Wrapped up the first book after much struggle. Am I crazy for finding it extremely poorly written? Writing aside, the characters suck, the motivations suck, and the scenario building feels like it was tossed together by a 12 year old. I don't get the hype. Everything is paper thin. The fictional science aspect is the most compelling part but as a cohesive whole it fails to land.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 days ago

Yeah that's the context I came at it from as well. It feels like a very Chinese perspective, which is novel compared to what I usually read.

I got a lot out of the excellent English translation, but it absolutely reads differently than a novel written from an English speaking/thinking person, or even when compared to English translated from a Romance or Germanic language.