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de_eekhoornI really liked this book, despite the fact that it didn’t quite come together as a whole to me. Instead, it appeared as a collection of individual set-pieces that didn’t necessarily have much to do with each other. The glue holding the setpieces together (including, alas, some of the characters, including our main viewpoint character) tended to remain rather slight, but then again the setpieces were very good indeed.
The very best set-piece, and also the heart of the book, is the story of the emotional and intellectual journey of physicist Ye Wenjie, from the destruction of her life and family in the Cultural Revolution, via an awareness of the ecological destruction caused by economic planning and mismanagement, to her semi-rehabilitated research position at a remote radio base, where she finds herself confronted with the existence of alien life. I liked not just the character of Ye herself, but also the descriptions of the desolate mountain landscape of the Red Coast Base where Ye’s story has its center, and the details of the scientific work and the awkward meshing of scientific practice and ideology-driven totalitarianism, which felt very convincing.
I also really liked the section of the computer game segments, with their creative refashioning of historical elements (most of which I encountered here for the first time) and their dream-like logic and atmosphere.
I am afraid the aliens did not entirely live up to their hype for me - once we get to see individuals, they didn’t feel truly foreign to me in terms of behaviour and motivations. In addition, uh, from what I understand of it that is not how higher dimensions work, in a book that otherwise rather shows its work in terms of the science underlying its fiction. The glue between the different book segments was also by moments irritatingly didactic. But overall I enjoyed the book a lot: it introduced me to a lot of things that felt new to me, from its use of recent science to its sidelights on Chinese history. ] I am looking forward to reading the sequel, which I think has a good chance of coming together more as a whole than the first book did.
The very best set-piece, and also the heart of the book, is the story of the emotional and intellectual journey of physicist Ye Wenjie, from the destruction of her life and family in the Cultural Revolution, via an awareness of the ecological destruction caused by economic planning and mismanagement, to her semi-rehabilitated research position at a remote radio base, where she finds herself confronted with the existence of alien life. I liked not just the character of Ye herself, but also the descriptions of the desolate mountain landscape of the Red Coast Base where Ye’s story has its center, and the details of the scientific work and the awkward meshing of scientific practice and ideology-driven totalitarianism, which felt very convincing.
I also really liked the section of the computer game segments, with their creative refashioning of historical elements (most of which I encountered here for the first time) and their dream-like logic and atmosphere.
I am afraid the aliens did not entirely live up to their hype for me - once we get to see individuals, they didn’t feel truly foreign to me in terms of behaviour and motivations. In addition, uh, from what I understand of it that is not how higher dimensions work, in a book that otherwise rather shows its work in terms of the science underlying its fiction. The glue between the different book segments was also by moments irritatingly didactic. But overall I enjoyed the book a lot: it introduced me to a lot of things that felt new to me, from its use of recent science to its sidelights on Chinese history. ] I am looking forward to reading the sequel, which I think has a good chance of coming together more as a whole than the first book did.
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Date: 2025-09-10 06:21 pm (UTC)I first became aware of this book through seeing someone read the graphic novel adaptation. Very interesting to learn more about the original. You make it sound worth reading! Did you ever go on to read the sequel?
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Date: 2025-09-12 07:18 am (UTC)I didn't know there was a graphic novel adaptation and am now quite curious about what it looks like, since there are definitely a lot of strong visual images in the novel.