Reviews with content warning for Child death - Ball Lightning

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu

6 reviews

cloud_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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bluemonkey14's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I read this after devouring Remembrance of Earth's Past. I do find ball lightning a fascinating topic and really enjoyed following along with the process of unveiling its true nature in the TBP universe. Far-fetched maybe but it feels internally consistent and raises a lot of existential "what if?" type questions. And of course, the exploration of the pipeline from curiosity, to science, to military application is relevant to any area of research.

I do think that Liu Cixin struggles writing women even more so than male characters, and I felt Lin Yun's story was somewhat tarnished by this, I never really felt like I connected with her because she never really felt like a fully fleshed-out character to me. I would love to read her story separately, ending up the same way as in Ball Lightning but through her eyes rather than Chen's.

That said, what Liu does well, he does very well, as long as those parts grab you enough to push through the weaker parts.

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