What do you think?
Rate this book
ばいばい、アース [Bye Bye, Earth] (Novel) #1
ばいばい、アース 1 理由の少女
いまだかつてない世界を描くため、地球(アース)に降りてきた男、冲方丁のデビュー2作目にして最高到達点!! 世界で唯一の少女ベルは、<唸る剣>を抱き、闘いと探索の旅に出る--。
- GenresFantasy
368 pages, Paperback
First published September 25, 2007
5 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Tow Ubukata
89 books16 followersUBUKATA Tow: 冲方 丁
He used to live in Nepal and Singapore. His favorite movie directors are: Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, Lars von Trier and Guy Ritchie.
He used to live in Nepal and Singapore. His favorite movie directors are: Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, Lars von Trier and Guy Ritchie.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 13, 2025
Confusing and unbalanced character dynamics. Unexplained magecraft and lore. Extravagant metaphor use and the burden of overwriting. Questionable narrative structure. BYE BYE, EARTH v1 is another light novel that throws everything at its readers at once, little of which is particularly good.
The novel occupies an interesting head space in that its primary character's goals shift considerably over the course of the story. Goals and expectations can and do shift as circumstances require. But if the reason for the shift has less to do with circumventing intermediate conflict than it does with recasting a character's extractable likeability (and engagement with other characters), then what readers find is less a matter of character growth (necessity) than a matter of character change (convenience). For example, the protagonist (Belle) meeting, disagreeing with, and befriending a key secondary character (Adonis, a sword collector and thief of sorts) is central to the story, but if these characters' unconventional dispositions are all that brings (or keeps) them together, then the story reads more contrived than it ought to.
BYE BYE, EARTH v1 rounds on a fantasy world populated by human/animal hybrid folk, further including a fair amount of violent magic, sleepless monsters, antagonistic aristocrats, and more. Regrettably, none of these components are satisfactorily explained in the context of the novel, but what readers do know is that Belle is an outlier. Belle is the ultimate outlier. Belle is human. The only human, one supposes, on the whole planet.
The book begins as Belle embarks upon a quest to learn more about herself. Breaking away from her longtime mentor (and incurring a magical curse that probits her from recalling his name or face), Belle is positioned as a doe-eyed, sword-wielding girl who is powerful but vastly underinformed. But as Belle hunts for precedent (with local authorities), recognition (among local fighters), and peace (for herself), she learns that being human in a world of beasts and monsters ultimately makes her all the more beastly or monstrous ("She'd set out on this journey to escape all the fear and hatred people directed at her, but the curse she'd taken on for that purpose had only ended up drawing more terror and revulsion," page 87).
Readers who crave a hard-bit protagonist who must scrap and scrape for her sense of self despite her exclusion and ostracization might be drawn to Belle and the handful of allies she makes. But BYE BYE, EARTH v1, unfortunately, isn't interested in nurturing this dynamic. The novel drifts, and an array of narrative structures and strictures, gradually, become less and less instructive. For example, the main character is vastly stronger than everybody else, but her only limitation is that her sword can no longer cut (only bludgeon) her opponents. The presumption is that Belle's uncertain sense of self is why the sword can't cut — this isn't a bad plot point, but it's not a good one, either. Self-doubt, on its own, is not a compelling narrative constraint for an obviously overpowered character.
Other examples the novel's drifting structural modesty include how the social and cultural hierarchy of the nation of Schwertland is entirely nonsensical. Initially, Belle crudely questions the order and arrangement of the land's authority figures (e.g., mocking the local god), but later in the novel, she's completely blithe to the country's aberrations (e.g., "Even Belle couldn't help but find Adonis's words blasphemous," page 134).
