I have been reading the English translations and the characters and especially their dialogues feel very fake. I do appreciate the hard science aspect of the books but the long monologues, kids speaking like middle-aged philosophers, and army personnel being one-dimensional macho men breaks the immersion for me. It has the depth of a 1980s low-budget thriller.
I don’t read a lot of hard science fiction or translations of Chinese books. I don’t know if this is genre-related.
Oh agreed! I’m rereading Dune right now to refresh my memory before the movie later this year and I love the characters, but at the same time I understand where the criticism comes from.
I don’t think it’s a translation problem; the second book has a different translator and if anything, the characters are even less realistic.