#this series has phenomenally strong worldbuilding like the conceptual stuff + environmental description is so brilliant | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

phagodyke · 1 year ago

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I'm ~ 150 pages away from FINALLY finishing deaths end and honestly a little bit mad that the alien perspective doesn't come in until page 555.... it would've been SOOO easy to drop a couple short chapters like that in EVERY act of the book to ramp up suspense for the strike + also just bc it's so much fun!! but noooo cixin liu is allergic to tension and fun. and also to writing any kind of character building in general lmao

#this series has phenomenally strong worldbuilding like the conceptual stuff + environmental description is so brilliant #he clearly had such a vision for it and every stage in the timeline is so intricately thought out. which is whats kept me reading!#but its mouth numbingly dry + none of the characters feel like they have personalities I have no attachment to any of them whatsoever #i think im used to the writing style now so it doesnt feel like so much work. but whenever i stop to read smth else i feel like reading-#suddenly becomes so much more fluid and easy like my god is this dense and flavourless sometimes #by this point idk if it even is a translation issue i think the guy just writes like that #also to be honest i found dark forest pretty misogynistic + theres def still traces of that in deaths end too #i dont think its intentional or that hes aware he does it but the author definitely has smth to interrogate and unlearn there lmao #im glad u put women in ur book but they cant all be beautiful ethereal beings of grace with overwhelming maternal instincts #its funny bc hes genuinely so terrible at character writing that its difficult to tell whether the women in the relationships he writes-#are being objectified or if ALL the characters are cardboard cutouts and the women are only flimsier bc theyre not key characters #altho two of these books have had female protagonists so.#anyway i digress lol. im still getting smth out of them even for all the criticisms i have... will be glad to have finished them tho!#.diaries

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