Scan barcode
A review by abandonedmegastructure
Of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu
adventurous
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Of Ants And Dinosaurs is the best bad book I've read this year.
There's a lot of worthwhile stuff here. The leading premise is genuinely original and makes for a strong set-up to the ongoing fable. There are worldbuilding details I genuinely like, and some of the dinosaur-ant battle scenes deserve points for depicting incredibly asymmetrical warfare in a genuinely interesting way. There's interesting ideas here (most of which should be new to most), and I'm willing to overlook a lot of flaws in a book that has those. And it's eminently readable: I breezed through the thing in 24 hours, never truly bored.
Even so, the actual contents are somewhat disappointing. Perhaps the translation is to blame, but there's no memorable prose and wordplay here, no skillful use of language - just dry descriptions of people entering rooms and saying out loud what should be left implied. The plot is passable, though the pacing feels a bit off in places and the death note-style 'scheme, counterscheme, countercounterscheme' stuff starts to get repetitive and predictable when it's always the same side coming out on top. I called it a fable, and there's a perfunctory moral at the end, but ultimately I felt myself wondering what the point of it all was. An obvious third-act reveal, too, was treated as a mystery slightly too long for my tastes, but then I suppose the intended audience hasn't ever seen Dr Strangelove.
Of Ants And Dinosaurs feels like a book very reliant on outclevering its readers, and for the most part it does, which makes the moments where things don't quite make sense feel a bit grating. Some unimpressive use of language further drags it down. Still, my 3.25 is on the harsh side, and definitely not meant to discourage anyone interested in the premise of a fantastical story where two very different flawed species see their uneasy alliance crumble.
There's a lot of worthwhile stuff here. The leading premise is genuinely original and makes for a strong set-up to the ongoing fable. There are worldbuilding details I genuinely like, and some of the dinosaur-ant battle scenes deserve points for depicting incredibly asymmetrical warfare in a genuinely interesting way. There's interesting ideas here (most of which should be new to most), and I'm willing to overlook a lot of flaws in a book that has those. And it's eminently readable: I breezed through the thing in 24 hours, never truly bored.
Even so, the actual contents are somewhat disappointing. Perhaps the translation is to blame, but there's no memorable prose and wordplay here, no skillful use of language - just dry descriptions of people entering rooms and saying out loud what should be left implied. The plot is passable, though the pacing feels a bit off in places and the death note-style 'scheme, counterscheme, countercounterscheme' stuff starts to get repetitive and predictable when it's always the same side coming out on top. I called it a fable, and there's a perfunctory moral at the end, but ultimately I felt myself wondering what the point of it all was. An obvious third-act reveal, too, was treated as a mystery slightly too long for my tastes, but then I suppose the intended audience hasn't ever seen Dr Strangelove.
Of Ants And Dinosaurs feels like a book very reliant on outclevering its readers, and for the most part it does, which makes the moments where things don't quite make sense feel a bit grating. Some unimpressive use of language further drags it down. Still, my 3.25 is on the harsh side, and definitely not meant to discourage anyone interested in the premise of a fantastical story where two very different flawed species see their uneasy alliance crumble.