Best Wuxia Books for Beginners: 10 Novels and Series to Start With
If you have never read wuxia before, here is a quick explanation. These are adventure stories about martial arts masters. They wander through a world of schools, clans, rivals, and their own codes of honor. Fights matter, but so do loyalty, revenge, friendship, and a hero’s personal code.
People often mix up wuxia and cultivation, but the difference is simple. In wuxia, the hero stays human, even if he is extremely skilled. In cultivation, he goes further: toward supernatural power and the dream of rising beyond human limits. That makes wuxia a more down-to-earth and easier way into the genre.
In most of these books, the hero starts out weak. He has to learn, endure unfairness, and look for teachers. That is why these stories are so easy to love: you grow together with the hero.
Part 1. The Classics
Legends of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong.
Start with the first volume, A Hero Born. The most famous novel in the genre. The story takes place in 12th-century China: the Song Empire is at war with its northern neighbors, while the Mongols are rising in the north. The main hero, Guo Jing, is a simple, honest young man. Over time, his honesty makes him stronger than the cunning people around him. The English translation came out in four books. Pick it up if you want a big epic saga you can sink into for a long time.
The Deer and the Cauldron by Jin Yong.
An unusual wuxia. The hero, Wei Xiaobao, can hardly fight at all. He is a street hustler who survives on cleverness, a sharp tongue, and luck. Then he ends up at the court of Emperor Kangxi. The book is funny and witty, and many readers consider it the author’s best. John Minford’s English translation is abridged and came out in three volumes. Don’t be surprised: in it, the hero is called Trinket.
Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain by Jin Yong.
A short novel, so it is a handy way to try the author. It is not quite typical wuxia: the events fit into a single day, while the heroes’ past is revealed through memories. The result is a puzzle with martial arts.
The Eleventh Son by Gu Long.
Gu Long is considered the second most important author of the genre after Jin Yong. He writes differently: in short paragraphs, almost like poetry. There is less fighting and more about relationships and friendship. It is the only Gu Long novel with an official English translation, so this is the way to get to know the author.
Part 2. Modern Series. Wuxia Beyond the Classics
Outside translated Chinese classics, English-language readers often encounter wuxia in a somewhat different form. Modern authors frequently take recognizable elements of the genre — martial arts, clans and schools, codes of honor, training, and a hero’s gradual growth in strength — and combine them with cultivation, progression fantasy, urban fantasy, portal fantasy, or LitRPG.
This blending of genres has helped wuxia-inspired storytelling reach a much broader fantasy audience. Series such as Cradle, Jade City, and several of the books listed below are good examples: they are not “pure” wuxia, but their worlds and stories clearly incorporate recognizable elements of the genre.
For this reason, the next part of our list includes not only modern wuxia, but also series that mix its ideas and traditions with other popular fantasy genres.
Jade City by Fonda Lee.
Not classic wuxia, but fantasy written in English that reads like wuxia. The story takes place in an invented city where the Kaul family and other clans fight for power. A special jade gives the “Green Bones” superhuman strength. Critics call the book “The Godfather with martial arts.” The author won the World Fantasy Award for it. It is the first book in a trilogy.
Law of the Jungle by Vasily Mahanenko.
People have learned to control the energy of qi and divided the world into zones, and the strong get the best of everything. The hero is an ordinary guy from the “zero zone,” where the weakest people live. It is a story about how to fight your way to the top in a world with only one law: the right of the strong. The series already has 14 books, so there is plenty to read.
Cradle (first book: Unsouled) by Will Wight.
A Western take on cultivation. Lindon is born “Unsouled”: the only one in his family who cannot use the sacred arts. He doesn’t give up and uses every trick he can steal or borrow. When trouble looms over his home, he leaves his native valley. It is a 12-book series with a clear system of power levels, which makes it easy to read for anyone who likes to see the hero progress.
Thunder Rumbles Twice by V. Kriptonov and M. Bachurova.
A man has lost his family, his health, and his job. He follows his enemy into another world and wakes up in the body of a teenager who was sold for debts to the school of Quan. The school is like a prison. There are two ways out: become a fighter, or work until adulthood and end up in the silver mines, where few survive longer than three years. The series has five books and became a bestseller in Russia.
The Goldenblood Heir by Boris Romanovsky.
The narrator is a man with golden blood; there are only about thirty such people in the world. This blood is both a curse and his only chance to escape poverty. A special service makes him an offer he cannot refuse. The story is told in the first person, with irony. The genre is portal fantasy with wuxia elements.
Condemned (series: Lord Valevsky: Last of the Line) by Vasily Mahanenko.
Maximilian is the last of the Valevsky line. His family was executed on a false charge, and he himself was sent to a penal unit, to the front line against the monsters of the dark god Skron. The motto here is “do or die,” and the goal is revenge and winning back his inheritance. The book has game mechanics (LitRPG), so it will also suit readers who love games.
Where to Start
If you don’t know where to begin, here are three simple routes. Want the classics? Start with A Hero Born or The Deer and the Cauldron. Love stories where a weak hero becomes strong step by step? Take Cradle, Law of the Jungle, or Thunder Rumbles Twice. Into clans, intrigue, and revenge? Try Jade City or Condemned.
And one last piece of advice. Wuxia often has many characters and complicated names, especially the classics. Don’t be scared: keep a short list of names and come back to it after ten chapters. After that, everything falls into place.