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i read 3BP as an illustration of the inapplicability of game theory to real life. like, it takes so much authorial crowbarring to make the rational game-theoretic monsters correct that clearly the whole series is intended as a mockery of the "tough" men who make "hard choices", right
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Dec 2, 2021 22:53
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Nomnom Cookie posted:i read 3BP as an illustration of the inapplicability of game theory to real life. like, it takes so much authorial crowbarring to make the rational game-theoretic monsters correct that clearly the whole series is intended as a mockery of the "tough" men who make "hard choices", right Cixin has said the series was meant as a sincere depiction and warning to humanity of the implications of dark forest theory
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Dec 2, 2021 23:01
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DACK FAYDEN posted:To me the weirdest part of the nationalism is that there's a Hard Man Making Hard Choices who's right 100% of the time... and he's American for some reason. Like, the entire rest of the trilogy would not have had me guess that. In unenthusiastic defence of TBP, the American is consistently portrayed as a creepy nutter. The 'hard man making hard choices' is then extrapolated to a cannibal starship that is shunned with disgust by humanity, to the point of faking a victory parade and then jeering the crew into prison. My charitable interpretation is that Liu is saying the sort of species that can survive a dark forest universe is disturbing and unpleasant, and that the real solution is to close ourselves off into splendid isolation.
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Dec 2, 2021 23:33
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Famethrowa posted:feeling much better about my decision to drop 3BP series immediately after the first If you like sci fi you should read the rest, they are absolutely worth it. Everything that has been mentioned relates to the characters, which are never the strong point of sci fi. The background world and sci fi concepts are extremely solid. The scope shift between book 1 and 3 is so mind blowing it deserves to be experienced.
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Dec 2, 2021 23:53
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I don't think ~big ideas~ are worth that kind of horseshit, personally.
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Dec 2, 2021 23:56
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I can find mind blowing sci-fi without reading sexist trash, thanks.
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Dec 2, 2021 23:57
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packetmantis posted:I don't think ~big ideas~ are worth that kind of horseshit, personally. Totally agree with this TBH despite trying to put the best spin on TBP. 'Classic' authors especially. Big ideas about robots is no excuse for creepy uncle poo poo and libertarian STEMlord leanings. The genre is so vastly overpublished there must be better out there.
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Dec 3, 2021 00:00
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Cherryh and Kameron Hurley’s works come to mind.
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Dec 3, 2021 00:03
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i've been speeding through a bunch of adrian tchaikovsky over the past week - the expert system novellas (and a weird eldritch tales anthology) i guess he really does have a thing for colonists fighting a hostile planet
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Dec 3, 2021 00:32
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I honestly don't think 3BP is sexist. As I remember it the female character that was mentioned simply hesitated for a second whether commiting genocide was right, unlike the unhinged male character that held her position previously. It's not like that guy is well adjusted and lauded as a paragon of virtue. Her flaw is being an average human and not a monster. And then she goes on to save the multiverse or something like that. "The aliens forced human males to become feminized" is outright bullshit.
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Dec 3, 2021 00:33
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The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance #1) by NK Jemisin - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ZDJZO2/ Eon (The Way #1) by Greg Bear - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J3EU5RC/
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Dec 3, 2021 00:41
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There's some stuff I absolutely don't agree with in those books, big sweeping generalisations about "women do X men do Y" and the essential nature of whole populations as a result of different historical circumstances. I kind of think people bag on the depiction of Cheng Xin in DEATH'S END because she's just written as sort of a decent person, rather than the kind of absurd Wallfacer headcases she's surrounded by. Is it really misogynistic to be fundamentally unwilling to do what she's asked to do? I guess if the book's making the argument that she can't do that specifically because she's a woman, yeah, it is. But Cheng's decisions are hardly a series of aesops on the importance of ruthlessness and cynical calculation: she makes very reasonable and often forward-looking decisions. Trusting sociopathic CIA agents with large quantities of antimatter, for example, is usually a bad call. The fact that her decisions don't all turn out well isn't her fault, or even a moral judgment on her character. She does her best with what she knows and with a fairly humane set of ethics (compared to most of the characters in the series). Stories don't have to be fables. They don't need to have lessons. People can just make decisions which don't turn out the way they wanted because the universe is big and chaotic and complicated. I dunno. I think calling Cheng Xin incompetent or foolish requires accepting that a permanent condition of MAD with an alien species, depending entirely on a single human being's absolute willingness to destroy them both at the drop of a hat isn't incompetent or foolish. At worst, I think Cheng Xin is just a fairly sane person in a completely bonkers universe. And at the end of it all she makes the right choice. She's depicted as being someone ultimately capable of moving past the dicta of mere survival that pretty much define the story of the 3BP trilogy. Even if the reasons for her moral success can be read as misogynistic (stereotypes of women as more nurturing, other-oriented, etc) I think the book wants us to think well of her. Maybe Cixin Liu thinks the world would be better if it worked the way Cheng Xin thinks it does than the way he thinks it does.
