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Mar 26, 2016davedean rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
I really like this. It's definitely science fiction, an alien invasion story, but with virtually no action. That's a definite plus. Instead, like Neal Stephenson's SevenEves, it is almost entirely about engineering and the preparations and conflicts among defense designers that occur during the four hundred years it takes for the alien fleet to reach the solar system. The vanguard of the invasion are sentient particles called sophons. They are able to travel, it is implied, much faster than spaceships could, so they come first, centuries earlier, to sow discord on Earth. The sophons cannot directly hurt anyone, but they successfully distract and discourage the brightest scientists enough that technological progress is frozen at its present level. Frustration and despair are the result, but some people still try to plan to resist. The planners are called "Wallfacers," as they must keep their competing plans secret from the omnipresent sophons. Each Wallfacer is asigned a "Wallbreaker," whose job is to question and subvert his concept (echoing the Israeli defense concept that at least one member of any committee must always dissent from any majority opinion.) The only sequence in any way approaching "action," an assassination among rival groups of engineers, takes place at a vast remove and in complete silence, and is itself something of an elaborate engineering feat. There are no heroes and no messiah figures, and there is corruption and dysfunction at every level. It's never clear whose ideas are better or more likely to have good results. A technological method for combating despair about the almost certainly unwinnable future war is especially chilling (with a welcome nod to Canticle for Leibowitz -- the statues outside the "faith stations.") What a good and thoughtful book this is. It's a testament to the power of the author (and the translator) that it's so absorbing and entertaining. There's an awkward turn of phrase here and there, a sure sign of a diligent and gifted translator, along with footnotes when needed, to explain concepts from Chinese history and literature that most Western readers might miss. If there's a flaw, it is possibly the distracting lack of Indian characters among the many mathematicians, scientists and engineers. The space force seems to be composed almost entirely of Chinese and Americans with Anglo names, with a few Japanese and Latino names thrown in now and then. Without getting into stereotypes about high IQ's among people of Indian descent (some of which are substantiated by statistics,) people with Indian names are so strongly represented in the technological and scientific worlds, even in the U.S. and at NASA that it rings false that no character appears to be Indian in any way. There are no very strong female characters in this volume either, and there are no female point of view characters at all, but maybe that's supposed to reflect the tech world being frozen at its present limits rather than evolving too. The Three Body Problem had a strong, well-written and morally complex woman protagonist, so maybe this will be remedied in volume three. I can't wait to see what happens next!