Well, I really enjoyed the first one. This one, not so much. The story arc Luo Ji and his "one true love" really pissed me off. She was so one dimensional - the demure, deferential, woman who (literally and figuratively) takes up very little space. It was this that made me realize that in his whole world (in 2 books), there were 4 female characters with speaking roles who lasted for more than a chapter. And only 3 or 4 who only lasted a chapter. On top of that, he fridged two (three? maybe four, if you count cold sleep) female characters to move the plot forward.

All that aside, it was a very slow book, which I'm usually good with, but this was... more rambly. In the end, I was pretty much skimming to finish the story.

I will say the world was imaginative and interesting to me. Just not the way the story was written. His mechanic for not having to predict the future of human discovery was an interesting one (from the first book).