A review by cobnob
Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang

3.0

setup is similar to the dispossessed - a non-earth colony has to use a different political system with less personal freedom (to some degree) to survive their harsher environment, while a recognizably capitalist and western home world looks on with disdain, and the protagonist, an academic from the colony, reflects on the differences between worlds after spending politically fraught time on the home world. I’m not sure if it’s the translation, but it felt like there was so much telling instead of showing that I just couldn’t suspend disbelief and sink into the prose. The Camus references dropped like large pianos onto a sidewalk: sudden and out of place.

Just read the dispossessed instead