User Profile

Looks like it could be a fascinating story in the mode of Ken Liu's "silkpunk" stories and R.F. Kuang's Poppy War trilogy (the author of which whose name was mangled with S.L. Huang's in the Hugo controversy "report", I just thought that was hilarious), but as with the a previous work by this author I found the prose too herky jerky, long stretches of action with some dialogue but it doesn't really convey atmosphere and character to me, reads more like a screenplay, so I set it aside after the first chapter.

Looked like it could get interesting but written too much from a default white perspective for my taste - I stopped a few chapters in after "a black guy" "a Hispanic guy" "a Middle Eastern guy". Never "a white guy".

Interesting premise in the first volume of this series, and the art depicts the action and gritty dark future tone (heavy on the black ink), although how every woman (well, all three of them) have bodacious bodies distracts from the dialogue, which isn't that great anyway. It is a good setup, though, and I read this through in one setting, so that bodes well for the following volumes.

This was a very satisfying conclusing to the trilogy. I was mesmerized by the first book and enjoyed the second, although I have to admit it was a slowdown, but things pick up again with this third installment. These are all long stories with a lot of chapters constantly switching points of view (maybe that's a good thing as there are plenty of people-will-be-idiots scenarios which had me thinking this could get aggravating) but the action really gets going toward the end so I was bingeing the last chapters and also wondering if I was mistaken, there are so many things going on this must result in a cliffhanger for another book. And really, I wouldn't have minded.

This is the best book I've read about tea, although really the only book except for one self-published from China that said tea is great and it cures cancer. I do wish this one covered more varieties of Chinese tea instead of, for example, providing a bunch of tea cocktail recipes, but maybe he's trying to convert pub drinkers. Anyway, good background on the history of tea, the basic categories, and a smattering of individual varieties with, like a good coffee book, brewing tips, and a mild admonishment not to put all kinds of sugar, milk, honey, lemon, etc. in your tea, just get some good leaves and drink!