Character, dialogue and interaction: 5/9.

First, let me comment on the characters. Frankly speaking, I don’t like any of the characters in it. They’re all one‑dimensional to me—too superficial, too clichéd, too boring, and too tedious. I also think it’s a powerful skill to write unlikeable characters while still keeping readers engaged.

Actually, I didn’t like Holden, because I thought he was the kind of kid who’d gotten everything he wanted since childhood. He had so many parents, so no doubt he was always idealistic and self-righteous in his adulthood. He doesn’t really sympathize with others and doesn’t care about many things. He was used as a tool to trigger the war between Earth and Mars, and he went along with it. And I couldn’t see that he felt any regret after Miller criticized him.

At the same time, Miller is more likable, but not that likable to me, because I didn’t understand anything about him, including his suicidal thoughts.

Plot, suspense and climax: 5/9. I would have given a higher score if it had been presented in a tighter and brisker manner.

Actually, I read this book twice. When I first read it, I found I couldn’t stand the characters. The perspective alternates between the two main protagonists: Holden and Miller. So I just skipped Miller’s parts entirely, because I thought his police work was boring. I only read the chapters from Holden’s point of view. Once I finished the book, I realized Miller was actually the more likeable character, because he sacrificed himself like a hero. So I went back to the beginning and reread the whole book—this time, I read all of Miller’s chapters too. But I even now don’t regret skipping Miller’s parts the first time since the beginning of his story really was as boring as a nightmare. The police work just felt dull. I’ve seen other writers make police stories very interesting, full of suspense and exciting events, but these writers clearly didn’t manage to show the good and bad sides of police work in an engaging way—even on an alien planet! So I don’t think this book is a real bestseller. It lacks the typical elements that make bestsellers work. There’s not enough suspense, the plot is really slow, and the climax only comes at the very end. Traditionally, each chapter in a bestseller ends with a cliffhanger and has its own small climax.

Let me describe the plot as quickly as possible:

An unknown alien technology left a particle called the protomolecule on the planet a long time ago. The bad scientists discovered it and wanted to experiment with it on people. A naive young girl tried to investigate this project. She probably got information from her parents, who were funding those unethical scientists. Then she was caught.

The lead scientists planned to use the entire crew as lab rats for their experiments — even the girl. She was infected, and her ship was used as bait to attack a passing ship captained by our protagonist, Holden. Holden was so furious when his ship was destroyed that he broadcast a message claiming that a Martian ship had attacked him. This played right into the mad scientists’ plan, because they wanted to provoke a war between Earth and Mars. Later, when a ship tried to pick up Holden to investigate the incident, the scientists attacked again and destroyed the Martian flagship as as to further the provocation.

In the end, Holden managed to escape with the help of Martian officers and had no choice but to ask Fred for help. Why this man wanted to help the protagonist? Because there are three major powers in this world: Earth, Mars, and the Belt. The Belt was completely dwarfed by Earth and Mars, so it did not want a war between the two — otherwise, the Belt would suffer. That’s why Fred took in Holden and his crew: he wanted both justice and peace.

At the same time, what our other protagonist did can be summarized in just one sentence: Miller was ordered by his superior to investigate the missing girl, but his superior finally fired him because he did his job too well.

This action, on the contrary, prompted him to investigate deeper, because he clearly had nothing to lose at all. At the same time, Fred told Holden to go to the planet called Eros, because an unknown survivor had sent a signal to Fred from that planet. So they finally met on Eros and found the body of the dead girl.

But they soon found scientists’ thugs pretended to be cops as as to use millions of people here as lab rats. They managed to escape from them.

After that, they learned the whole truth from the chip left by the missing girl and then contacted Fred to find the culprit. There Miller found that the mad scientist was too persuasive—he had a silver tongue. So Miller ended up shooting him without any warning and without any proper trial, because he knew the scientist would probably not get real punishment, since all the major powers wanted his data.

Then, Miller also cooperated with Fred to destroy Eros completely, because the protomolecule on that station was irreversible. They planned to direct it into the Sun, so as to prevent the alien weapon from harming more people. But the protomolecule clearly had its own consciousness, or some kind of self‑protection mechanism. It manipulated the trajectory, using its mysterious power to deflect the original course and head directly for Earth.

Previously, Miller wanted to commit suicide, so he stayed on Eros to fall into the Sun with the girl he cared about—the missing girl. But at that moment, he found the girl still had some consciousness that he could connect with. He persuaded the girl to change the protomolecule’s course, and made Eros crash into Venus instead.

So at last the remaining people became heroes, and they went to the TV studio to talk about Miller on the broadcast.

Theme, conflict, and impact: 4/9.

I didn’t like authors who dump large amounts of details in an unattractive way just to enrich the world instead of the plots or the characters, because information like these just feels like cheap and unnecessary filler rather than the delicate elaboration of the storyteller.

The scene where Julie Mao was forced to merge with the protomolecule, and then suddenly regained consciousness just to connect with Miller and solve the problem, felt extremely unrealistic, clichéd and melodramatic. It was almost like a cheesy fairy tale, where a prince wakes a sleeping princess with a kiss. Such a plot felt forced, overly romantic, and far too unrealistic for a so-called hard sci‑fi story.

World, wonder, and detail: 5/9. I would have given a higher score if the writers had presented it in a less obstructive and annoying manner and discreetly avoided its loopholes.

Its world is hardcore, immense and detailed in some aspects, which is great—but I have to say the narration is boring. The way they dump all that worldbuilding detail in such a tedious, repetitive, and lackluster presentation is really problematic.

There are some plot holes I can’t stand:

First, Holden’s decision to board the Scopuli made little sense. His ship could easily detect no life signs remotely, yet he still sent a shuttle crew anyway. Naomi reported that the big array on their Canterbury could directly detect that there was nobody else within 20 million klicks. So why did they—as civilians—waste their time and risk their lives approaching the distress caller? It did not make any sense! In reality, civilians only needed to report and wait instead of approaching and boarding. This came across as either reckless character writing or forced plot setup.

Second, the OPA behaved irrationally. They received Julie Mao’s distress signal weeks early, but delayed any real action until Holden and his stolen ship became available. This either painted the OPA as unconcerned, unorganized or cold-hearted, or simply served as plot convenience to wait for the main characters.

Third, Julie Mao’s choices were the most illogical of all. She was clearly conscious, equipped and capable: She escaped the Anubis, drove a shuttle, flew to Eros, faked her name, avoided the customs, and booked a hotel room. She had money, time and equipment to send a full, detailed message to the OPA or any other superpower about the encountered incident or the future disaster on Eros. Yet she only sent a vague, incomplete beacon. This was the story’s most serious logical weakness—driven purely by narrative needs, not real human behavior.

Voice, narration, structure, etc: 4/9.

Big letters, foreign terms, and slangs jumped out out of nowhere from time to time, and they kept interrupting my reading flow. It was completely annoying.

Also, I don’t like the first-person perspective with so much psychological exposition. I understand the writer’s effort to make readers connect with these characters, but it just felt nauseating, because I don’t want to read about how they want to rape a drunk woman, or dream about a dying girl. I think if you want readers to admire a character, you shouldn’t write their psychological state directly. Instead, you should write from the perspective of other side characters, such as people who admire them, or just use side characters to contrast and highlight their traits.

But all in all, I don’t regret reading it. I like its worldbuilding and its plots a bit, but I don’t like how it’s presented—especially the two main characters.