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A review by trish204
Devourer by Cixin Liu
4.0
My first story by this highly acclaimed Chinese author and I quite liked it.
Earth has a Space Force protecting it from rocks that would otherwise impact and endanger humanity. One day, they encounter a crystal, the memory of an already destroyed civilisation, which warns them of the Devourer.
As alien menaces go, I thought this was extremely civilized. As was Earth's response (up to a point). *lol*
Nevertheless, a sort of war is unavoidable. However, even that war is quite different from what I'm used to from other science fiction stories.
The story was short, quite sweet, and showed the different approaches one can take when writing about different galactic civilisations. One can tell from the writing style and certain dialogues that this is not a Western author (the characters came off as stiff for example, the Devourers are like the Emperor and his emissary) but the way this story unfolded wasn't just new, it worked well enough for me.
There were a couple of down sides, too, though:.
Nevertheless, all in all I quite enjoyed Fangs and the Marshall, the thought-provoking and almost philosophical history lessons, ingenuity as well as the ending.
Earth has a Space Force protecting it from rocks that would otherwise impact and endanger humanity. One day, they encounter a crystal, the memory of an already destroyed civilisation, which warns them of the Devourer.
As alien menaces go, I thought this was extremely civilized. As was Earth's response (up to a point). *lol*
Nevertheless, a sort of war is unavoidable. However, even that war is quite different from what I'm used to from other science fiction stories.
The story was short, quite sweet, and showed the different approaches one can take when writing about different galactic civilisations. One can tell from the writing style and certain dialogues that this is not a Western author (the characters came off as stiff for example, the Devourers are like the Emperor and his emissary) but the way this story unfolded wasn't just new, it worked well enough for me.
There were a couple of down sides, too, though:
Spoiler
Apart from a short spur of sexism that I didn't enjoy, there were also some moments that almost seemed too absurd and some laws of physics that weren't just "adjusted" but clearly ignoredNevertheless, all in all I quite enjoyed Fangs and the Marshall, the thought-provoking and almost philosophical history lessons, ingenuity as well as the ending.