Betrayed. Murdered. Reborn. One last chance, to make it right. Theo's adventure ended with his mentor's hands around his neck. The betrayal cost him his friends, allies and everything he had built... but not his life. Though broken and powerless, Theo has one last chance to enter the Nine Worlds, wielding the knowledge and expertise of his first life. This time, he needs more than just power, he needs to unravel the deception that killed him once... and is coming for him again.
Theo gained immense power in the Chasm of Lamentations, but he gained new problems as well. Nauda's soulhome is a wreck and she has no choice but to begin the grueling rebuilding process. Fiyu awaits her relative, but his return may not be a happy one. War is stirring across Fithe, and forces may be challenging all three of them before they're ready...
Join either list to get immediate access to illustrations of all my characters, plus bonus content and previews. If you've tried my work, I'd be happy to hear from you!
What I loved most about this book is how it delved into the cultural differences that punctuate the amazing themes of the series - mutual understanding and growth. Much as each soulcrafter crafts themselves a better soulhome- they must also grow as people, and see how they fit within a larger society.
A profoundly cool idea, and a great magic system. The premise was at first just neat, but at this point in the series we have a fantastic magical world that just keeps me interested. Looking forward to the next book.
I read this book as a beta/ARC reader. The following review is an honest impression of the book.
Bondsfungi takes the classic wuxia trope where a hero/heroine took a serious poison and/or injury and turning the handicap into an edge. This is one of my favourite tropes in wuxia and progression fantasy because more than often, the character will end up with a unique and awesome fighting style that also reflects their personal growth. This book however doesn't gloss over the handicap, it really explores how such handicap can affect the character physically and emotionally.
In terms of worldbuilding, The Weirkey Chronicles never let me down. It always showcases such unique worlds with different flavours. During the second half of the book, the cast also visit an interesting new world, Slest; a world of giant arthropods. With such an alien biome and bizarre culture, the whole fare quickly turns into a survival game for the visitors. It is particularly interesting to see how the insectoid Slescans soulcraft and progress to a higher power tier.
I think the only downside of this book is that it reads like a middle book of the series. While there are definitely new revelations, important developments, and an explosive climax, this book ultimately lays more bricks for future instalments. Which personally I don't really mind since I am here for the full ride with Theo, Nauda, and Fiyu.
Not a great installment. An enormous amount of time is spent discussing soul homes again. Plot twists are entirely random. I found myself disengaging fron the characters and not caring about their problems. It doesn't help that some of these problems are a better fit for children's drama. Won't be reading (or skipping through) another installment.
Really liked this one, much less of a by the numbers fantasy than some of the others in the series (which were mostly carried by the exceptional execution of the unique magic concepts). Felt like there was a lot more characterization of each of the main trio here, with all 3 standing on their own as cohesive characters rather than bit players in Theo's story. Krikree was a much more interesting side character than Senka was, at least up until the big reveal last book), and I appreciated the exploration and value of non human society here. Was a nice subversion of the expected "tournament arc" foreshadowing as well.
I had binged the first three books in the Weirkey series at the start of this year and then read the fourth one on the day of release. That was just 6 months ago, and yet I re-read the fourth one to get myself immersed in this setting in preparation for Bondsfungi.
At the end of Chasmfall, I was most interested to see how Nauda will cope and whether the altered message will bring wrath of Guchiro on our group. It was a bit agonizing to see Nauda struggle, first from trying to salvage her battered Soulhome and then getting infected with Bondsfungi. The Theo-Nauda conflict seemed realistic, but I wish it had been resolved much earlier.
Anyway, it was good to see Navim helping, and I hope he gets to play a more prominent role in coming books. I was getting a bit bored of the Fithan politics and I wasn't that invested in the conflicts. So, when the twist came at about the halfway mark, it was quite unexpected, but much needed.
The world of Slest and especially the introduction of Krikree's character was great. We definitely need a novel just with Krikree and Senka going on an adventure. Wonder what is Theo's hidden magical power that attracts such characters to him.
Tythes playing a major role in the book was an added bonus. His brand of schemes and fights always end up interesting, even if it vexes our group, especially poor Nauda. Perhaps Nauda just had to go through all these bad situations to get the loyalty of music producing beetles. Wonder how that'll play out in the sequels.
I'm not that sure about Kathina's character. I didn't like her ruthlessness and I kept expecting her to betray Theo in some way.
Fiyu was impressive despite still being at the Archcrafter level and thankfully was reunited with Guchiro at last. Hope to see her catching up to Theo soon.
And speaking of advancement, Theo seems to be close to perfecting his three levels before aiming for Authority. The next book's title seems to be hinting at that.
The epilogue was ominous again. The sequels can't come soon enough.
