Vikki Terrile

Noticeable continuity problems, awkward and often repetitive phrasing, and a large cast of characters muddy a story that can’t seem to decide if it is cli-fi or a futurist police thriller. Try Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 for a substantially more successful riff on the same theme.

For readers who enjoy a bit of the speculative with their literary fiction, this is an overall thought-provoking look at culture, society, and relationships.

Already an award winner in China, this debut is likely to draw comparisons to Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem and Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 and is a provocative addition to the growing corpus of Chinese speculative fiction and near-future and realist sf as a whole.

The sisters are generally less whiny, self-absorbed, and prone to unaccountably foolish decisions than they were in the first book in the series, but the exposition remains plodding and tends toward information dumping. Still, fantasy readers looking for a female-focused story without the strategy and battle descriptions typical of epic fantasy may find this worthwhile.—Vikki Terrile, Queensborough Community Coll., Bayside, NY