Street Cultivation

Street Cultivation, Book 1

By: Sarah Lin

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

In the modern world, qi is money.

The days of traveling martial artists and mountaintop masters are over. Power is controlled by corporations, modernized martial arts sects, and governments. Those at the bottom of society struggle as second class citizens in a world in which power is a commodity.

Rick is a young fighter in this world. He doesn't dream of immortality or becoming the strongest, just of building a better life for himself and his sister, who suffers from a spiritual illness. Unfortunately, life isn't that easy....

©2019 Sarah Lin (P)2020 Tantor

Listen.

Okay. So. I wanted to set a few things straight from a few conflicting reviews.

1. While the MC does get beaten to a pulp, and often, he does not always "lose". He is dealt a crap hand in life and has some terrible luck, but everything isn't all bad. He first gets beat up roughly by a client, (He works as a personal trainer/practice dummy), but in return he gets a few nice drinks from his coworker and a little bump to his defenses. This isn't exactly an huge boost, but their is an exchange. Next he gets the absolute **** kicked out of him by some bratty rich kids, but he gets healed by a nice client and gets to keep a large bonus. You see the pattern?

2. There is a give and take relationship in this book. Nothing is free, and everything has strings attached. If he gets beat up, he gets a break. If he gets a break, something bad is usually around the corner. Everything has strings attached to it. This advances the plot from point to point rather nicely.

3. I have read reviews that this book is depressing because the MC keeps getting continually beaten and "nothing good happens". This is FALSE! There are some undeniably good and heartwarming moments in this book. Especially surrounding the MC's sister. Their relationship is an emotional rollercoaster, and I am glad she actually has character and a sense of humor rather than just being a two-dimensional motivation tool for our MC.

4. While I did enjoy the author's "Changing Faces" book a lot better, this book can't be compared. This book is cultivation while that one is definitely a LITRPG. The writing style, prose, characters, and entire genre is different. IF I didn't know better I would say this was written by entirely different person because of how different it feels and flows. This isn't a bad thing though. On the other hand, it is quite extraordinary.

5. Just as reference, other cultivation books have MC's who go through a lot more shit than our MC here. For example the characters from "Buryoku" by Aaron Oster and "A Thousand Li" by Tao Wong go through some exceptionally brutal beat downs. Even in Will Wight's "Cradle" series, the MC never gets a break and is thrust into new problems as soon as he finishes the last. At least here, our MC has days of down time and semi-relaxation.

6. If I had to critique this book, the thing that irritates me the most are the speech patterns. For example, Granny continually uses "Dearie" every other sentence. The (bad) Uncle calls him "Boy". His other crappy family members call him "Dick". There are others, but each time they are said they are used as a slur to degrade him. This doesn't bother me so much as how often they are used. Having to hear them said over and over is grating on my ears. It is not quite as bad as "Kitten" from the Undead Rogue series, but it is pretty damn close.

7. Travis Baldree does a fantastic job as always. All his voices are practically unique, He can go soft or loud, portray male, or female, young or old. His words carry emotion and there is forethought to his reading. It's fantastic

Overall. It is a great book with a ton of character development. Don't get hung up on his defeats because he always bounces back. I highly recommend you listen to this book for yourself. It is worth a credit. Give it a try and make your own opinion.

Just depressing

The performance is amazing. Travis has a gift for narration. Unfortunately the story itself is bad.
It’s not written bad, the writing actually is pretty good. It’s just unenjoyable. In cultivation stories the MC usually goes through trial and tribulations and grows stronger from hard work and dedication. In this book the MC is actually weaker most of the way though than he started out because of the constant and unreasonable beat downs and poor turns of fate. There is no hard work and improvement, just constant random people making the main characters life worse and making him weaker. It’s just honestly depressing and not at all inspiring like a good cultivation book should be. There is nothing to look forward to or victories to savor. Just beat down and poor turn of fate after another. Think he’s finally earned a victory? Just kidding the reward is actually him getting weaker. Secret thing that could be an advantage? No it’s actually shitty and makes him weaker

A breath of fresh air

This is a very creative take on the cultivation genre. The setting is basically modern America if cultivation was a real thing. It's fascinating to see the mix of normal tech side by side with "lucrim" magic.

I understand some other reviewers didn't like the pacing of the novel, or the fact that the main character has such a rough time through most of the book. It's important to realize that this is the first volume in a series, possibly a long one. I think it's helpful to adjust expectations and not think that every problem in the main character's life is going to be quickly resolved.

It's good to note that this isn't an epic story. There's no world-threatening crisis, the main character isn't the forgotten heir to incredible power. It's more like a slice of life. It's a guy who is starting off with two strikes against him, and his hardscrabble journey to the top. In some Chinese cultivation stories, the main character works his way up in a sect. Well, in this story he's working his way up on his own because he couldn't join a sect.

This is the opening part of Rick's journey. He has his victories for sure, but at the end of the book he's not a world-beating badass. He's just more of a badass than when he started, and he has a looong way to climb yet. And I'm more than fine with that, I eagerly await future volumes.

And special shout out to narrator Travis Baldree, who does a terrific job as usual.

Stick with it tell the end its worth it.

Yeah the MC gets kicked into a pit of despair for the first half of the book and he isn't some mary sue, its about how he deals with and overcomes the challenges so stick with it the ending is very satisfying.

