Reviews

Ha! You thought the earlier books were hard SF and you go this one looking for more.
Now you're going "glurg, glurg" while you recover from this one.

I don't remember a novel of this scope since Olaf Stapledon. One day we're decoding messages, the next a very alien alien is casually flipping out a "card" that will eventually destroy the Solar System. And as the alien does it we are told that it and its job are the lowest of the low in that society.

I don't expect a novel that tackles huge concepts like this to spend a lot of time on the other aspects of a standard novel. Sure, there have to be characters we can identify with, or love, or hate, and they have to go through dramatic moments - and that is all here. The alienness of "Singer" underlines how uncomfortable it is to read about things that are too different.

But to continue, I don't expect any of the people in such a book/series to be One Of The Greatest Characters Of All Time, with a rich story arc and inspiring character development. Heck, this story's 1800 pages without a lot of that!

OK, Cheng Zin is just there to have things happen to her, but that's not unusual in a novel. They're bigger things than usual, but still.

The author and translator seem to be big on the word "gaze". Someone else noted a lot of "thus".

And I can't forgive the common authorial thing with the eyes. Page 546 of my edition. "He stopped a few tens of meters away from the yacht" (where our characters are) ... [He had]... wise but gentle eyes." Dear reader, go outside. Find a person who is, say, 30 meters away. 98 feet. Can you describe that person's eyes. No? Thought not. How about from, say 4 meters? Still no. Oh well. At least none of the hibernation scenes ended with the classic "How long was I out?"

Not without flaws, this series is huge and important and mind-stretching. But for this volume, you'd better be ready for some heavy-duty science.

dakota_talbert's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

The brilliance of this story is encapsulating. With every sentence another layer of depth is added. I feel as if I have lived so many lives through this masterpiece.

draagyn's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

andypickwell's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

cursedwithawesome's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book has some incredible ideas and some extremely hard hitting lines - "

You're surrounded by food"

, I'm talking about you. There's also some excellent imagery. Having

Sophon switch from the lovely, feminine way of tea lady to the militarised version

was vivid and excellent. I also love grimdark so I was really down with the bleak interpretation of the universe and the steady expansion of the stakes was well done. However, I couldn't get past the sexism as plot device in the final book and across all the books, the characterisation stood out to me. Every female character of even mild relevance gets referred to in an uncomfortably sexualised way although I do commend him on at least not having an issue with putting female characters in the STEM field, 4 male characters fall in the same creepy style of love with women who

in some cases are dead or were never real to begin with

and nearly all the characters speak in the same flat, somewhat logical and authorial tone, often pausing to give extensive science lectures to each other. Very few characters have either arcs or driving force behind them. Luo's major development between

deterrence creator and swordholder and then back to regular chill bloke

happens off screen. I also felt like the ending missed the mark for me. AA literally could have been replaced with some sort of pet AI and it wouldn't have made a difference. Would've much preferred

Xin and AA to pass with the solar system and have the ships that escaped years before the survivors of the human race or to just finish with them arriving at the new solar system. As much as I enjoyed the realism of her never uniting with Tianming, his creating a universe for her felt a bit much as did her having her entire ending with some random dude we have absolutely no reason to care about

jasaub's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

authorjbr's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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