Annihilation is a super quick read, so you could probably knock it out in one evening, if you've ever got a free night for reading. It's a great study on crafting a setting, in my opinion.
Like I said, I found the Radiant Emperor books to be frustrating because the potential was huge, and some of the potential was fulfilled, but other parts were very fumbled to me. When the books are good, they are FANTASTIC. I loved the writing itself and the two deuteragonists' story lines (General Ouyang and Wang Baoxiang.) But holy moly did I slowly get more and more annoyed with the main character Zhu. It's worth noting that the author publicly changed pronouns between the publication of book one and book two, so I think they were working some personal gender stuff out with Zhu while writing the series, but those aspect of it felt very "on the nose" as you say, and frankly amateurish compared to how competently other aspects of the series are handled. I also got annoyed with Zhu because their class background as a peasant gets completely overlooked and forgotten even though thematically this series should be just as much about class as it is about gender. To be frank, the main character Zhu was my least favorite part of the series, and I think the book(s) the author could've written if they focused instead entirely on the two deuteragonists (and the himbo between them, Essen-Temur) would've been 10x better. However, a lot of my frustration stems from how much I did genuinely love reading the books, and there is a lot to mull over as both a reader and writer with them, so I do recommend the duology.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2024-01-06 03:15 pm (UTC)Like I said, I found the Radiant Emperor books to be frustrating because the potential was huge, and some of the potential was fulfilled, but other parts were very fumbled to me. When the books are good, they are FANTASTIC. I loved the writing itself and the two deuteragonists' story lines (General Ouyang and Wang Baoxiang.) But holy moly did I slowly get more and more annoyed with the main character Zhu. It's worth noting that the author publicly changed pronouns between the publication of book one and book two, so I think they were working some personal gender stuff out with Zhu while writing the series, but those aspect of it felt very "on the nose" as you say, and frankly amateurish compared to how competently other aspects of the series are handled. I also got annoyed with Zhu because their class background as a peasant gets completely overlooked and forgotten even though thematically this series should be just as much about class as it is about gender. To be frank, the main character Zhu was my least favorite part of the series, and I think the book(s) the author could've written if they focused instead entirely on the two deuteragonists (and the himbo between them, Essen-Temur) would've been 10x better. However, a lot of my frustration stems from how much I did genuinely love reading the books, and there is a lot to mull over as both a reader and writer with them, so I do recommend the duology.