in ensuing summers! Recently, I re-read this novel, and I still adore it.
A lost city in the desert, wolf packs, a book, and, of course, a sword...
The Book and the Sword was Louis Cha's first novel, published in 1955, and quickly established him as one of the new masters of the wuxia genre. The novel is panoramic in scope and includes the fantastical elements for which Cha is well-known: secret societies, kung fu masters, a lost desert city guarded by wolf packs, and the mysterious Fragrant Princess, an embellishment of an actual historical figure - although whether she actually smelled of flowers, we will never know. Further to that Cha revives…
As someone with ADHD, anxiety, and a brain prone to rumination, life can be turbulent. Fantasy has long been my preferred method of escapism, and when I discovered the cozy variety a few years ago, I was immediately enthralled. It gives me that warm-fuzzy feeling I so desire in troubling times, while still providing my dopamine-deficient brain the hits it needs to remain immersed. More than anything, I want to share with others the way that cozy fantasy makes me feel. Crafting such fiction is my purpose.
I am not being hyperbolic when I say that discovering this fiction changed the course of my life. I found it during a dark time, and the impact it had might be the reason I’m so addicted to reading and writing cozy fantasy. Upon finishing it, I wasn’t ready to leave the world behind, so I fired up the audio and started again.
This novel is a place of reprieve. A warm hearth I can return to when life gets difficult. And I can’t recommend it enough.
A laugh-out-loud, slice-of-life martial-arts fantasy about . . . farming????
Jin Rou wanted to be a cultivator. A man powerful enough to defy the heavens. A master of martial arts. A lord of spiritual power. Unfortunately for him, he died, and now I’m stuck in his body.
Arrogant Masters? Heavenly Tribulations? All that violence and bloodshed? Yeah, no thanks. I’m getting out of here.
Farm life sounds pretty great. Tilling a field by hand is fun when you’ve got the strength of ten men—though maybe I shouldn’t have fed those Spirit Herbs to my pet rooster. I’m not used to…
I’m KrazeKode; I’m a college student turned author who spent his teenage years reading a lot of web novels, and eventually, I ended up writing some. People liked them enough that I decided I wanted to do it as my job instead of writing boring code for some company, so now I do that instead. I’ve read a lot, and a good chunk of them were cultivation books. I really love this genre and find that it has a lot of potential to explore. It is generally a super fun setting and world and has a very different style and feel compared to most other Western English works, making it quite refreshing.
If Cradle is a refreshing take on cultivation done faithfully and to its pinnacle while bringing a new aesthetic to it, then this book does the opposite and dives right into the heart of the xianxia aesthetic, but it does so in a phenomenal way.
It’s nothing new, per se, but that’s okay because what is there is done really well. Honestly, I don’t have too much to say about this book besides just that you should go read it—it’s great.
He never intended to be a cultivator. The heavens have another plan…
Sen never dreamed of ascension. Such were the aspirations of the rich young nobles, not orphans like him, scraping together a meager living on the streets of Orchard’s Reach.
However, when destiny takes an unexpected turn, Sen finds himself thrust into the role of a cultivator’s disciple. Chosen over the nobles who once looked down on him, he is adopted into a makeshift family of three ancient cultivators, each with a lifetime of knowledge and insights. These old monsters will teach Sen everything they can, from the art…
I’m KrazeKode; I’m a college student turned author who spent his teenage years reading a lot of web novels, and eventually, I ended up writing some. People liked them enough that I decided I wanted to do it as my job instead of writing boring code for some company, so now I do that instead. I’ve read a lot, and a good chunk of them were cultivation books. I really love this genre and find that it has a lot of potential to explore. It is generally a super fun setting and world and has a very different style and feel compared to most other Western English works, making it quite refreshing.
This last book expanded my view on just what kind of settings a xianxia story could truly inhabit. To Flail Against Infinity takes place in a sci-fi xianxia with space cultivators, planetary settings, and so many new, interesting, and fresh ideas. It expands the genre, mixes it with something new, and brings a fresh take on stories that can sometimes feel a little samey. It was a highly worthwhile read that left me craving more.
A qi antithetical to life itself, a well of power more immense than the human mind can comprehend, and the only man in the galaxy who can see it.
