100 books like To Flail Against Infinity

This book is probably my favorite cultivation novel out there, and for good reason. If you’re not aware what cultivation is, it’s a system of fantasy and magic inspired by eastern Taoist philosophies and chinese stories about reaching immortality and feature a lot of those themes.

It’s an entire genre and one I enjoy quite a bit, and Cradle, to me, is the very pinnacle of this genre. The book manages to bring a very fresh and exciting tale of cultivation that’s also still quite friendly to new readers just getting into the genre. It’s well beloved by the fans of the genre and held in extremely high regard, and I personally marvel at just how well it executed the story and just how rich and exciting the setting was for the story.

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.

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. 

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. 

The grumpy, shrewd, and open-minded Ling Taishi, the mentor of the spoiled hero Jian, certainly steals the spotlight in this novel. The initial uncomfortable master-apprentice relationship gradually turns into a warm and lasting bond as the two face a world of danger, assassins, and revolution together.

The badass image of this older war artist is quite striking, while the other two female leads (one is an idealistic revolutionary and the other a brutal assassin) are also nicely fleshed out in their respective separate plotlines. The martial arts action scenes are cinematic and well-written.

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

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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. 

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.

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.

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?