Dušan Jovanović

Right of the bat, I want to give big praise to the translator of this book, Bojan Tarabić. I read it in my native language (Serbian) and the choice of words had me reaching for the dictionary quite a few times. I don't know if it was an artistic choice of the translator or a stylistic imitation of the original to use such unorthodox phrasing and wording but it strongly elevated my reading experience.

That being said, this was a awful book. I could understand the one-dimensional characters, pasing issues and the messy narrative structure if the ideas were at least presented in a meaningful way. But they are not. They are dry exposition dumps that are no more exciting than reading a physics textbook. And they are delivered in a very non-organic way where the whole story is interrupted just so the author can take a few pages to explain a concept. They concepts are not organically woven into the story.

I had no idea what to expect when I started reading. The opening had me hooked. Science community during the Chinese cultural revolution. Sounds exciting. Certainly novel to me. But then it goes to a present day murder mystery. Which turns into a sci-fi mystery with the countdown (which gets completely abandoned) Then there is the video game which helps introduce the alien race. And after the video game is finished it's just meanders from one info dump and character back-story to another with eye-rolling plot conveniences, interruptered only once for that boat-cutting "action" scene. Even though digestable, interesting sci-fi concepts does not a good story make.

This whole book is just clumsy introduction with fascinating concepts and one interesting character (the cop). Someone else wrote this, but I could read a book just about the adventures of Da Shi. I am very hesitant about continuing with this series. And I've grown tired of people telling me to endure the first book because everything improves with later installments. If the author wanted me to continue, they should've written a more compelling first novel. Nowadays we get these thousand+ page monstrocities that are divided into three parts and we are asked to blindly trust that things will get better as the story progresses. I'm not sold.

I tried reading this book in high school but I didn't finish it because I couldn't understand what was going on. Now, about 25 years later, and after watching the new films, I decided to give it another try. There is nothing I can say that hasn't already been said before. The book is that good and it still holds up to this day. The amount of ideas, themes, and characters Herbert was able to competenly weave into the story is amazing. Melding sci-fi, fantasy, philosophy, religion, politics, magic(?), into one (relatively) cohesive narrative, it is remarkable the story didn't collapse under its own weight. All this accomplished with an unconventional writing style I haven't seen in modern fiction. I have a feeling he was sleeping with a thesaurus under his pillow.

The book isn't perfect though. The middle section is a bit of a drag and the ending is a bit anticlimactic. There are some inevitable differences between the book and the films. The dinner chapter is completely ommited from the film. As are a few characters. But I enjoyed it immensely nonetheless.

If there is one word that I would use to describe this book it would be "efficient". It's a competently written, self contained story that sets up an interesting world leaves and just enough hints to entice you to check out the rest of the series. And I have to say I will be doing that. Schwab's efficient writing style it is right up my alley. She gives you just enough words to describe the situation and let your imagination do the rest.

She also structures the story brilliantly and doesn't waste your time. If she mentiones something or someone, that person or item will reappear later in the story. No loose threads.

I didn't know anything about this author or this series going in. After finishing it I saw that it's being classified as YA. I can feel the YA vibe that others are picking up but it's not a adjective I would use to describe it. There are some despicable acts being committed (murder, torture, rape attempt).

The obvious task of the (first) book is to establish the world(s) and take the main characters on an adventure. But for all their traversing between worlds, the scope of the story seems rather small to me. Because they flip between 3 versions of the same city, it kind of feels like switching color palletes between scenes.

The villains are evil just for the sake of being evil. It's established that in white London you have to be ruthless to stay in power and rulers get overturned frequently. Schwab might've sacrificed developing the villains at the expense of brisk story pacing. Ultimately, they served their purpose in driving the plot forward.

The two main characters, Kell and Lila, have a dynamic chemistry and hilarious exchanges. Their pasts are obscured enough to spark our interest in their origins. And even though their stories have been neatly wrapped up I will want to know what happened next.

This novel is a fun ride that is reads like a script for a film. It doesn't take too much of your time. The science is easy to digest. Character development is sacrificed in order to keep the story brisking at a steady pace. Except for the apocalyptic disease-ridden Chigago, that section felt unnecessary to me. And out of character, as well. It's hard to believe that a man of science wouldn't go back the minute he realized he was walking into this world. But I guess the author need to drive the point home how much he loves his wife.

Some interesting questions asked about identity, the choices we make in life and the consequences we have to live with. But not much exploration. Because that plot needs to continue chugging along in order to arrive to it's Hollywoody happy ending.