The vast emptiness of deep space drives cultivators insane. Deprive one of qi for long enough, and sooner or later they’ll start stealing it from anything and anyone around them. The process eventually kills them, but not before they drain a few dozen mortals to death.
I should know. I was one of them.
But in my last moments, while the void psycho stumbled away and my body’s faculties slowly shut…
I’m KrazeKode; I’m a college student turned author who spent his teenage years reading a lot of web novels, and eventually, I ended up writing some. People liked them enough that I decided I wanted to do it as my job instead of writing boring code for some company, so now I do that instead. I’ve read a lot, and a good chunk of them were cultivation books. I really love this genre and find that it has a lot of potential to explore. It is generally a super fun setting and world and has a very different style and feel compared to most other Western English works, making it quite refreshing.
Set in a Western setting and with a system, it’d be easy to wonder why this book is on this list, but don’t be fooled by its appearances; this story has all the basics of cultivation inside it; it’s simply hidden at first.
This book takes place in a subgenre of books that are commonly referred to as System Apocalypses or LitRPG Apocalypses, where a system arrives on Earth, giving people gamified abilities and bringing monsters that cause an apocalypse to happen.
This one, though, takes place in what is effectively a broad cultivation multiverse and expands what the genre tends to be and can be while also effectively delivering on the core premises of what makes cultivation stories so exciting: the power system. It’s one of the most recommended books in this space, and for good reason.
As a former journalist-turned-lawyer and a recovering news junky, I’ve spent much of my life watching unhappy scenarios play out. But what’s always astonished me me is how, no matter how bad things get or how difficult the situation, there’s a spark of humanity, of kindness and compassion and optimism, that comes out in people at the most unexpected of times. Now, as an author and a parent, I find myself drawn to stories that remind me of that—that no matter how bleak life may look, how cruel or arbitrary the circumstances, there’s something good and beautiful and worth fighting for, not “somewhere out there,” but inside us.
This book was my introduction to the xianxia and danmei genres, and what an introduction it was! It’s a delightful mashup of creepy horror-esque vignettes, an adorably wholesome and swoon-worthy love story, an action-adventure, and a murder-mystery, that vacillates between laugh-out-loud funny and utterly heartbreaking.
But my favorite thing about this book is the deeply compassionate exploration of trauma, love, and forgiveness, where even the “evil” characters are viewed with a type of grace that I’ve rarely seen before.
In this final book (Volume 8), read the conclusion to this epic historical fantasy about a prince and the mysterious man by his side, in English for the very first time. Also includes bonus stories!
White No-Face's mask is off, and the final conflict has begun. Deep in the ancient caverns and lava flows of Mount Tonglu, Xie Lian must face the one whose hatred has plagued him for centuries-but this time, he won't have to do it alone. His beloved, Hua Cheng, has spent his long existence amassing the power to protect him, and now with their feelings for…
I’m a novelist and the editor and publisher of Blind Eye Books—a small press focused on producing LGBT genre fiction as well as a lifelong aficionado of queer media, especially BL, yaoi, and danmei.
Probably the most astonishing book I’ve read in the last five years. Imagine every dramatic extreme you ever thought you wanted in a novel—love, intrigue, brutality, violence, scenes as sweet as candy, spectacular magic, cataclysmic struggles, good and evil writ large across the sky... Then imagine that they were all packed into the same novel and that novel was so hilarious that you laughed out loud, so profound that you quoted it unintentionally, so heartbreaking you had to actually read through tears. Compulsively readable with characters that readers love, hate, hate to love and love to hate. It gave me a book hangover that still hasn’t gone away six months later. I routinely force my friends to read the first few pages of this story—one time I even paid someone five bucks just to try it. It’s that good. An official English translation will be available Fall 2022
Also known as 2ha, the wildly popular danmei/Boys' Love novel series from China that inspired a multimedia franchise!
A historical fantasy epic about a tyrant's second chance at life and the powerful cultivation teacher he can't get out of his mind.
Massacring his way to the top to become emperor of the cultivation world, Mo Ran's cruel reign left him with little satisfaction. Now, upon suffering his greatest loss, he takes his own life...
To his surprise, Mo Ran awakens in his own body at age sixteen, years before he ever began his bloody conquests. Now, as a novice disciple…
