Shrouding the Heavens: Book 1 - Beyond the Starry Sky

by Chen Dong

From the Shrouding the Heavens is a Chinese Xianxia novel by Chen Dong. While it has the standard features of a Xianxia novel (savage cultivation society with a veneer of civilization, a daoist cultivating to ever greater levels of power, empires, etc), it takes the standard Xianxia story in a different direction. The main character and his crowd of college graduates are whisked off Earth by an impossible celestial event, heading out beyond the starry sky to where cultivation societies exist, with great grandeur and equal horrors, where they must abandon their modern modes of thought to adjust to their new settings... a unique spin on the transmigration experience. The single BEST thing about this novel is that after close to two hundred chapters, the protagonist still has not participated in any tournaments for prizes or glory, and the only one he was supposed to fight in he ran away from! The other thing is that not once has he visited an auction house to buy or sell stuff and pick up the next neat McGuffin for mere cash that he needs on his road to power! Rather, the main character is burdened with monstrous potential, that is extremely hard to develop! Because of this, he keeps running into people much further along the cultivation road that he can't fight, and so he is constantly running away from people more powerful then he is, and fighting with extreme intelligence and caution. It makes for a very entertaining difference from the standard Xianxia novel where the main character is usually invincible at his level and easily capable of beating people a tier up from him or stalemating those even stronger, always getting in tournaments and duels, and visiting handy auction houses to buy whatever he needs.

262 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 21, 2018

Reviews

[Shannon Wolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing until the end

The first 88% of the book was extremely slow. Even with the normal (extra worthiness) issues from the translation. It just seemed to drag on and on. The last 10% gives me some hope the rest of the series, but I am not sure the extra background was worth it.

[Amouen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Setup

This book is just a setup for the next ones In the series. It is long and boring. Nothing really happens, but some stuff that needs to be told to know for the future. That is why i give it a 3 star.
The translation is perfect, the notes are extremely helpfull and for that i give a huge thanks, even if sometimes the grammar is bad and words are missing or misspelled.

[Timepiggy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really awful

I normally like these novels but this one just does not translate well. The conversations and flow of the text is truly terrible. Was suspicious of the reviews as they all seemed to be structured the same. Wouldn't be surprised if some of them are fake.