This book ain't great. There will be spoilers.

The writing is bad. And yes, I appreciate there's a cultural gap but the only thing worse than me completely ignoring cultural differences would be me saying "oh maybe stale dialogue, shallow characters, and messy structure are how all Chinese people write".

And to be honest I can forgive the writing, some sci fi authors are better at coming up with cool concepts than writing well (cough Phillip K Dick) so it's not necessarily the end of the world.

My number one issue with this book is that, for a book apparently all about hard science, it has such a profound disrespect for both science and scientists.

The entire crux of the plot - the sophons (which lets be honest, is straight up magic and raises more questions than it answers) stopping particle accelerators from working will cause scientists to just give up on researching things - is completely insulting. History is full of nothing but scientists working around handicaps, and often relishing the challenge. Instead this book treats scientists as close minded and lazy who give up as soon as there's a hurdle.

Don't get me wrong, I really loved reading a story by a Chinese author that is so informed by Chinese history and culture, but I can't forgive that mistreatment of an entire discipline.

I might still read book two though, the series is so popular I feel like I should give it a try.