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Dec 3, 2021 04:35
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Well, of course the writer puts it much better than I could. The female character isn't weak or makes bad decisions because she is a woman. She simply isn't a monster like other characters, and at the end of the day she ends up doing the right thing, if you consider the universe exiting a net good. The original wallfacer was useful, and the respect he earns out of it makes for a great scene in the tea house, but we aren't supposed to think "that woman sure ruined a good situation".
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Dec 3, 2021 04:45
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3BP is one of the worst genre writing I've ever read. The big ideas were eh, the writing quality was dismal bordering on farcical, and the hypernationalism obnoxious but also super wierd. The hard pivots between tearing down the hosed up events of the Great Leap Forward and then straight into hypernationalism were jarring AF. 2/10, mind boggles at how much money must have been spent buying reviews for it, only thing worse I've read this decade was The Expanse. I will concede, however, that translating a big idea novel into English is hard work and many of my gripes may be due to that. I will never know. It's pretty dire if you're contending with The Expanse for "shittiest writing" tho.
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Dec 3, 2021 05:23
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General Battuta posted:Even if the reasons for her moral success can be read as misogynistic (stereotypes of women as more nurturing, other-oriented, etc) I think the book wants us to think well of her. I mean - this does still suck, though. I have a really low tolerance for that sort of poo poo. It's why I don't read much older scifi written by dudes these days.
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Dec 3, 2021 05:46
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Nomnom Cookie posted:clearly the whole series is intended as a mockery of the "tough" men who make "hard choices", right tbf this discussion is making me more anxious for Tor to let Exordia out of editing hell
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Dec 3, 2021 06:01
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Rime posted:3BP is one of the worst genre writing I've ever read. The big ideas were eh, the writing quality was dismal bordering on farcical, and the hypernationalism obnoxious but also super wierd. The hard pivots between tearing down the hosed up events of the Great Leap Forward and then straight into hypernationalism were jarring AF. Considering this thread was all over 3BP when it was released, this is an interesting change of tone. Maybe the thread was then infiltrated by Chinese book publishers  My recollection of 3BP was meh sci-fi, while the historical part of Maos china was kinda interesting. But there are better books for the latter, while the ending turned me off from the rest of the series.
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Dec 3, 2021 06:01
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I still liked it because Dark Forest is an interesting idea and 3bp explored that some And most of the time I don't even notice bad writing, or can get past it. I think the only books I've had to put down in the last couple of years because they're offensively bad was the Lindsay Ellis book (axioms edge?) and ready player one SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Dec 3, 2021 |
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Dec 3, 2021 06:03
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:I still liked it because Dark Forest is an interesting idea and 3bp explored that some having not read Cixin's trilogy yet, I'm wondering how readers here feel it stacks up to Forge of Stars/Anvil of Stars in that regard or the largely forgotten The Killing Star
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Dec 3, 2021 06:08
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HopperUK posted:I mean - this does still suck, though. I have a really low tolerance for that sort of poo poo. It's why I don't read much older scifi written by dudes these days. Yes.
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Dec 3, 2021 06:11
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Lots of thievery recommendations, thank you all !
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Dec 3, 2021 06:19
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3BP was okay when I read it a bit ago. The later scifi concepts were cool but the characters outside the cop I did not really care for so I've not been in a hurry to read the other two. I'll probably read them eventually but my queue shifts all the time just like my to-watch queue for movies and tv, it might be years. The bug books by Tchaikovsky I think I mentioned off-hand I stopped reading them at some point but I forgot which number (7 or 8 i think), they were fun but there was an point where they took a break for a while in the world before resuming and the story momentum never got back going for me. Will probably not go back as too much reading but you never know. I agree with the poster who said there wasn't enough bug stories out there, am adding bug books to my to-write list, let bugify the planet! Not enough ebooks went on sale during cyber monday but I have been keeping up with Bing rewards to get more amazon gift cards to pay for the ebook deals.
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Dec 3, 2021 09:00
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Mr. Nemo posted:
No it isn't, they're straight up do a psyop to turn human culture down an impotent degenerate path by sharing a fake version of their own culture them with the intention of making humanity too soft and weak to continue the cold war with them, one of the main ways this is conveyed is by the men of the future largely being girlish femboys and the cryogenicly frozen returnees from the 21st century being the only people in the room who look and behave like real men. It's only in the bunker-era after the Trisolarans peace out that humanity's gender roles return to 'normal', presumably free of the cultural interference These are good points, I guess what really pushed it into absurdity for me was just how repeatedly Cheng Xin snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, after she dooms humanity for the third or forth time by being the good-natured goofus to Wade's hard-nosed pragmatist gallant it really does start to read as a fable!
