Theta Sigma reviewed Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan
An enjoyable, if overly rushed, near future thriller
3 stars
The first section of Waste Tide was a carefully conceived speculative depiction of the near future and consequences of humanity’s wasteful consumerism. Section two twisted the narrative into something that felt more cyberpunk - this, again, was nicely conceived, even if I don’t think it was quite given the space to breathe. The third section suddenly ramped up the stakes and tension to eleven and the novel turned into a massive, earth shattering action novel with fights and spies and car chases… and the coherence of the novel really fell apart. Characters lost their depth, some characters were given deep emotional arcs completely undeserved from the earlier sections, and the plot points felt rushed and sloppy. These last two sections of the book either needed to be considerably slimmed down to focus on the emotional plight of the waste people, or given a lot more space to realise Chen Quifan’s …
The first section of Waste Tide was a carefully conceived speculative depiction of the near future and consequences of humanity’s wasteful consumerism. Section two twisted the narrative into something that felt more cyberpunk - this, again, was nicely conceived, even if I don’t think it was quite given the space to breathe. The third section suddenly ramped up the stakes and tension to eleven and the novel turned into a massive, earth shattering action novel with fights and spies and car chases… and the coherence of the novel really fell apart. Characters lost their depth, some characters were given deep emotional arcs completely undeserved from the earlier sections, and the plot points felt rushed and sloppy. These last two sections of the book either needed to be considerably slimmed down to focus on the emotional plight of the waste people, or given a lot more space to realise Chen Quifan’s larger vision. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the ideas that he explores - whether it’s the political commentary on the deprived members of society, the discussion on Chinese culture, the warning about ecological waste and humanity’s future, or the big epic sci-fi super technological arms race and the evolution of humanity, but they just needed a lot more time and space to breathe.