[jajko]

The tech/fantasy parts are great and were novel back then. But the characters were shallow, story so-so and ended in big meh, and overal it feels like chinese propaganda re freedom and future.

Any non-chinese character is evil for example, only chinese will inherit the right for their future. Western culture moved from such properly bad cliches long time ago for the better.

[bencyoung]

I think it's more that western cultural cliches become invisible to western audiences rather than moving on. E.g. the "superhero" is definitely a western cliche. "A lone operative defies the rules to do the right thing because might is right if you're right. Individual exceptionalism triumphing etc". Somewhat shallowly examined in some films but still turns up all over the place.

[dcminter]

The opening scene of the first novel during the cultural revolution I recall as being absolutely fantastic. The rest of that novel was a big rather dull Asimovian deus ex, and then the rest of the series was more of that.

Big disappointment, very much not what I think of as hard sci-fi which is what it often gets billed as, and I absolutely do not get the love for it here.

Don't get me wrong, there's some total dross out there that I adore, but this ain't it for me.

[qingcharles]

As a hard sci-fi fan, I thoroughly enjoyed the books. They're a lot "harder" than most popular sci-fi books out there.

[dcminter]

Then I can only assume that you and I have very different definitions of "hard sci-fi"