Cultivating Chaos 5

Cultivating Chaos, Book 5

By: William D. Arand

Narrated by: Stephanie Savannah

Ash's life is anything but normal these days.

Having discovered his Dao, he's grown in power. Grown to the point that others are now aware of him and that he could be a danger.

In this world of martial arts, only the strong and the ruthless survive. Everyone else is merely a stepping stone on their path of Cultivation or an obstacle to be overcome. Or knocked down. It's a world where the strong rule, and the weak die.

Utilizing the Hall, the voice in his head that calls itself Locke, those who have aligned with his faction, and all the powers available to him, Ash has begun his journey of Cultivation.

Except that as a Fated One, his journey is a narrow and winding path between two cosmic forces. Each one vying for dominance.

The prison he had been sent to has become little better than yet another tool. Another resource. Ash is planning his complete takeover of it and to immediately leave it behind in an escape.

This is the fifth step in his life as a Cultivator.

©2024 William D. Arand (P)2024 Podium Audio

abilities and powers are interesting

dialogue tends to be a bit too much on the affection side for my taste

Her: Oh, Ashley, I Love You. Him; And I Love You My Unnecessary Compliment That Kills the Book’s Momentum

The book was OK. It certainly wasn’t bad, but good golly did the MC lean into owning a harem and keeping every wife happy in this book.

Full disclosure: I’m not a fan of harem fantasy. I normally stop reading when a book shows obvious signs of leaning that way. Unless, that is, the book has a good enough story, and the previous books in *this* series definitely qualified as good enough. This series was exciting, unique, and despite the obvious harem-to-come, Cultivating Chaos is widely and easily recommended among LitRPG groups as a gateway book, and for seasoned readers.

I’m afraid that this book, however, relied more on the harem aspects of the story than actually telling a story. There were times when I went back and re-listened - I even pulled up Kindle and re-read at one point - places where the story skipped, or I felt like I missed something. I even thought that perhaps the book was downloaded out of order and downloaded it again. Nope. There’s points in the story when the whole group just kinda ends up someplace, somehow. Or you think that he’s alone, but it turns out that his closest wives are there with him. And they’re talking about having sex, which derails his train of thought. And suddenly he, or one of his harem, has their hand somewhere naughty. Or someone pushes the MC’s head to their chest.

Sadly, this is what fills the story rather than the actual story in this book…. And the interaction between characters is saccharine sweet. I felt like I was getting a cavity. I consider myself a romantic and others have told me I possess levels of empathy and compassion that isn’t normally seen in men, but the way they talked to each other in the book was just… ehh… it wasn’t real. It was far too much.

If that was all, then I probably wouldn’t be saying anything; however dialogue that is like, “my beautiful, wonderful bride! Let me count to you the ways of my love for you!” talk shows up over and over and over and over and over. We get it dude, you love your women and they love you. You don’t have to remind us on literally every page. And you really don’t have to tell them of your love so formally and boastfully every time. Yeesh.

I will continue reading the series, because, despite the annoying harem aspects of the book, the series has given us a wonderful story up to this point. And the story was there in this book. The story that did exist was interesting, and I enjoyed it. Love seeing Ash continue to advance like a rocket. I needs me that dopamine kick! I just hope that the author puts the sickly sweet baby-ing of his MC and the MC’s brides back in the background where it belongs, and starts telling the story again in the next book. I don’t know if I can make it through another book of that.

Meh

Good continuation...tough to get into the new character personalities from the new narrator. Please, please, Please! Bring Andrea P back! She Nailed the character personalities and their ethnicities Perfect! Felt like movie material during the first 3 books. Seriously. Maybe if S.S. did these from the beginning? Nah, I probably would have stopped at book 1. S.S. did a good job telling your story but the characters are just lacking their full potential. Time for the print version...while imagining the real characters ;-)

Extremely entertaining, as always!

I'm so glad this story is continuing forward! The characters are all developing very well, and the story just keeps getting more abd more interesting! Excellent narration as well!

Too much Emotional Circle Jerking

The actual story is great but do you really need to stop every 5 minutes for constant emotional revalidation? It gets really old, really fast.