First and foremost I have to say what I think every single time I read one of these: Fiyu is precious and must be protected at all costs.
I think that's self explanatory at this point so I'll move on, this book while good wasn't all I hoped it would be. There were answers but more questions popped up to replace the ones I already had. It's clear that the story can go in one of two directions though, the first is the one every author seems to take; a quick, dare I say hasty set of overloaded books ,that are packed with action and data dumps. The second which I hope is more likely is the slow, steady approach, where the build up is annoying but necessary while the protagonists fight harder than they expected to gain everything they need. I see it going the second way more than the first though, if only based on Theo's recent musings about his own soulhome requiring his sweat and blood to be built.
I might be jumping to conclusions though so forgive me.
Anyways, there was good character and world building as usual. The plot made sense, though it was frustrating and slow in parts that couldn't be helped. Necessary buildups can be slow but I sense purpose in this one. It's a gut feeling but I'm trusting it this time. The editor is good because there weren't spelling or grammar issues. The book was cohesive and coherent, which is more than I can say for some books on the market.
I won't address the actual plot points I found boring, tedious, or even the exciting ones, but I can say that parts made me feel emotion like any good work of fiction.
All on all its a solid 3/5 as with most of Lin's books. It's good but not great, it lacks that certain umph that I know you know what I mean when I say it's missing. But it's still a fine read and we'll worth the time to pick it up. So do it. Read it. Review it. Keep the series going.
So here's to book 5 and hopes that book 6 is as good or better.
Better than the last one, avoids , yay. These books are consistently good-enough, but always feel like they're missing something.
Soul-crafting is something of a frustrating system for me because it feels very arbitrary. Each character needs hundreds of components tailored to their design across various stages, and a lot of time gets spent on decisions between components.
But with the way these components seem to continually appear out of nowhere, we never really hear enough about any given one for it to feel like these are significant decisions, mostly it comes down to the author telling us whether today's new component is good or not. And then on to the next one, in a never-ending grind, where those past decisions never really seem to matter in retrospect.
The titular problem
So the core decision loop is feeling pretty shallow five books in. I'm hoping the author shifts to focus more on the impact of soulhome designs in future books.
Underwhelming. After ramping up our emotional investment in the world of Fithe in book 4, this book randomly teleports the protagonists to a new world about half way through.
The new world is filled with insects that the protagonists mostly cannot communicate with, so that seems mostly pointless. The one interesting bit is one bug that they separate from its hive and how it adapts to viewing the adventurers as its new hive. However since I'm guessing we will be teleported to yet another world in the next book, I have to ask myself how much should I care about this new character?
Fiyu's uncle finally shows up after talking about him for book after book after book....and it is a big nothing burger. Hopefully this relationship will be developed further in the future but I feel Lin really dropped the ball here.
I’m honestly not sure how I feel about Theo at this point. For a main character, he’s certainly driven, but it’s getting to the point that he’s starting to seem one-sided about it. Luckily, Nauda and Fiyu are there to balance him out, and Nauda in particular shines amazingly in this volume. Honestly, if the story was just about her I’d have no issue.
To give Theo credit, he certainly improves in the second half, and some of his more obsessive traits are even called out and addressed near the end, which was nice progress. Overall, this book ended on better ground than the previous in basically every respect. Enough so I immediately jumped into the next novel. With luck, there won’t be any regression of his character for the sake of maintaining the story’s status quo.
I really enjoyed the character development especially for Nauda & Theo in this entry. Those two also get in a lot of work on their Soulhomes, and I find those sequences nice and cozy.
Theo continues to impress me with how far he's come from the crotchety old man in the first book--his age has turned into wisdom with just a shade of his old orneriness left, and it shows in his interactions with each character. Though I was rather sad to see the absence of Senka's craziness.
There's a hard left turn about 2/3rds of the way through the book that took me quite by surprise. Really looking forward to the next one. Travis Baldree continues to shine on audio, so I'll have to be patient for the next release.
Something this series does very well is it does not recycle plot elements. There are tournaments of different sorts and competitions and battles, but none of them are the same. The context is always different, stakes are always clear, and the path the protagonists take is different each time.
Pros: Alien/inhuman characters are handled in a very 'realistic' fashion. Interactions feel genuine, if strange, and the bonds made between different species and the protagonists is one of the most interesting things to me about this series.
Cons: Still don't know if grass exists or if everybody walks around on weak sublime materials. Some major aspects of worldbuilding ignored.
more great story I need more I need the next story
This is book 5 I am not going to talk about this book, but some of book 1 imagine having a car crash and ending up in a comma you don’t live trapped in your mind or sleep for months or years but in this case go to another world or more specifically 9 of them traveling between them different races cultures etc the rule? Get stronger but being carried through his foundation a once thought friend betrayed him and he had to find a way to get back to the 9 now we are reading the struggles the main character (who like to change his name a lot) rebuild what he lost
This whole series is so strong and unique. The whole concept of building a structure in different rooms within your soul is just fascinating. And now adding plants and even fungus.
