Immortal Connections

An Epic Fantasy Novel (Celestial Cataclysms, Book 1)

De: Tao Wong

Narrado por: Tim Lounibos

A new Immortal has risen... and with him, the fate of all the realms hangs in the balance.

Long Wu Ying has ascended to the Heavens, fulfilling the ultimate dream of all cultivators. However, the heavens are not all that it seems, and his vow to raise his lover to the realms of immortality conflicts with the Jade Palace’s rules.

In the Middle Kingdom, the fracturing of an empire echoes across the kingdoms. As states rush to fill the power vacuum, war-weary armies march with little food, weakened by years of drought. Wu Ying’s mortal friends are caught in the middle of the conflict. As leaders among cultivators and within their sect, they must do what they can to hold the world together and carry on without their closest ally.

When chaos consumes the realms above and below, even the greatest cultivators must surrender to the winds of fate.

Immortal Connections is the first book in Celestial Cataclysms, the new epic xianxia fantasy series by Tao Wong. Taking place in the same world as A Thousand Li, it delves into realms old and new, making it perfect for longtime fans and first-time listeners alike.

©2026 Tao Wonjg (P)2026 Tao Wong

Performance Was Jarring

I was a big fan of 1000 Li and the performance done by Travis Baldree. I was rather shocked by the new performer.

If the rest of the series is going to rely on this performer, I won't be coming back and I will stick with the books as they appear as free reads on the Kindle.

Narrator change isn’t good

The narrator isn’t bad but after an entire series of these characters and this story mainly being voiced by Travis sort of just makes the change not feel right.
Edit: Nevermind this dudes awful at female voices and it gets annoying with the different words he keeps mispronouncing

Not the first time Travis Baldree has bailed on a series I love…

There’s a reason for why you very rarely see a narrator change once the first book has been released. Once their voices and the characters voices have been established in the listeners mind as being one and the same. It becomes how the listener recognizes and associates their feelings to the characters. Once that happens, the narrator doesn’t even have to be good anymore, so long as they’re tolerable, the experience of switching to another narrator, no matter how good that new narrator is, is going to be negative one. This makes keeping the status quo in the best interest of everyone involved. Which is why my default assumption is that the decision must have had nothing to do with not wanting Travis Baldree to be the narrator. So I did not penalize the new narrator by giving a poor rating for something that was outside of their control. Nor did I penalize the author for it. I did however, penalize the author significantly contributing to the problem by making the story as disjointed as humanly possible…

Because let me tell you, losing Baldree for this story, even when graded on a curve, did not go well at all. It felt like I didn’t even recognize these characters, like I missed them, as I was supposedly listening to them, and it was made so much worse by the POV changing NONSTOP, every couple of chapters, through the ENTIRE book. Just constantly jumping story arch’s and context switching at the same time that I could no longer recognize or pick out who I was following by the sound of their voice, made it even harder to resist rejecting the characters, it was the worse possible thing to do.

If I thought the author did an otherwise good job of writing a multi threaded story, I wouldn’t have took two stars off. But the author clearly doesn’t understand the rules for how to create multi threaded stories. It ended up being three independent books, with three independent characters, telling three independent stories. Cut up using kid scissors, and pasted into each other with Elmer’s glue. He tried pulling off game of thrones without realizing why game of thrones works. Game of thrones doesn’t have a main character with a main story arch. It prioritizes, from the very start, the world narrative. You don’t ever feel like you’ve been yanked out from one point of view to another. The story is told from a thousand foot point of view, it’s even baked into the opening credits. I wish authors would stop trying to emulate game of thrones without taking the time to understand just how incredibly hard it is to pull off something like that, and that maybe there is a reason it is the only story in the last two decades of its kind to do it.

I’m really hoping the author gets back to writing the type of story he understands the core writing principles of, because… wow!

Where's Travis Baldree...??? NO!!!!!!!

So, if you have yet to listen to the "A Thousand Li" series and are just listening to this book because it looks interesting; go for it. The story is what I expect from Tao Wong. My one complaint about the story would be that Tao decided to break up the chapters between 4 of the characters from "A Thousand Li" (Wu Ying still being the MC). I know a lot of authors do this, but personally it annoys me more than not but this is just personal preference and opinion. The story is still good so far(on chapter 43 currently, 7 hours in).

The performance...... To be fair, I think the narrator is probably a decent narrator. But, after having Travis Baldree narrate "A Thousand Li" and having his voices in my head.... making the transition to this narrator has been difficult. Especially with the female voices. I can only imagine how difficult it is to narrate and have different voices for each character.... Again, But, when one of the most beautiful female characters(Fa Yuan) sounds like a chain smoking drag queen it grates on your nerves. I don't know if they tried to get Travis and he couldn't do it or what the deal is, but continuing the series is going to be a chore for me with the current narrator. I may be the only one who feels this way, but I doubt it. So, all you Travis Baldree fans be warned this narrator is no Travis Baldree.

Update: completed. Adjustment to new narrator took quite some time. My initial assessment still stands, the narrator does well with the male voices and narration, but the female voices are limited and rather annoying. I think part of the problem might be the number of voices that have to be done (at least 50). Anyway, I was able to complete the audio book. Still on the fence for further audiobooks in the series though.

Narrator Change!

After 12 books….Travis Baldree has become intrinsic to the series. So the change of narrator was rough and disheartening. It was through my dedication to the journey that I pushed through the first few chapters. HOWEVER, as the story progressed the new narrator did well. Added some depth to new characters. The story itself is great. I look forward to the next.