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DUALITY: The World of Lies
Nestled within the great Orion Nebula turns an ancient circular binary star system where everything is divided and forever seeking balance, where the star you are born under determines your role in its destiny. The Red Star and the Blue have known centuries of peace, but is it a peace more deadly than war? Populations are exploding while biomass reserves dwindle under the shadow of a demigod’s ultimatum which forewarns of a divine reckoning set to catastrophically rebalance the Taiji -if humanity cannot. In this first volume of the Duality series, join a pair of star-crossed conspirators as they put their lives on the line to uncover a mystery at the heart of the Red Star and a disillusioned monk as he traverses the span of a continent filled with natural wonders and dharma temples in his formative search for truth. Nothing is ever what it seems in the Taiji, where every being’s perception is framed and distorted by the wicked cycles of sophistry, mind-control, intrigues, and conspiracies upon conspiracies in the karmic quicksand they have been born into. Who can transcend The World of Lies?
265 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 20, 2015
7 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 27, 2025
DNF at 34% (Jan 2025)
I’m not sure what to say about this. On the one hand, the worldbuilding promises interesting things: a dualist universe divided into yin and yang (red and blue), everyone has a counterpart/soulmate (I’m thinking about zhiji here), and a supercomputer and a demigod in charge. On the other hand, the writing style (and characterization) is wildly inconsistent and vacillates between (attempted) mystery and juvenile simplicity with a lot of telling and no showing and long dialogue scenes with just the dialogue, nothing more. (If you’ve seen the “she breasted boobily” memes, that’s the level of skill I’m talking about.)
All in all, this was one of the dullest and mind-bogglingly underwhelming books I’ve ever tried to read. Two storylines that seemingly have nothing to do with each other, a society that functions…in a way that’s never explained, characters that most likely are the author’s self-insert and his wet daydreams, and a plot I frankly couldn’t care less about. I don’t know who these people are, what they’re trying to do and why, and I don’t give a fuck.
What baffled me the most, perhaps, was that this dude apparently lived in China for 13 years and yet the book is painfully white despite half-hearted attempts to slap on some Chinese philosophy ideals without really bothering to make them work. I’m quite sure he couldn’t escape the whole 13 years with zero exposure to C-drama and MEN WITH LONG HAIR ADORNED WITH BRAIDS, HAIR PIECES, AND/OR BEADS and yet, he chose to paint his self-insert MC nOt bOtHerED bY ThiS aTtaCk oN hiS mAsCuliNitY.
This isn’t a book, this is a badly and lazily framed idea that continuously contradicts its own logic and that needs a FUCKTON of editing and grammar nitpicking to make it a book. It sparked no joy because I was about to fall asleep every two pages. The only reason I even wanted to try to read this is because this fills one challenge prompt. Urk.
I’m not sure what to say about this. On the one hand, the worldbuilding promises interesting things: a dualist universe divided into yin and yang (red and blue), everyone has a counterpart/soulmate (I’m thinking about zhiji here), and a supercomputer and a demigod in charge. On the other hand, the writing style (and characterization) is wildly inconsistent and vacillates between (attempted) mystery and juvenile simplicity with a lot of telling and no showing and long dialogue scenes with just the dialogue, nothing more. (If you’ve seen the “she breasted boobily” memes, that’s the level of skill I’m talking about.)
All in all, this was one of the dullest and mind-bogglingly underwhelming books I’ve ever tried to read. Two storylines that seemingly have nothing to do with each other, a society that functions…in a way that’s never explained, characters that most likely are the author’s self-insert and his wet daydreams, and a plot I frankly couldn’t care less about. I don’t know who these people are, what they’re trying to do and why, and I don’t give a fuck.
What baffled me the most, perhaps, was that this dude apparently lived in China for 13 years and yet the book is painfully white despite half-hearted attempts to slap on some Chinese philosophy ideals without really bothering to make them work. I’m quite sure he couldn’t escape the whole 13 years with zero exposure to C-drama and MEN WITH LONG HAIR ADORNED WITH BRAIDS, HAIR PIECES, AND/OR BEADS and yet, he chose to paint his self-insert MC nOt bOtHerED bY ThiS aTtaCk oN hiS mAsCuliNitY.
This isn’t a book, this is a badly and lazily framed idea that continuously contradicts its own logic and that needs a FUCKTON of editing and grammar nitpicking to make it a book. It sparked no joy because I was about to fall asleep every two pages. The only reason I even wanted to try to read this is because this fills one challenge prompt. Urk.
Displaying 1 of 1 review