A View from the Stars: Stories and Essays

Is Liu Cixin intelligent? Of course. Do I find the ways he discusses most issues very interesting? Not particularly. Do I tend to agree with him? Not really.

This was a weird project, because the interplay between short stories and essays felt poorly handled and a lot of the “essay” parts were pretty short and were clearly written for other things. Maybe a first half of fiction and a second half of nonfiction would have felt smoother? Regardless, I didn't really love any of it. Some of the stories were nice, and I liked his essay about Ken Liu's short stories, as well as the one where he talks about various sci-fi ideas. But largely I found the stories not long enough to sustain interest and the essays either something I disagreed with his thoughts on or just found kinda obvious. Overall, this collection made me slightly less likely to read this author more, which is not what you hope for.