Elsewhere, the author's choice to mix, match, and mash together the flora, the fauna, and the geology of the nation (e.g., stones can turn into plants, and vice-versa), its elements (e.g., "steel fruit," "raven flower seeds," "lily-steel" sword, "water steel" clothes), and more will leave readers far more confused than intrigued. Only a minority of the author's invented terminology is reasonably defined, explained, or contextualized. The worldbuilding, as a consequence is both inadequate and incomplete. To this end, when the author uses musical roles in place of battle/combat titles (e.g., conductor, director, libretto, pianist), one is astonished to find the author sometimes aims to use these terms literally, with some characters performing a physical orchestral performance during battle, acts themselves which are half-explained but make zero sense in the context of the book's events (e.g., Why have roles to conduct or direct an orchestra if an orchestra doesn't actually exist?).
Further, the novel's shifting locus for Belle's antagonist (self, society, named villain) is a bit frustrating. What begins as a young character's initiative to validate her interest in exploring the country (and possibly the world) slowly wends its way toward an oddly unsatisfactory quest at the hands of the local lord to join a band of idiots to clear out a regional catacomb (or, more properly, a dungeon). Belle is so routinely sidetracked, despite being the strongest and most intuitive character in the whole book. Her agency is prominent throughout the story. But prominence and importance are not the same. Deliberate, thematic shifts make the story difficult to follow, and can wring the characters dry of the forces driving them forward, beyond the reach of the external impediments readers can already see coming.
Further, BYE BYE, EARTH v1 tries to do justice to its secondary characters by the story's end, but the climax is so horribly convoluted (via 12-page preamble) and needlessly extended (30 pages) that the effect is sorely diluted.
Even so, some of the book's additional characters are charming and fun. What reader wouldn't be fascinated by Kitty the All, a human/rabbit character who uses mathematical logic to cast brutal fire spells left and right? Sure, Kitty's presence is never explained, their abilities are incompatible with the narrative's established parameters, and their motives are creepy and enigmatic, but alas, fire magic! Neat. Elsewhere, consider Adonis, a sword thief and a human/cat fellow whose casual attitude belies the shame and seriousness with which he pursues a private means of overcoming his individual curse. Belle's attraction to Adonis may lead to heartbreak, but Adonis's revulsion for the land's governance and pseudo-royalty is a fantastic, if underplayed, facet of his character.
Insofar as core writing and translation efforts go, BYE BYE, EARTH v1 isn't a bad read. It's not great. The market supports worse. But altogether, good this is not. Many of the novel's most obvious and common issues, in this area, include bad onomatopoeia, overwrought metaphors, noisy interiority, poor blocking/staging, abandoned plot points, and generally weird or inexplicable gaps in magical lore that make the story unnecessarily difficult to follow.
For example, of noisy interiority, readers will commonly encounter whole paragraphs for which the third-person narrator overexplains painfully obvious character sentiment or increasingly obvious character decisions. Reiterating conspicuous plot details dumbs down the story, and presuming readers aren't intelligent enough to connect the dots from mere pages earlier is thoroughly insulting.
Bad onomatopoeia? Likely a language issue, but since Belle's sword hums and shrieks whenever she uses it, readers must succumb to awkward and unreadable strings of bold-formatted capital letters. The gag that the sword is just trying to yell the spell carved onto its face feels like a waste of time. It's a bad gimmick. A more fruitful effort would be for the author to describe the sound the sword makes and explore the effect that sound has on those who hear it.
Abandoned plot points? Worldbuilding incongruities? Badly-written fight scenes? Yes, the story's intro reveals that Belle wields a massive sword because it's the only thing heavy enough to keep her rooted to the soil. If she isn't holding onto the sword, she literally floats away. Frighteningly, the author forgets this critical detail.
Yes, much of this world is preindustrial, but for some reason, characters are tanning animal hides indoors. Either the author didn't do a lick of research, or these characters are much more robust than one gives them credit.
Yes, some of the fight scenes are good, but many are broadly incomprehensible. The most tragic (hilarious) among these issues rests in a moment toward the climax, during which, "at one point, [Adonis] even held two swords in each hand" (page 208). Imagine that: A quad-wielding swordsman!
