Breaking the Book: Kaleidoscope of Death Review
Danmei Review: Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu
Authors sometimes break the worlds they’ve painstakingly created. It’s often accidental. They’re too close to the story to notice the mistakes or their grand ideas cause contradictions and inconsistencies in the plot.
As an author it’s possible to craft a world in which 2 + 2 = 5. You make and have complete control of the rules so they can be whatever you like. The only catch is that the rules must remain consistent. If they’re any exceptions to a rule it must be clearly explained to the reader.
It can take months or even years to write a book, but as a reader you're covering that same content in a matter of weeks or months. Depending on the size of the book and the amount of free time you have you may be able to finish a book within a day. This makes spotting inconsistencies easy. Errors can become glaringly obvious.
Today I’d like to discuss the Chinese web novel Kaleidoscope of Death because the author breaks the book’s internal logic in one of the weirdest ways I’ve ever see. She does it in a bonus chapter after the main story was already over. The decision to add a twist, in chapter 140, that completely undermines everything left me puzzled.
Please note that this review will contain more spoilers than usual. I typically include a snippet about the book’s beginning and my overall thoughts. However, this discussion is going to include some of the major plot twists and holes of the novel. Stop reading at the downsides if you haven’t read the book and don’t want to be completely spoiled.
The Story
The novel opens with Liu Qiushi and Ruan Baijie walking in the woods towards a nearby village. Moments before Liu Qiushi had been at home when an eerie hallway with large metal doors appeared. Looking for a way out he tries the doors. One of them opens and transports him to a different world where he meets the beautiful Ruan Baijie. She appears to be very distressed, but they soon meet someone who’s able to explain what’s going on.
They’re told that they’re in a place where supernatural events occur. In order to escape they’ll have to complete various tasks and solve whatever problems arise. Once they do they’ll be able to find the key and the door that leads back home. In the meantime they’ll be stuck in that remote village with no help from the outside world.
Liu Qiushi has found himself within the world of the doors. It’s a place where people on the verge of death get a second chance to change their fate. By competing and surviving the ordeals within the doors they get to live longer.
Who’s it For?
Fans of the supernatural could give it a try. It’s an infinite flow novel in which the characters go from one horrific world to the next trying to survive. Characters also have to do a bit of investigating to uncover what’s happening in each world so there’s mystery as well. However, most of these mysteries don’t come to a satisfying conclusion, so the novel works best when treated as a mere horror story.
Your ability to enjoy this book will depend largely on how much you like the main characters. You’re introduced to these fun characters and then forced to watch them struggle to stay alive within the world of the doors.
Liu Qiushi is portrayed as a relatively normal guy who gets sucked into a strange situation. He may be a little lonely and he’s obsessed with his pet cat, but he appears to be a simple and relatable character.
On the other hand Ruan Nanzhu alternates between being an overly dramatic young woman and a cold calculating leader who’s turned the doors into his profession. He’s both shameless and ruthless.
The Romance
This is a danmei and the woman the main character is getting close to happens to be tall and flat chested. Observant readers will realize long before Liu Qiushi does that she’s a man who’s crossdressing as a woman.
The two of them get along pretty well and work together to clear the first door. During that time Ruan’s constantly teasing him. He later learns the truth about Ruan’s identity. He finds out that Ruan Nanzhu and Ruan Baijie are the same person, but it changes nothing between them. Liu Qiushi continues to accept the flirting, the casual touches and plays along with all of Ruan’s antics.
The most frustrating part of their early relationship is how dense Liu Qiushi is when it comes to anything romantic. He’s clueless and doesn’t notice that Ruan is genuinely interested in him, but once they get their act together they’re a nice couple.
The Downsides
The mystery behind each door isn’t fully explained. The characters tend to figure out something that leads them to the key. They’ll find the door and then escape. That’s great, but what did it all mean? When reading a mystery don’t you expect to get an answer by the end of it?
I’ve actually watched The Spirealm, which is a Chinese drama based on this novel. In the drama you can see that they made attempts to build on the worlds within the doors. The drama’s backstories don’t always make perfect sense either. They were probably created to stretch the show’s runtime, but whatever the reason they at least try to give more detailed explanations than the book does.