Fantastic Cultivation Novel

Travis Baldree like usual is a 6 star performance. Love the take on a genre I had an addiction for. Looking forward to book 2.

I hate books like this

are you tired of your daily slog? tired of being beaten down? then read this and listen to someone else suffer. I hate this. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FANTASY!!! I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THESE AUTHORS SHITTING ON MY FEELINGS CONSTANTLY

Street Cultivation is Street Quality.

tl;dr - I love books in which the MC overcomes all odds, especially in cultivation novels. However, this book is best described as if the universe exists just to ruin this guy's life. He does not overcome, he just gets run over (while somehow living) and then lays there to wait for the next car. Even when you think the MC finally has caught a break, you'll find out in the next chapter it's just one more depressing reason to hate this book. I'm halfway through SOLELY because I keep thinking SURELY something good will happen soon, instead of just more impossible life destroying tragedies, but it never does. I'm officially giving up on this book. Based on the first 7 hours, the book probably ends with a 3 hour monologue about the MC slowly dying of aids while in horrible pain due to all of the debt siphons on his core.

Full review:

I loved Sarah Lin's changing faces. It was fantastic and I'd kill for a sequel. I also LOVE Travis Baldree, and he did a great job. But this book just isn't good. Before I started reading I thought it was a clever idea to take cultivation/wuxia and modernize it. However, as I started to listen I have seriously changed my mind. I don't know if it just isn't meant to be, or if it was just done incorrectly, but it feels so absolutely out of place.

The biggest grievance I have is with the non-stop ass beatings the MC gets. Everything goes wrong all the time. He never really "overcomes" anything, just kind of survives, gets lucky that someone healed him and he's not dead, and then somehow (it's never explained and makes no sense) he comes out of it stronger? Getting absolutely curb stomped makes you stronger? But it's not just a physical beating. Every other scene something terrible happens. Just life ruining incident after life ruining incident. None of them ever are 'overcome', they're just kind of barely scraped through.

I personally like books in which the MC overcomes hurdle after hurdle, especially in cultivation novels. However, this book is best described as the MC just getting beaten down by life over and over and over without a single positive moment. Even when you think the MC finally has caught a break, you'll find out in the next chapter it's just one more depressing reason to hate this book. There just never seem to be benefits. My life is depressing already. Why do I want to read a book where I'm constantly rooting for the MC but literally NOTHING GOOD EVER HAPPENS? I love grimdark novels, but this isn't even grimdark. It's like the author wrote a character based on an ex-husband and just decided to see how shitty of a world/life she could give him.

Sarah Lin, if you ever read this, please let this series die. Make 300 sequels to Changing Faces and I'll buy them all. But no more street cultivation. It just does not work.

Very entertaining and enjoyable.

This is a well written cultivation book. I loved the concept and the cast of characters. The action was great and I was throughly entertained from start to finish.

So good I'm downloading her other books

Super, super good. Fun. Strong writing. LitRPG for the masses. Dear Author, write more faster, thanks.

Where's the story?

For how much the MC gets his a** kicked there's almost no real story, or adventure. It's a Sisyphian uphill battle of one a** kicking after the next. Then the book ends.

I think this book would be ok if there was some story in there, but there isn't so it's not.

Avoid this one imo.

Edit:
It's a shame too since the world built around the modernization of cultivation is not terrible.

interesting premise but convoluted story

I found the story entertaining but sometimes events felt random and disjointed. I usually preffer a more cohesive structure to the main plot.

Generic

Everything that isn't just generic cultivation genre stuff actually makes little sense. Can be an OK background listen but if you think too much you will ruin it for yourself.

Really enjoyable cultivation book

I initially bought this for easy listening because of Baldree's narration which was, as always, superb. However, I really enjoyed the plot and progression.

The characters are quite well filled out and the setting is explained slowly throughout the book. There's a lot for the protagonist to learn and we learn with him.

The plot felt a bit tidy at times, no Game of Thrones style surprise deaths, but it was still good. I'm buying the second book now.

Great book

Well I loved this book and the whole series it gets worse reviews that it should because people are used to a main character being the center of everything and everything more or less going his way this guy isn’t unique he is a hard working guy trying his best and every time life seems to give him something for nothing he gets screwed over
As a side note it is a shame Betty white is no longer with us she would of been a perfect granny Whitney

Lacking in central conflict and character growth

I'm guessing this was originally released as a web serial, because it really reads like one. My main gripe with the book is that the protagonist doesn't seem to make mistakes or learn anything - he's the same good person at the end than he is at the beginning. He progresses only through his stats increasing. Also, the world building suffers a little from the Pokémon problem - you know how characters in Pokémon games only talk about Pokémon? In this book it seems like people only talk about Lucrim.

On the other hand, I'll probably still read the sequel.

Decent, not my favourite and not the worst

decent book but not enough growth on the main character for my liking. something bad happens to "Dick" he bareley survives, gets minor improvements again and again same thing diffirent setting.
very good narrator and like the twist of it beeing more modern.

great overall:5/5 performance:5/5 story:4.5/5

Good book, fun to read and impeccable naration from Travis Baldree, as always.

The funny little april fools chappter was a cherry on top, really had me doubled down laughing.