Reviews

The Wandering Earth: Classic Science Fiction Collection by Cixin Liu

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rg473's review against another edition

3.0

Engaging read but I am afraid it will not be memorable.

I am finding myself comparing these short Sci fi stories to Ted Chiang's collections, perhaps a bit unfairly. While these stories are extremely readable and entertaining, the moments of ideational epiphany are too few and far inbetween.

sorinahiggins's review against another edition

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5.0

Fantastic, in both senses of the term!!

kay_ness's review against another edition

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3.0

There are many things wrong with the stories in this short story collection. With most written before Lui’s epic Remembrance of Earth’s Past (The Three Body Problem) trilogy, a number of the stories try out ideas which later reappear there. Most lack well developed characterisation, which is frustrating, and there is a serious lack of female characters in anything other than stereotypical mother/wife roles (with one exception).

So why bother reading it? For two reasons. Firstly because the author has some hugely interesting ideas, always backed up by, as far as possible, real science. It’s just a shame he doesn’t seem able to construct characterisation of matching quality around his ideas. And secondly, because it’s hugely interesting to read science fiction that has a Chinese sense of place and draws on Chinese history and culture. We forget how western-centric most of the genre’s writing is.

So overall 3 star but with some 5 star aspects.

zone_a3's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

toffeebox's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.75

Wandering earth and for the benefit of mankind were easily high 4 stars. These, I felt, held up in its short form and had strong moral themes.

The remaining ones were a drag with its underdeveloped plot lines and misogynistic characterisation (curse 5.0). There were little call backs and linked ideas -

earth 4 and the girl stuck in the core of the earth ended being a granddaughter of another character

- which was purposefully used to save undeveloped plots but that was not enough.

sweetcuppincakes's review against another edition

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4.0

It's more of a collection of fascinating ideas than stories. Many of the sci-fi concepts necessitate a lot of explanation and exposition, which is fine when the narrator fills the reader in. But when Liu opts to have a character go on and on about what has transpired in x years while someone was in hibernation, or when an alien species explains their entire civilization in a way that humans could understand (i.e. us readers could understand), things get awkwardly unrealistic and clunky, prose-wise. That's really the only downside here though – the ideas and imagination of possible futures and other beings is awe-inspiring and, like with the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, many of these ideas are bound to stay with you for a long time.

yi5h's review against another edition

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slow-paced

2.0

Interesting concepts, but characters are 2d and an excuse to introduce a concept rather than an integral part of the stories. Underdeveloped ideas often smushed together unnecessarily.