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Dec 3, 2021 09:18
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StrixNebulosa posted:God, same. I got halfway into the first book and was honestly disappointed the bug people thing didn't mean more than it did. It's like... a few powers and that's it. Not buggy enough for my tastes! If you don’t mind anthropomorphizing (literally) your bugs, Benjamin Medrano’s Sting and Song has a giant bee that is turned into a bee girl because the god chaos won a round of cards. Joy (the bee and our protagonist) finds it wildly disorienting while fraught with perils such as “how do I get down from this flower?” As with all things KU feel free to bail if it isn’t your jam. Joy is pretty chipper though.
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Dec 3, 2021 14:49
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Anias posted:If you don’t mind anthropomorphizing (literally) your bugs, Benjamin Medrano’s Sting and Song has a giant bee that is turned into a bee girl because the god chaos won a round of cards. Joy (the bee and our protagonist) finds it wildly disorienting while fraught with perils such as “how do I get down from this flower?” Oh that sounds super fun! I'll give it a go, thank you!
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Dec 3, 2021 14:51
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https://twitter.com/neonhemlock/status/1466463441837768715 This sounds right up my alley!
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Dec 3, 2021 15:41
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StrixNebulosa posted:I may go back and read the whole thing someday though, there basically is nothing else for bug people in fantasy/sci-fi outside of Children of Time and Kameron Hurley's work. Tars Tarkas posted:I agree with the poster who said there wasn't enough bug stories out there, am adding bug books to my to-write list, let bugify the planet! 
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Dec 3, 2021 16:33
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I am a fool, I am a blind idiot, I can't believe I've been forgetting to read this thing 
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Dec 3, 2021 16:40
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PupsOfWar posted:having not read Cixin's trilogy yet, I'm wondering how readers here feel it stacks up to Forge of Stars/Anvil of Stars in that regard The Dark Forest is more pessimistic than the universe of Forge of Stars.
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Dec 3, 2021 16:48
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all this fighting over The Three Body Problem just makes me want to read the entire trilogy to see for myself. Right now I am about halfway through the first, and am naturally struck between the parallels (and clear differences) between 3Body and Mercerism.
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Dec 3, 2021 16:59
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Just remembered how in 3BP (SERIES SPOILER! not book) in book 2 we are presented with the "apocalyptic" scenario of two species MADing each other, only to learn in book 3 that in the large scale of things that's entirely meaningless because the whole universe is in ruins after wars that have been going on for eons. The shrinking 4D space and the message left there, the earth and the museum getting flattened, the messages at the end of the universe in all languages requesting matter to return to the universe. So good Mr. Nemo fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Dec 3, 2021 |
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Dec 3, 2021 18:06
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StrixNebulosa posted:God, same. I got halfway into the first book and was honestly disappointed the bug people thing didn't mean more than it did. It's like... a few powers and that's it. Not buggy enough for my tastes! In addition to what's already been mentioned, Tchaikovsky wrote another bug book, the standalone Spiderlight, in which a dysfunctional D&D-style adventuring party out to defeat evil In Accordance With The Prophecy need to recruit a giant intelligent spider (which then gets polymorphed into a mostly-human form) It's very "you've taken a perfectly good spider and hosed it up, look at it, it's got anxiety"
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Dec 3, 2021 18:12
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the man loves bugs. He simply cannot get enough of their glistening thoraxes
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Dec 3, 2021 19:25
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this is what it was always about, wasn't it? https://twitter.com/Boringstein/status/1466839262540845060?s=20
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Dec 3, 2021 20:44
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uber_stoat posted:this is what it was always about, wasn't it? .... wait, what. I didn't realize Neon yang was involved in that. Ugh.
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Dec 3, 2021 20:47
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uber_stoat posted:this is what it was always about, wasn't it? This is too cryptic for me to follow -- what happ ? edit OH the Isabel Falls thing.
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Dec 3, 2021 20:57
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This is too cryptic for me to follow -- what happ ? yes. https://twitter.com/notsayingsoryu/status/1466823517979115526?s=20
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Dec 3, 2021 21:01
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uber_stoat posted:this is what it was always about, wasn't it? There's something so perverse about these fake-wholesome social climbers weaponising social justice rhetoric against other queer people, it gets under my skin far more than any stupid twitter fascist guy. They straight up ruined a woman's life for clout and can barely give a shrug in apology, it's vile
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Dec 3, 2021 21:02
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It's a hard reminder to avoid any public facing social media at all that can't be burned to the ground without regret, unless you literally have to for your work. It must be awful to be a modern author who lives or dies on the publicity.
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Dec 3, 2021 21:09
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Rime posted:3BP is one of the worst genre writing I've ever read. The big ideas were eh, the writing quality was dismal bordering on farcical, and the hypernationalism obnoxious but also super wierd. The hard pivots between tearing down the hosed up events of the Great Leap Forward and then straight into hypernationalism were jarring AF. I also had serious problems with the writing quality of The Three-Body Problem and was uncertain how much of that to attribute to the original and how much to attribute to poor translation.
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Dec 3, 2021 21:29
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