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The Dark Forest - Liu Cixin: Some criticism with spoilers

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In my last post about the book , I talked mostly about why I liked the book and hinted at some issues as well. Here, I will go a bit deeper into the aspects that I didn't like in the book.  Women characters I usually don't focus too much on character writing in science fiction because I haven't read good examples in the genre so far, so I just accept the fact the plot is more important than the characters in this genre, but, approaching the 2010's, you'd expect a bit of improvement from some of the science fiction classics regarding women. But, apparently, Liu Cixin didn't even try to write good female characters. The characters' writing feels so  anachronistic in this day and age. I don't know much about Chinese culture and how they see women, but I guess the treatment women receive in the novel has to do with that. Just 2 examples to remonstrate with this point: Luo's spouse exists merely as an object, plain, one-dimensional, unrealistic, infantili

The Dark Forest - Liu Cixin: My opinion without spoilers

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1. Introduction ►  Publication year :  2008 ►  Genre:  Sci-fi, fantasy.   ►  Themes:  Chinese culture, space war, extra-terrestrial beings, technology,  physics,  military, politics, cryogenics, deception.  ►  Pages:  545 This is my  second book by Liu Cixin. I read it in English and really I liked it. I think it is interesting. Read my short, spoiler-free review on Goodreads . And read some criticism with spoilers, here . 2. Title and structure ★★★★★ Great title. And it delivers within the book! The Dark Forest theory is definitely worth thinking about. Does it exist in reality? It sounds plausible.  The structure of the book is not something the author really paid attention to.  3. Themes ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.1. World-building ★★ ★★ ✩ This second book is sub-par with the high level of science and philosophical inventiveness, creativity, and freshness introduced in the prior book. Nonetheless, the world-building is decent. I prefer the first book but I deeply appreciate that this second one i

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