I have read the book & partly because of that I found the early episodes very repetitive and slow, I'm convinced that the book delivered those concepts far more smoothly! This is pretty much the only big negative of the entire show. I mean sure I could nitpick a lot if I wanted to about some silly TV innovations near the final episodes, but I enjoyed those too I suppose. If memory serves the fake science in the book was far more digestible, they have made some things a WEE BIT crazy in the show, but even those were quite fun, adding some action scenes to liven up the experience a little is acceptable to me. ("After a long time, life and civilization will begin again" Right!)

Everything else is pretty great. This is the best scifi show I have watched in a very long time. I have kind of given up on Scifi television, because Hollywood stopped making quality content & no one else had the budget to even try, but somehow China did it & it even passed censorship, which is a miracle in itself. Honestly though, the production values are VERY GOOD. The fact that most CG happens in the game world helps a lot with the magic. The OST is fantastic & so are the non CGI visuals. The main actors also did a more than commendable job.

So while this is obviously not even close to a perfect adaptation, I think it's more faithful to the original than the Lord of the Rings films, just to put things in perspective..

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If I really wanted to attack it from a political perspective, there are some very legitimate points others have brought up, but if you care too much about those things, would it be even possible to peacefully watch ANY scifi show?