As the bulk of the characters are Chinese and they are supposed to be speaking Mandarin, Mr. I actually liked the fact that he didn't use a lot of Chinese accents when reading. The book is a little slow so I'd suggest trying to get a least 2 hours in before you decide whether you like it or not. I wish I could describe it better but like I said the closest book I've read to this type of story telling is "Spin" by Robert Wilson. To unravel the mystery a bunch of smaller stories of these strange occurrence are told from multiple characters and eventually they are slowly linked up to help you get a larger understanding. These strange things almost seem to have a supernatural force causing/guiding them from the background. During this period, strange this are happening in the areas of science both in academia and industrial application. Say a state that the world could theoretically reach in the next 10 years. The other portion of the book takes place in a modern to slightly futuristic setting.
Though if you do a little research I personally think you will enjoy it a lot more.
I don't think you have too do a lot of research to enjoy the story, for example if you don't know what a "Struggle Session" is (I didnt), the story gives you enough information to infer what it is. I personally did not know much about the cultural revolution, youth red guard, or the period known as the Great Leap Forward, and other things that occurred in China during that time but this book made me want to find out. While reading, I had to do a lot of searching on Wikipedia as large portions of the story occurs during the 1960 - 1980's. I will say that if I wasn't told it was translated, I would have assumed it was originally written in English by someone with a Mandarin background. I am 1/2 chinese, growing up up in America but my family spoke Hakka do I can't really say how well the translation is done.
This book was apparently translated from Mandarin to English. It takes many strange science related events and use many characters smaller stories to relate these events, which in the end add up to something big and sinister going on. It's reminds me of the book "Spin" by Robert Wilson. It's very difficult to describe this book. They create a computer using a 30 million man Army
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