Like 3 years ago, it is conceptually a good book, fascinating actually but the writing style is so robotic and don’t get me wrong, but for me at least, it was at first a little disorienting to follow Chinese names.
I had to push through to finish it.
A month and a half ago I started reading again, something light, Murderbot diaries, follow it with Project Hail Mary, then All Tomorrows. The first one very short, fast paced, PHM not that short but very entertaining, it kept me glued to the page, the All Tomorrows, not my cup of tea but short and somewhat bizarre.
People kept telling me The Dark Forest was better than TBP, with my reading slump over, I decided to give it a try.
With the 3 first books I read every second I had free, I finished them in two weeks, started TDF almost a 3 weeks ago and I’m starting to feel like I felt with The Three Body Problem made feel before, a little bored and like I have to push through.
I don’t like books that I don’t feel compelled to read and feel more like a chore. Anyways, rant over.
I honestly believe the “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy is benefitting a great deal from “the emperor’s new clothes” phenomenon.
I found it interesting and entertaining to read a book written from a Chinese perspective…to say that was a change is an understatement. But the books as literature were pretty bad.
The first book was a disjointed mess. to say the plot lacked cohesion is an understatement. The second book introduced the idea of “the dark forest” by simply inserting it almost non-sequitur into the middle of the book, giving all the appearance of an idea that Cixin had after the book was done, and just jammed it into the middle at random.
There was an inconsistent attachment to science. it’s about half committed to hard science, but there’s a non trivial amount of inconsistencies regarding the limitations of the speed of light that I can only assume were mistakes as nothing else explained it.
there was just too much of the book that didn’t let consistency get in the way of the story being told.
Cixin’s earlier book “Ball Lightning” is a much more enjoyable read, with a story that’s concise and science heavy. However “Supernova Era” was hot garbage.