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Community comment are the opinions of contributing users. These comment do not represent the opinions of Daniel Boone Regional Library.
Aug 31, 2017hdebeck rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Overall it was a thrilling and engaging read and I greatly enjoyed it. The plot far outstrips the dull characters, enough so that I was compelled to discover what happens even if I struggled to connect personally with the individual characters. Liu Cixin's characters seem distant, but their circumstances were intriguing and they illustrated the power of private thought by surprising me with their actions. This book has a dearth of female characters, let alone ones with agency or critical roles. That is the primary reason I knocked my rating down; the plot may have been even more thrilling than The Three Body Problem, but the story felt inherently misogynistic and I didn't bat an eye when something horrific happened to a character. I thoroughly enjoy the analysis of human reaction to an extraterrestrial crisis. While I don't know if I agree with the ultimate perspective on the universe, I found it a compelling possibility. Also, Liu Cixin again manages to blur the lines between reality and science fiction in ways that made it easy for me to suspend disbelief in some of the more fantastic future tech.