Mixed feelings, yet find myself wanting to love the book. Starts slow with lots of backstory that would likely be more relevant to me if I were to re-read the novel. The core plotline of a potential alien invasion doesn’t truly get mentioned until more than halfway through the book. All the Chinese character names made it hard to remember which character was which. Identifying the protagonist(s) was also unclear. The shift from the abstract backstory of historical China to almost over-explaining what happened next was like “oh, I’ve spent all these pages in slow-mo mode, now I have to catch up or page count is going to get out of control.” Characters were flat with the exception of the police detective, Da Shi. That’s a lot of negatives. Positives: the ideas in the book were both fresh and thought-provoking. Clearly the author was ambitious in the story he hoped to tell and how he wove in China’s actual history with modern day science and new sci-fi perspectives. The weaving in of a large amount of “real” modern science (and its limitations) was also cool. The book provided arguments for being both pro-invasion and anti-invasion of alien life –– and had the reader (at least this one) switching sides multiple times. This was really a story about humanity with the sci-fi/technology piece being only one of the characters. That may be the key to the book and series. It’s not us against them (aliens) as much as it is us against ourselves. I can see why Netflix is launching a series on it, but they will need to take creative license to tell the book’s story in a consumable, streaming fashion.