A View From the Stars by Cixin Liu

TL;DR: A weirdly structured collection of essays and stories. Probably more for the devoted fans of Cixin Liu than anyone else.
Source: NetGalley, thank you to the publisher!

Collection: As far as a collection, this one felt like a bunch of saved files from a folder with no real collective theme or reason. It was fairly disappointing.
Characters: Not many of note here, Cixin is more an idea writer than a character writer.
Settings: See above, nothing of much interest as far as settings go.
Science: His idea of science and Scifi reminds me very much of classic Science Fiction. Which has a distinct flavor to it, very similar to classic fantasy (which is ironic considering his view on Fantasy).

Thoughts:

I have read some Cixin Liu in the past and generally found his work interesting though bleak and I have to say that holds true through most of the content in this collection. This is a combination of essays and stories with no clear actual structure. We’ll read an essay discussing a story and get a different story on the front and tail end. A strange choice, to be sure.

Additionally, while Cixin Liu is clearly a super smart individual we don’t agree on many things (especially his takes on ‘fantasy’) and he generally seems to be a bit of pessimist based on his writing.

For those reasons I didn’t love this collection. I can’t say I’d recommend it either, unless you’re a devoted fan of his work or just want more after trying out Three Body Problem.

3 stars out of 5