A review by theshleester
The Supernova Era by Joel Martinsen, Cixin Liu

3.0

Interesting concept. The more the story progressed, though, the less believable I found it - and this from someone who is very happy to suspend disbelief when reading!

I was bothered by some of the details. The cut off for 13 year olds seems incredibly precise, but people aren't machines, we develop at slightly different rates. So where are the 14 and 15yos who actually survived? What about the 11 and 12yos whose bodies couldn't recover from the radiation? It's just too neat.

I also want to know what happened with the supercomputer. It saves the day when everyone's losing their minds (proper deus ex machina), it runs the virtual Assembly, and then we never hear about it again. Presumably the US kids inherit it. Why doesn't that bother anybody?

The language felt clunky, which irritated me throughout - not sure how much is the author's voice and how much is the translation.

Last chapter and epilogue felt boring, confusing, unnecessary and anticlimactic. Whatever the point was, I missed it.

I actually don't get why the Chinese kids said yes to the territory trade - they seem to be losing a lot and getting nothing out of it.

And I feel like I'm lacking in a real conclusion. What happened to these characters?!

It started strong, and I enjoyed the first half - but the second half was increasingly disappointing. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Gun violence, Death of parent, War