Reviews

The Wandering Earth, by Cixin Liu

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thearbiter89's review against another edition

4.0

The Wandering Earth is Liu Cixin at his inventive best - a cavalcade of out-of-this-world stories whose relatively short lengths conveniently exonerate Liu from the need to pad them with character insight and narrative exposition, things that are not his comparative advantages.

The Wandering Earth is a collection of short stories from the storied writer of what is perhaps China's most significant modern science fiction export to date - the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. The stories are replete with his signature style of combining 10,000-light year high concept science fiction with a the evocation of the ability of societies to mobilise en masse to solve existential threats with ludicrously ambitious feats of engineering.

Liu's greatest weakness as a writer is that he doesn't do characters very well, and his women characters, in particular, have all the nuance of a low-budget high school science fiction anime series. Thankfully, the short story format ameliorates this weakness as it reduces the need to make character interest the hook to sustain longer narratives, once the high-concept part has run its course.

Here are some of the stories I particularly appreciated:

Mountain: An intriguing first-contact story with an utterly alien society whose very notions of the nature of reality were shaped by vastly different physical environments and evolutionary starting points from our own. I won't spoil it here, but suffice to say that if you aren't too fussed about scientific accuracy, there will be much to appreciate about Mountain's fearlessly inventive attempt at depicting alien aliens.

Curse 5.0 A surreal and oftentimes strangely hilarious take on how irresponsible IoT deployment could lead to apocalypse. The clincher is the self-parodic self-inclusion of Cixin and fellow sf writer Pan Dajiao as hapless tramps who unwittingly set off a virus that makes people's IoT devices try to kill them.

Sun of China A sf parable of pure optimism, depicting the life of a village bumpkin who, through hard work, slowly ascends to a commanding position in China's space program and becomes the first man to embark on an interstellar journey. Of interest is Liu's depiction of a scenario in which China-led scientific and engineering ingenuity bring peace and prosperity to a future world.

The Wandering Earth: The titular story is less of a compact narrative but a sweeping historical account of mankind's attempt to move Earth to another solar system to escape the Sun's impending stellar flare. It's chiefly distinguished by the sheer epic audacity of the notion of installing giant, mountain-sized engines on the Earth's surface to propel us out of the solar system, evocatively envisioned by the haunting image of a looming Jupiter on the cover of the book.

I give this short story collection: 4.5 out of 5 Devourers

roll_n_read's review against another edition

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I haven't read the novel or seen the movie, but I think I enjoyed the graphic novel as much as I'd enjoy the novel because of all the art and way the comic represented a lot of the space stuff and sci-fi elements. It's a very interesting story and there are lots of interesting themes and twists in the story.

That said, I think there were parts of the character/story development that felt rushed (which is the bane of the comics medium for the most part). I'd imagine in the novel, the pacing and the swell of the story would've felt better.

gwells509's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

themidnightlibrarian's review against another edition

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5.0

The eponymous story is one of the best things I've read recently. The story moved me in a way I did not imagine it could. I'm giving 5 starts just for that one story. There were a couple more of the kind but they don't come close to it.
Also, the other stories contain some blatant sexism and objectification which was very off putting. Liu Cixin needs some gender studies education.

yukif's review against another edition

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4.0

With a read just for "In her eyes" & "For the benefit of mankind"
The author is good at extrapolating concepts.

danlovejoy's review against another edition

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2.0

This book is a plot sketch that was in no way ready for publication. It’s like the first draft of a cool premise with a defiant middle finger salute to continuity.

And to call these characters two-dimensional would be an insult to the second dimension.

DNF with a vengeance.

oldmansimms's review against another edition

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3.0

In my review of Liu's last translated collection, To Hold Up the Sky, I poked fun at his tendency to seemingly just think of a cool science idea and contort a story around it, with little thought to the characters, dialogue, or details aside from that science idea, and his fixation on certain concepts repeatedly (like higher dimensions, apocalyptic events, hostile aliens, and suspended animation). That's all back again, here. I haven't read enough of classic SF authors like Clarke and Asimov to say for sure but I get a similar vibe, where writing a fully fleshed out story just isn't the point, and honestly reading Liu is kind of a hate-read situation for me -- there's some interesting sciencey bits but the weakness of everything around those really drags the stories down. So, I decided to make a game of it, and review the individual stories by playing Liu Cixin Bingo! Some of it's kind of cheating, like "Monologuing about Societal/Technological History" and "People Shouting Complicated Things in Unison" also counting as "Stilted Unnatural Dialogue", but oh well.

The Wandering Earth