A review by nsfinch
The Shadow of the Empire by Qiu Xiaolong

Did not finish book. Stopped at 11%.

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why I couldn’t get into this book. The characters felt flat and all the dialogue felt the same, no matter who was speaking. I’ve read several of the van Gulik Judge Dees, and even the original one translated by van Gulik before he started writing his own. I feel guilty that I like the European ones better than the Chinese one. I flipped to the afterword in the back, and that was way more interesting and written with more emotion than the story seemed to be. I just couldn’t motivate myself to keep reading.