I can’t wait for another book. While there are other series that have characters working or shaping their core or soul in pursuit of power, there is nothing else quite like this.
There is a prologue at the beginning that lists of events in previous novels. As a result you may feel that the first few chapters are slow. Once the characters have reestablished themselves…
Series continues to be a fascinating read. I loved the setting change, as well as the variety of new characters. Fiya's uncle finally coming, which will allow her to get stronger finally. Theo befriending the bettle scout was an interesting new angle, softening his character. Nauda's soulhome collapse from last book was dealt with excellently, in my opinion.
In general this series has been very enjoyable but I'm removing a star in this one because of the annoying constant moralizing about not killing innocents. Nauda has been doing this for 2 or 3 books now, and it's becoming incredibly tedious. Having a character with a moral compass is not an issue, but when they go out slaughtering groups of brainwashed citizens press-ganged into an army and primitive tribesmen for merits that's fine...but then they risk their life for non sapient bugs with crow/octopus level intelligence? it's rather pointless and makes me start to dislike that character.
Some strong action in this one. The protagonist has been difficult to like, but this book makes big strides in changing that. Sarah Lin has very strong story development, there are very few loose ends. I think the introduction of new characters and new plot lines is sometimes abrupt and difficult to appreciate in terms of visualization. I think that's a style choice. There are few clues as to how you will visualize what the protagonists look like except for more exotic characters that are introduced. Well worth the read, these criticisms are minor.
It's so amusing when books go off the rails of their own plots. It seems the author has got these nine worlds in mind and wants to do one per book - so this one really added nothing to the plot but ticking off one of the world.
Also it's strange how inconsistent progression is in the books. It flips from 'that's not possible' to 'it's all done now' very fast.
Some of the characters are embarassingly cut and paste models of others = Tythes is like any character you can think of that acts crazy but has a secret plot except more 2 dimensional and uninteresting. Bit of a filler book.
In a niche genre where every series can feel really samey, Weirkey feels different. The main character is not Zero to hero, but an experienced person getting a second chance. The magic is a mix of fireballs and HGTV. And in this book they trick us into thinking we are getting a standard tournament arc just to go on a fun adventure instead. While this book was a little less focused than the previous, I still really enjoy this series and can't wait for the next one.
That out of the way, this was a solid entry, and I look forward to the timeskip.
My notes would be: -Isaak POV's felt kind of pointless.
-It seems like we've spent too long now without having our protagonists match up against people of equal level. Like they tangled mostly with people either weaker or stronger and it limited the way those encounters could resolve.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This series is by far the best series I have read in recent years. I absolutely love it. It’s quite different than a lot of fantasy novels and this specific book was a little bit more difficult because our friends got separated and they have their own individual stories. I am eagerly awaiting the next book, and I am happy because I thought this was the last one and it is not. Looking forward to the story continuing.
This book shakes up the protagonist and pushes them in new ways in a new environment. If you've read up to book 4 in this series don't sleep on this for long. If you haven't read this series yet get on that right away, you won't regret it.
This is on par with the previous books. If you embittered you will like this. I would have liked to see more plot that forwarded the main story. At times there was a lot of heavy 'soul crafting' that felt tedious and unnecessary. Some heavy trimming would help.
Amazing story with evolving plot line . What always gets my attention and is refreshing is the magic system there is so much going on and I wished more novels had something like this. Epilogue raises many questions for the next few releases I can’t wait to read them!
Things are happening here and there and honestly It's all over the place as the story bounces around like it can't make up its mind what to do next. If there is any real focus in each book I have completely missed it. Things that I would believe to be a major factor in each book are wrapped up in less time than any insignificant issue.
I have followed Lin since her stret cultivation books. Im confident that this book has some of the best character development in this series. 5 star book for sure.
This story of a guy who went to the nine worlds as a hero and was then allowed to return to earth to live into old age only to return to the nine worlds was Fantastic.
The plot continues to thicken as more layers are pulled away. We definitely don't have all the answers yet but it getting to the point that we can make some pretty sound guesses.
A step down after the last couple of books. Contains plotlines heavily reliant on moping and/or miscommunication, two of my least favourite plot devices. Gets to a good place in the end, but heavy weather getting there.
I shouldn't have started this book. I'd forgotten how drained my interest was at the end of the last book in the series. I simply couldn't generate enough interest to lose myself in this world once more.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ - eh a bit disappointed but it kept the story going and though i did not like the focus on the other characters i recognize that it was much needed and its just bc i don't like the characters themselves