The lack of good female characters is another problem. There are a lot of female characters in this novel but most of them are ghost, ghouls or lackluster rivals to Ruan. There’s one woman in the team but she’s described as having a low sense of presence. She shows up on holidays, to cook or to worry over the others and then promptly disappears.
Tang Yao Yao has more of a presence in the story. However, I feel like her character is not fully fleshed out either. She’s used as more of a cautionary tale. It’s like the author’s saying, see this is what happens when you don’t train for the doors.
Ruan Nanzhu is the biggest boss and the baddest bitch. As much as I love him he steals the spotlight from everyone else, especially the women. When he's acting as a woman he puts on this Mean Girl's attitude. He’ll tell a woman to her face that he thinks he’s prettier than her and then wonder why she’s annoyed? Excuse me Sir, you started it. His cattiness makes most women dislike him and creates petty rivalries. While it’s entertaining it's also completely unnecessary in a survival game.
The biggest downside of this novel is its plot holes. There are so many inconsistencies and flaws in the logic that I had to keep telling my brain to shut up.
There are small ones, like Liu Qiushi going from being cat obsessed to barely mentioning the animal later on. To the larger issues like Tang Yao Yao’s gruesome on stage death. Readers are repeatedly shown characters preparing for the doors. Packing bags to take with them, sticking close to their partner for the trip, etc. This is because they can all sense when their next door is coming. Knowing that it’s almost time for her door why would she choose to go to that award show. It’s her life on the line and she’s terrified of the doors so why would she do that?
I could probably write another thousand words listing all the contradictions I found. Trying to explain why they don’t make sense would be exhausting so I’ll be fast-forwarding to the end.
Near the end of the book Liu Qiushi is able to escape what he thinks is his eleventh door and return to reality. Only to discover that what he just came out of was his twelfth door and that no one remembers Ruan Nanzhu. He searches frantically for Ruan but cannot find him. There’s no proof that such a person ever existed. It’s takes half a year before Ruan returns and the two are reunited. The main story ends on a happy note, but with unanswered questions. Such as why did the twelfth door seal itself after the two of them left.
This is where chapter 140 comes in and readers are finally given an explanation as to what’s going on with Ruan. It turns out that he’s the monster or NPC (non player character) from the twelfth door.
The creature falls in love with Liu after watching him spend years going through the doors. It wants to be by Liu Qiushi’s side so the formless being turns itself into a copy of Liu Qiushi. He then changes the physical appearance of that body. He alters both their memories and takes over Liu Qiushi’s life. He then approaches Liu as Ruan Baijie and the story as we know it begins with them walking together in the woods.
This revelation raises so many questions and causes so many problems. Does this mean that everything that happened in the story took place inside the twelfth door? Did they only return to reality in chapter 139? Or is it that Ruan was able to leave the door? How could he continue affecting things in the outside world to pretend to be human when he wiped his own memories too?
The most logical explanation would be that they were in the door the whole time. Then nothing that happened would have been real. What about all the people they encountered? They met each others families for goodness sake, but Ruan is a door monster and therefore has no family. Were these real people, based on people from Liu’s life or more NPC’s. Where’s the line between what’s supposed to be real or from the original world and that of the worlds within the doors.
Next question, does this mean that Liu Qiushi fell in love with himself? If Ruan copied Liu Qiushi’s personality and then Qiushi falls in love with said personality then doesn’t that mean he fell in love with himself. He fell for a person that was nearly identical to himself personality wise. I know people say you need to love yourself before you can love anyone else, but this is getting ridiculous. Also this should mean that Liu Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu have similar personalities and that’s never been shown to be true.
This final twist irrevocably breaks the plot and then stomps on the pieces. It undermines everything readers thought they knew about the characters, their personalities and their backstories. The worst part of all of this might be the fact that it occurs in a bonus chapter. The story was already over, flaws and all. Then the author decided to add one extra twist which unraveled everything.
Despite this I did enjoy the novel. I’m a fan of horror stories, even dumb ones. However, I’d be hesitant to recommend this book to others and if I did I’d tell then to not read any of the bonus chapters.