Shiveen Pandita

I read this 4 years ago so I guess this review is delayed. I reread it again now and had the same feeling of wonder that I did last time. Also, probably one of the best foreign language translations in any of the books I have read.

DNF, The book is too slow. I came in after reading the whole Xelee omnibus, and this felt like some of the stories there that, in hindsight, I should have stopped midway too. Life is too short to read stories with no action or a meandering plot or an insufferable protagonist.

Really good book with the right amount of culture undertones. I liked that unlike the previous one with Iridans they spent some time fleshing out the new society.

Some bits of it seemed a bit unnecessary, especially early on but the actual plot points later on and flow of the story imo was flawless. Highly recommend.

I think it's the most okay book I have read this year. Sapiens was nice and tolerable but maybe I was more naive (less judgemental) then. This book is great until you start realizing that everything Hariri is portraying, is through their own lopsided, sometimes needlessly negative view of the world so they can show you a slightly pretty picture in the outro of the chapter. The book was a slog once I started reading it through this lens.

Still, rated 3 since there are some interesting and novel ideas but all in all I kinda regrest wasting my time on it.

Waste of time