Interrupting Soliloquy

The word I would use with this book, from start to finish, is "intriguing." The plot is intriguing. The premise is intriguing. The universe is intriguing. Most of the characters are intriguing. Not really Wang, considering he severely suffers from "I am main character protagonist beep boop" syndrome. Which is relatively okay, as the book also barely seems to remember that Wang is the protagonist, considering it frequently jumps perspective and style for backstories and scientific exposition (and there is A LOT of scientific exposition).

The characters that aren't Wang, however, are intricate and conflicted. Even the one could be argued as the villain of the book has an understandable history, but with enough self-control to have it be their intention to ruin everything.

Ultimately, despite having read a whole book, I feel like I've read the first few chapters. My interested is peaked, and I'm ready to read the rest, but it hasn't reached a point where I've started to Hulk out in terms of enjoying it so much my brain explodes.

Also, I was happy to read and glimpse into a scifi culture that was not necessarily entrenched Western perception of scifi, but I have to say, there are a lot of women dead in this book. I appreciated women being scientists and people with motivations in their own right, but some of them are depicted as basically heartless, and I'm pretty sure all of them die (though that last one I suppose I will confirm in the next book), and it focuses much more on the interaction of different dudes which is okay if I couldn't already read that in any book. Like seriously, now that I'm under the spoiler tag, Yang Dong is a distant presence and plot device, as is Shen. Ye gets the most character development, but is the villain and even in her backstory acknowledges the fact that she was withered of emotion. All of them portray some forms of women being cold and turned away. AND THEY ALL. DIE. Christ I hope we never learn about Wang's wife in any serious way because as soon as she begins exhibiting shade of a third dimension to her character, she'll probably be found dead in the kitchen.