To Catch a Falling Leaf

The Stargazer's War: A Sci-fi Cultivation Epic, Book 2

By: J. P. Valentine

Narrated by: Connor Brannigan

Training is over. The hunt is on.

With Fyrion a distant speck behind us and the resources of the Dragon’s Right Eye out of reach, there’s only one place in the system we can go to gather the materials we need to advance to bronze.

Ilirian beckons.

But dangers lurk in those dark jungles, and the ruins of a civilization long dead house threats the likes of which no amount of training or meditation could’ve prepared us for. It’s advance or fall behind, and with the infinite sea at my back, there’s only one real option.

At least the monsters only want to kill me.

©2024 Nixia Publishing LLC (P)2024 Nixia Publishing LLC

Issac

great book. just want to point out that negative review from Issac is so far off I honestly believe he is reviewing a different book.

It's a good book 2

A lot of secrets are revealed, a lot of cultivation progress occurs, and a lot of new world building is added on. You get hints of where this is all going as well as what happened to people in the first book. Basically, it's everything you could want in a second book that's trying to widen the story and progress the plot.

The narration is great again. Lots of emotion in the scenes you expect emotion in. Honestly just get the book if you want a cultivation scifi story, it's got everything you could want and not many pain points.

Brilliant

Great story continues. I hope that the next audio book in the series comes out quickly.

Suffers a Little from Sequel Syndrome

Overall it's a good book, and Connor does an excellent job narrating just as he did with the first installment. It feels a little short in content, however, compared to the first book. The first book established a large amount of worldbuilding while this book simply builds on that foundation at a steady pace and feels more like a setup for the next book than a proper episode on its own.

This isn't to say that it's filler material - the book is remarkably absent of filler, particularly for the cultivation genre. Neither does it contain any notable plot holes. It's both highly focused on a single adventure while simultaneously developing multiple subplots, with the lightest of touches, that will clearly be explored in upcoming books.

It just ultimately left me wanting for more in the same way that a midday snack can awaken your appetite more than it sates it. This is good in terms of continuing a well-crafted story, and disappointing in terms of providing relief from the itch for a substantial step forward in the plot. I look forward to the next book, as I hope it will deliver that larger chunk of plot development that I'm craving.

If nothing else, the book does an excellent job of increasing the stakes and hyping up future events. It also re-contextualizes a few events/conversations from the first book in a way that makes it clear the author had a clear vision from the get-go.

excellent

wish it was longer yet overall really good and enjoyable throughout. can't wait for more

It's Quality Work

Not much to say about this one.

The strengths of the first book were the setting, the characters, and the philosophy of practical nihilism. And in that regard, we've gotten a perfect continuation. More character stuff, a few cool insights in the setting, and a bunch of tidbits on apathetic philosophy.

The weaknesses are of this book is much the same, though. Cal's "Divine Inspiration" at the end of the first book was pretty clearly a case of Deus Ex Machina, and we get another case of "incredibly convenient revelations" in this one. That said, I don't really...care? The direct stakes of combat have never been what hooked me on this series, and they still don't, regardless of the Deus Ex Machina. Sure, they should all be dead, but it's more interesting if they're not. All a plot contrivance does is weaken the least interesting part of the series, so I say give it a pass.

Also, we don't just forget Nick, and we explore the synergies of dark and light chi a bit more. While it's certainly pretty interesting, we're still on the building blocks of that system. So that's neat, but not very substantial, yet.

Overall, I highly recommend.

Solid second book

This is a solid follow up. You can tell he’s building toward some things and some pretty big plot movement takes place, especially near the end. Excited for book 3!

Amazing continuation

An amazing continuation of the series, I checked every month for updates on this series and couldn’t wait when I saw this one release.

Moody and Confusing

I want to cheer and applaud heroes as they cleverly overcome obstacles, figure out systems, and succeed. While I want complications from time to time so that it is not just a Larry Stue bit of nonsense and I want the characters to feel real, I still am reading progression fantasy because I want an escape from life's drudgery.

This means that long philosophical sections about the nature of entropy and our cosmic insignificance while the main character is tortured by the brightness of chi within all of existence that has substance and long, intricate fights that lead to failure and being bound by greater beings whose nature are poorly defined aren't on my shopping list.

Additionally, going after three McGuffins each to make their cultivation work in certain ways felt like a missed opportunity for some progression and like too much. If it was one doo-dad each and the characters got feedback from analyzing the items spiritually so that we had an idea of how rare, cool, or special the items were and how they effected the characters differently when analyzed, then this could have been fun. With three each, this analysis would have been tedious. This feels like a "system" that the author designed before the narrative and thus it plagues the narrative by being a poorly defined system that is under-utilized instead of being something that enhances it.

Also, it has numerous point of view changes that feel like filler as they don't advance the narrative and despite this, it is quite short.

On the bright side, the prose are excellent and the narration was great. I think it probably needed a full rewrite with a second act added, most of the POV changes removed (the only good and necessary one I read was the prologue as nothing much happens in the others - though that might change in the second half of the book), and the system adapted to be easily explainable and fun for progression instead of annoying. Also, all the depressing void stuff would be fine (and even interesting and compelling) if the first half of the book wasn't this constant sea of failure and distress.

Maybe this picks up and is great in the second half of the book, but I didn't get that far. So many things to read that don't tax my happiness.