S. K. Chang

I'd seen this book on a set of bookshelves at a party in San Francisco in 2004 and the dust jacket copy intrigued me enough to still want to read it 7 years later. I'm very curious about both science fiction and fantasy that come from non-Western traditions, and this seemed like a great read.

It was definitely intriguing, and the concepts certainly reeled me in - various original people, time travel, a crazy urban center with its own mythology - but the writing just didn't do it for me. The action proceeded kind of ridiculously fast, in that characters would go from one plot point to another to another at such a rapid pace that I didn't have time to have any emotional reactions to the events in the book. The end felt like it should have been contemplative, but the action had happened so quickly and I hadn't had any time to get emotionally acquainted with most of the characters, that it didn't seem as moving as it could have been.

This is still an interesting read, and worth reading as a survey of science fiction from around the world.… (meer)