Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang, Vol. 5

Ah, this was a lovely conclusion to the series! The author said she wanted to write a “fairytale for kidults” in the Author’s Note at the end, and that was certainly accomplished with this series.

This is only the second danmei series I’ve read; the first one was Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi/MDZS) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu/MXTX, and I think I vastly prefer this one to MDZS. I say this primarily on the strength of the author’s worldbuilding: compared to the world of MDZS, the world of this series is much more detailed and thought out, and the plot certainly feels a lot more complex and expansive than the plot of MDZS.

As I’ve mentioned in reviews for the previous volumes, the way the plot interacts with the romance between Chang Geng and Gu Yun is done very well, though now at the end of the series I find that the characters are largely static in their development after events midway through the fourth volume. While there’s nothing wrong with characters not developing much past a certain point in a series, it does show that a lot of their romance is driven by things that happen to them. Fortunately this is a minor issue in the overall scheme of things, though I did finding myself raising an eyebrow at how often Chang Geng’s schemes seemed to fall perfectly into place.

Another concern that readers might miss is how the author portrays the Celestial Wolf tribes: that is to say, with very little nuance. Which, all right, makes sense when one remembers that the whenever the reader encounters a character or characters from the tribes they are often seen through the eyes of people from Great Liang, who are more likely to think of them in derogatory stereotypes because of the antagonistic relationship between the two nations. But if one considers this portrayal in light of the fact that Great Liang wants to colonize the tribes’ territories in order to gain access to its vast reserves of violet gold, that alters the character of that antagonism. From that perspective, the tribes can be viewed as indigenous peoples fighting to maintain their freedom and their rights to their lands, which are coveted by a foreign power who see those lands solely through the lens of resource extraction.

Unfortunately, this angle is not one that’s portrayed clearly in the novel, or at least, the Great Liang characters who talk about it don’t see anything wrong with their country’s colonial project. Similarly troubling is the utter silence at the end of series, implying the fate of the Celestial Wolf tribes and the fate of their lands. Readers who aren’t conscious of the nature of colonialism will likely miss this angle, but other readers - especially those who are aware of China’s aggressive activities in the West Philippine Sea - will pick it up fairly easily, and will view both Great Liang and the Celestial Wolf tribes through different eyes.

The same can be said for the portrayal of the people from the Dongying islands, which is clearly a stand-in for Japan. Constantly portrayed as conniving and treacherous, the lack of nuance for their portrayal is more stark compared to how the Celestial Wolf tribes are portrayed. Considering the deep cultural enmity between China and Japan as a result of Japan’s imperialistic stance before and during World War 2, I suppose it’s not difficult to see why they would be painted as the villains in this fantasy world.

However, even with these pitfalls in mind, this volume and the series as a whole are immensely entertaining and fun to read. While a lot of that is down to the author, credit must be given to the translators as well. I’m not entirely sure if they’re amateurs or professional translators, but either way they have done an excellent job. It also makes me wonder if the larger SFF imprints will eventually pick up danmei works and translate them; it’ll be interesting to see someone like Ken Liu, for instance, who is both a genre author and a translator, work on a danmei series and see what someone with more professional translation experience can do.

Overall, this series was a great read, and definitely a step up from my previous experience reading MDZS. It’s unfortunate that this series doesn’t get the same universal love as MDZS, since its strong worldbuilding and expansive and layered plot would definitely appeal to readers of more mainstream SFF, who might consider the romance a nice bonus but not the most important thing about the story. While this series is not without its issues, thematically, it is still a thoroughly entertaining experience and worth losing a few days of one’s life in.