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A review by michela_wilson
Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
3.0
If you ever enjoyed those late-night History Channel "documentaries" that try to prove aliens were the reason for humanity's progress you are going to absolutely love Jumpnauts!
In this futuristic version of Earth, we follow of group of four unlikely friends who find out aliens are coming to Earth and they might be friendly. However, they live in an era of a cold war between two major factions who both want the aliens' power for themselves. These four have to find the aliens first and convince them and themselves that humanity is worth helping and trusting in.
I had an incredible time reading this book. The beginning was a little melodramatic and the science was a bit funky, but I really enjoyed the characters and all of their quirks, which began to shine in the second half of the novel. The latter half of this book starts to get deeper into each character's motivation for being who they are. They each have to dissect their past and what they want their future to be. In fact, this book's best feature is the deep conversations about the importance of community and individuality in humanity and whether there is hope for the future.
The main issue I had when reading Jumpnauts was the amount of loredumping there was in the beginning. Now I am a big sci-fi and fantasy reader and I understand the need for a lore drop now and again, but there were times I felt like I was reading a textbook, which was not a fun time. I think this may have been because of the translation of the book from Maderian to English. I believe the translator may have felt the need to overexplain some details, but I did not like how it ended up in the final work. There was no trust put in the reader to figure out how the world operated because it was straight-up told to you, but the lore dumping is not as bad in the latter half of the book.
I am very excited to see more of this world and I had a wonderful time escaping into this futuristic alien universe.
Thank you to Netgalley and Hao Jingfang for giving me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
In this futuristic version of Earth, we follow of group of four unlikely friends who find out aliens are coming to Earth and they might be friendly. However, they live in an era of a cold war between two major factions who both want the aliens' power for themselves. These four have to find the aliens first and convince them and themselves that humanity is worth helping and trusting in.
I had an incredible time reading this book. The beginning was a little melodramatic and the science was a bit funky, but I really enjoyed the characters and all of their quirks, which began to shine in the second half of the novel. The latter half of this book starts to get deeper into each character's motivation for being who they are. They each have to dissect their past and what they want their future to be. In fact, this book's best feature is the deep conversations about the importance of community and individuality in humanity and whether there is hope for the future.
The main issue I had when reading Jumpnauts was the amount of loredumping there was in the beginning. Now I am a big sci-fi and fantasy reader and I understand the need for a lore drop now and again, but there were times I felt like I was reading a textbook, which was not a fun time. I think this may have been because of the translation of the book from Maderian to English. I believe the translator may have felt the need to overexplain some details, but I did not like how it ended up in the final work. There was no trust put in the reader to figure out how the world operated because it was straight-up told to you, but the lore dumping is not as bad in the latter half of the book.
I am very excited to see more of this world and I had a wonderful time escaping into this futuristic alien universe.
Thank you to Netgalley and Hao Jingfang for giving me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Minor: War and Misogyny