BYE BYE, EARTH v1 is on the cleaner side of messy: The book has fun characters (whose motives and actions are executed with middling efficiency), novel worldbuilding elements (which are frequently inexplicable and inconsistent), and lots of cool monsters and magic (which lack context or history). Readers accustomed to the vicissitudes of fantasy light novels might tolerate the swings of curious drama and outright boredom this book engenders, but only just so.
The novel occupies an interesting head space in that its primary character's goals shift considerably over the course of the story. Goals and expectations can and do shift as circumstances require. But if the reason for the shift has less to do with circumventing intermediate conflict than it does with recasting a character's extractable likeability (and engagement with other characters), then what readers find is less a matter of character growth (necessity) than a matter of character change (convenience). For example, the protagonist (Belle) meeting, disagreeing with, and befriending a key secondary character (Adonis, a sword collector and thief of sorts) is central to the story, but if these characters' unconventional dispositions are all that brings (or keeps) them together, then the story reads more contrived than it ought to.
BYE BYE, EARTH v1 rounds on a fantasy world populated by human/animal hybrid folk, further including a fair amount of violent magic, sleepless monsters, antagonistic aristocrats, and more. Regrettably, none of these components are satisfactorily explained in the context of the novel, but what readers do know is that Belle is an outlier. Belle is the ultimate outlier. Belle is human. The only human, one supposes, on the whole planet.
The book begins as Belle embarks upon a quest to learn more about herself. Breaking away from her longtime mentor (and incurring a magical curse that probits her from recalling his name or face), Belle is positioned as a doe-eyed, sword-wielding girl who is powerful but vastly underinformed. But as Belle hunts for precedent (with local authorities), recognition (among local fighters), and peace (for herself), she learns that being human in a world of beasts and monsters ultimately makes her all the more beastly or monstrous ("She'd set out on this journey to escape all the fear and hatred people directed at her, but the curse she'd taken on for that purpose had only ended up drawing more terror and revulsion," page 87).
Readers who crave a hard-bit protagonist who must scrap and scrape for her sense of self despite her exclusion and ostracization might be drawn to Belle and the handful of allies she makes. But BYE BYE, EARTH v1, unfortunately, isn't interested in nurturing this dynamic. The novel drifts, and an array of narrative structures and strictures, gradually, become less and less instructive. For example, the main character is vastly stronger than everybody else, but her only limitation is that her sword can no longer cut (only bludgeon) her opponents. The presumption is that Belle's uncertain sense of self is why the sword can't cut — this isn't a bad plot point, but it's not a good one, either. Self-doubt, on its own, is not a compelling narrative constraint for an obviously overpowered character.
Other examples the novel's drifting structural modesty include how the social and cultural hierarchy of the nation of Schwertland is entirely nonsensical. Initially, Belle crudely questions the order and arrangement of the land's authority figures (e.g., mocking the local god), but later in the novel, she's completely blithe to the country's aberrations (e.g., "Even Belle couldn't help but find Adonis's words blasphemous," page 134).
Elsewhere, the author's choice to mix, match, and mash together the flora, the fauna, and the geology of the nation (e.g., stones can turn into plants, and vice-versa), its elements (e.g., "steel fruit," "raven flower seeds," "lily-steel" sword, "water steel" clothes), and more will leave readers far more confused than intrigued. Only a minority of the author's invented terminology is reasonably defined, explained, or contextualized. The worldbuilding, as a consequence is both inadequate and incomplete. To this end, when the author uses musical roles in place of battle/combat titles (e.g., conductor, director, libretto, pianist), one is astonished to find the author sometimes aims to use these terms literally, with some characters performing a physical orchestral performance during battle, acts themselves which are half-explained but make zero sense in the context of the book's events (e.g., Why have roles to conduct or direct an orchestra if an orchestra doesn't actually exist?).
