Reviews with content warning for War - The Supernova Era

Do I regret the 12 and a half hours this book took? Not completely. Would I recommend it to anyone else? Absolutely not. Author somehow managed to both over and under estimate the abilities of children. First half was great, second half was arduous.

Content Warnings

larkken's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

maurits's review against another edition

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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? No

1.0

"Like Ursula K. Le Guin rewriting The Lord of the Flies for the quantum age" is what the back of the book says. On one hand, this is a terrible comparison. Le Guin believed in the good of people and wouldn't have written a book like this. On the other hand, it is a good comparison, because this book is about as bad The Lord of the Flies.
It is completely unrealistic. The story doesn't make any sense and is absolutely unbelievable. It's stretching suspension of disbelief to its very limits and far beyond. It seems Liu meant to write a book about human nature, but really, he failed to even write a book about humans, let alone their nature.

Moreover, compared to his Remembrance of Earth's Past series, the science in this book is plain bad. In the aforementioned series, I felt like the science could actually have a chance of being true. It sounded at least somewhat plausible, despite knowing it is fiction.
The science in this book is just lacking. It's not hard science fiction. Liu just posits a super-smart quantum computer for random reasons. We just have to accept that. We have to simply accept whatever bullshit he comes up with.

Lastly - and this point is for better or for worse - the book is simply anti-American propaganda. Which, again, is a route you can take, but Liu definitely wasn't concerned with writing anything remotely close to real Americans.

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