Further, the novel's shifting locus for Belle's antagonist (self, society, named villain) is a bit frustrating. What begins as a young character's initiative to validate her interest in exploring the country (and possibly the world) slowly wends its way toward an oddly unsatisfactory quest at the hands of the local lord to join a band of idiots to clear out a regional catacomb (or, more properly, a dungeon). Belle is so routinely sidetracked, despite being the strongest and most intuitive character in the whole book. Her agency is prominent throughout the story. But prominence and importance are not the same. Deliberate, thematic shifts make the story difficult to follow, and can wring the characters dry of the forces driving them forward, beyond the reach of the external impediments readers can already see coming.
Further, BYE BYE, EARTH v1 tries to do justice to its secondary characters by the story's end, but the climax is so horribly convoluted (via 12-page preamble) and needlessly extended (30 pages) that the effect is sorely diluted.
Even so, some of the book's additional characters are charming and fun. What reader wouldn't be fascinated by Kitty the All, a human/rabbit character who uses mathematical logic to cast brutal fire spells left and right? Sure, Kitty's presence is never explained, their abilities are incompatible with the narrative's established parameters, and their motives are creepy and enigmatic, but alas, fire magic! Neat. Elsewhere, consider Adonis, a sword thief and a human/cat fellow whose casual attitude belies the shame and seriousness with which he pursues a private means of overcoming his individual curse. Belle's attraction to Adonis may lead to heartbreak, but Adonis's revulsion for the land's governance and pseudo-royalty is a fantastic, if underplayed, facet of his character.
Insofar as core writing and translation efforts go, BYE BYE, EARTH v1 isn't a bad read. It's not great. The market supports worse. But altogether, good this is not. Many of the novel's most obvious and common issues, in this area, include bad onomatopoeia, overwrought metaphors, noisy interiority, poor blocking/staging, abandoned plot points, and generally weird or inexplicable gaps in magical lore that make the story unnecessarily difficult to follow.
For example, of noisy interiority, readers will commonly encounter whole paragraphs for which the third-person narrator overexplains painfully obvious character sentiment or increasingly obvious character decisions. Reiterating conspicuous plot details dumbs down the story, and presuming readers aren't intelligent enough to connect the dots from mere pages earlier is thoroughly insulting.
Bad onomatopoeia? Likely a language issue, but since Belle's sword hums and shrieks whenever she uses it, readers must succumb to awkward and unreadable strings of bold-formatted capital letters. The gag that the sword is just trying to yell the spell carved onto its face feels like a waste of time. It's a bad gimmick. A more fruitful effort would be for the author to describe the sound the sword makes and explore the effect that sound has on those who hear it.
Abandoned plot points? Worldbuilding incongruities? Badly-written fight scenes? Yes, the story's intro reveals that Belle wields a massive sword because it's the only thing heavy enough to keep her rooted to the soil. If she isn't holding onto the sword, she literally floats away. Frighteningly, the author forgets this critical detail.
Yes, much of this world is preindustrial, but for some reason, characters are tanning animal hides indoors. Either the author didn't do a lick of research, or these characters are much more robust than one gives them credit.
Yes, some of the fight scenes are good, but many are broadly incomprehensible. The most tragic (hilarious) among these issues rests in a moment toward the climax, during which, "at one point, [Adonis] even held two swords in each hand" (page 208). Imagine that: A quad-wielding swordsman!
BYE BYE, EARTH v1 is on the cleaner side of messy: The book has fun characters (whose motives and actions are executed with middling efficiency), novel worldbuilding elements (which are frequently inexplicable and inconsistent), and lots of cool monsters and magic (which lack context or history). Readers accustomed to the vicissitudes of fantasy light novels might tolerate the swings of curious drama and outright boredom this book engenders, but only just so.
August 6, 2025
Between 2.5 and 3 stars, I can’t decide which. It has a very very cool world and atmosphere, but the storytelling fell flat in some areas. It felt directionless for a while, until around the third act, when it finally picked up and started to interest me. My main hurdle was the writing style though, it’s filled with a lot of ‘she didn’t know why, but she did this,’ which gets tiring. What DOES she know?!
Anyway, the two frog people and Kitty were great, so I guess I’m hooked.
Anyway, the two frog people and Kitty were great, so I guess I’m hooked.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews