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If you use Lloyds Bank in the UK, one of the deals you can enable in the app for the next couple of days is 25% (up to £2) cashback on a kindle book. I always forget to check the rewards.
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Apr 26, 2024 06:45
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So, the 3 body problem. Is it worth reading? The show had me rolling my eyes a lot with the ready player one stuff and shoehorned sentimentality related to one of the characters getting sick. However the overal setup of the plot intrigues me. I'm willing to wager a lot of stuff in the show has been added to the original story. Does the book series come to some sort of satisfying conclusion?
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Apr 26, 2024 06:52
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nah. neat china stuff but kinda a stiff read.
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Apr 26, 2024 06:54
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The book is boring as gently caress. The sequel is even worse. Not gonna read book 3. Some good/fun ideas but absolute poo poo grasp of pacing, tension, characters, dialogue, narrative momentum, etc.
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Apr 26, 2024 07:04
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Ugh, I'll let it slide then, I don't want to get Silo'd again. Also, after these Dune books I'm sure my goodwill tank will be depleted for along time.
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Apr 26, 2024 07:16
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GrandpaPants posted:The book is boring as gently caress. The sequel is even worse. Not gonna read book 3. it's really p bad, though with some neat ideas.
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Apr 26, 2024 07:29
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Mikojan posted:So, the 3 body problem. Is it worth reading? I really enjoyed all three books, although the first part of book 2 is a bit cringe worthy. If you like the plot and dislike the sentimental character stuff (which was almost all a creation of the show) then I think they're well worth reading
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Apr 26, 2024 07:30
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if you think the characters are flat in the first two books…
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Apr 26, 2024 07:48
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it's ok
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Apr 26, 2024 07:48
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If you can appreciate books purely for the sci-fi concepts then yes 3bp is worth reading. But the characters suck, the author has very weird ideas about gender and women, and the exposition is done almost entirely by characters going on 5-10 page monologues in which they explain everything like a robot. The overall narrative... Interesting. You never really expect the major plot points, but in a good way I guess. Honestly it's weird that they got so popular, which is a testament I guess to how interesting some of the science fiction concepts are.
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Apr 26, 2024 08:12
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voiceless anal fricative posted:If you can appreciate books purely for the sci-fi concepts then yes 3bp is worth reading. But the characters suck, the author has very weird ideas about gender and women, and the exposition is done almost entirely by characters going on 5-10 page monologues in which they explain everything like a robot. The overall narrative... Interesting. You never really expect the major plot points, but in a good way I guess. This is pretty much how I felt. The ideas were so interesting I just didn't care that the characters weren't
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Apr 26, 2024 08:36
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The downside of their success is that some Western readers bring themselves to the conclusion that the books are written that way because it is the conventional fashion for Chinese literature to have bad characterization. We’re talking exaggerated “the oriental mind does not value human individuals like we do” stuff.
FPyat fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 09:52
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Mikojan posted:So, the 3 body problem. Is it worth reading? The second and third books are awful. God I hate that series, the utter contempt Cixin Liu has for women and any society more liberal than a totalitarian hellscape is palpable. If you want Big Ideas SF that covers some of the same ground as the latter parts of that series, but did it first and with better prose (albeit not scintillating prose, granted), the Xeelee Sequence is where it's at, and has 100% less sexy robot ladies with katanas committing genocide while screaming about reclaiming human dignity through collectivism. If you're in the mood for Big Sci-Fi Ideas though, I'll also recommend the palate-cleanser I went to hatereading 3BP and its sequels: QNTM's Valuable Humans in Transit and Fine Structure. Absolutely wild stuff that is also reasonably well-written and wasn't authored by someone writing in the worst traditions of Golden Age SF.
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Apr 26, 2024 10:09
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FPyat posted:The downside of their success is that some Western readers bring themselves to the conclusion that the books are written that way because it is the conventional fashion for Chinese literature to have bad characterization. It doesn't help that the other main Chinese SF/F series that gets recommended is Bridge of Birds
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Apr 26, 2024 10:37
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Might be UK only, but the excellent HOUSE OF OPEN WOUNDS is less then two quid for today only https://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Open-Wounds-Tyrant-Philosophers-ebook/dp/B0CHHZL9KC/ I reckon you can probably start without reading CITY OF LAST CHANCES first with only minor niggles (though I would recommend the first book as well) Also book 3 DAYS OF SHATTERED FAITH is now up for preorder (Dec 5th release) for a decent price, I just put it in my queue.
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Apr 26, 2024 11:04
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FPyat posted:The downside of their success is that some Western readers bring themselves to the conclusion that the books are written that way because it is the conventional fashion for Chinese literature to have bad characterization. I have heard that it's terribly clunky in the chinese as well, but that's something I'm primed to believe so I distrust it instinctively.
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Apr 26, 2024 11:22
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If anything, "Authors of Big Idea sci-fi cannot write a character to save their lives" should be seen as a universal constant, not an avenue for division.
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Apr 26, 2024 11:54
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Sinatrapod posted:If anything, "Authors of Big Idea sci-fi cannot write a character to save their lives" should be seen as a universal constant, not an avenue for division. Someone should write a book where that's the big sci fi idea...
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Apr 26, 2024 11:56
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sebmojo posted:I have heard that it's terribly clunky in the chinese as well, but that's something I'm primed to believe so I distrust it instinctively.  ) so I also would believe it, with no specific nationality requiredthat said I also cannot confirm and I don't disagree with that distrust
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Apr 26, 2024 12:08
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Style wise, it's pretty similar to Clarke or Asimov. Not up to modern standards of characterisation, but nothing to do with the author's nationality.fermun posted:It doesn't help that the other main Chinese SF/F series that gets recommended is Bridge of Birds Interesting definition of "Chinese" here...
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Apr 26, 2024 14:40
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I liked the first book a whole hell of a lot more than the second, and I do think that's down to translation quality. But the book is just fundamentally flawed, characters paper thin, and strange excursions into magical realism. I don't think you can do magical realism in hard sci fi. A nitpick that may not bother you is that his neologisms loving suck. "Wall-facer" "Sword-holder', I like cool neologisms in sci fi, you know like cyberspace or zensunni wanderer, awkward ones always stick out to me and the ones in 3BP are the worst I've come across. I get that it's a translation issue, that "wall-facer" is a direct reference to a common chinese saying but it sounds bad in English.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:05
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I think it's cool and intriguing...very simple words used to create an uneasy image...why is he facing the wall? Are we in the Blair Witch Project? Am I stupid?
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Apr 26, 2024 15:08
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Mikojan posted:So, the 3 body problem. Is it worth reading? I read the books a few years ago and just got done watching S1 of the show. I was really impressed with the adaptation because they made the plot comprehensible, and I had assumed a lot of the wallfacer internal monologue stuff would be unfilmable. I think if you enjoyed the plot of the show, you'd enjoy the books. The books do have deep flaws, but the show didn't really gently caress around with the major plot beats. I didn't think the ship slicing scene could be portrayed so well. The show did a really good job imo, almost makes me forgive DB&DW for the end of GoT e: and it does have a conclusion thats not "god did it"
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Apr 26, 2024 15:09
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I still can't believe that the GoT ruiner it's the same guy who wrote the trippy nerd book Lucky Wander Boy
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Apr 26, 2024 15:26
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General Battuta posted:I think it's cool and intriguing...very simple words used to create an uneasy image...why is he facing the wall? Are we in the Blair Witch Project? Am I stupid? I am your wall breaker: no the wall isn't the important part, it's the facing of the wall. Should be "Guy Turner" Harold Fjord posted:I still can't believe that the GoT ruiner it's the same guy who wrote the trippy nerd book Lucky Wander Boy The other guy, Benioff, wrote City of Thieves, which is excellent historical fiction about the siege of Leningrad that uses the circumstances to stray into surreal horror zoux fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 15:29
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90s Cringe Rock posted:if you think the characters are flat in the first two books… I just want you to know that I see this and appreciate it. The books were okay. Writing sucked, ideas were good. I must say that the show was better having read the books first, because it helped clarify why they made some of the decisions that they did (like splitting one character into several).
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Apr 26, 2024 15:32
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Sinatrapod posted:If anything, "Authors of Big Idea sci-fi cannot write a character to save their lives" should be seen as a universal constant, not an avenue for division.  Also, it's not like there hasn't been rampant sexism in English language sci-fi.tetrapyloctomy posted:The books were okay. Writing sucked, ideas were good. The writing was passable in the first two books, and the reason the books are so well regarded is that the ideas are intriguing. The Dark Forest hypothesis as an answer to the Fermi Paradox is colloquially known as The Dark Forest hypothesis entirely because of the books. One of the things that's interesting to me is that the first book's translation is faithful to the original, but there's a big change in having the Cultural Revolution and Red Guard's execution of Ye Wenjie's father take place at the start whereas in the original book it was placed in the middle of the story so as to reduce the chance it would get censored. I think the English translation works all the better for that change, it foregrounds why Ye Wenjie does what she does. sebmojo posted:I have heard that it's terribly clunky in the chinese as well, but that's something I'm primed to believe so I distrust it instinctively. Yeah, that's similar to how I feel about my suspicion that the books might not have gotten published if Cixin Liu had written them starting in 2024 instead of in 2004. e: Also, mark me down for the Wall-Facer Is a Cool Sci-Fi Term defense corps, I think it's a neat as hell phrase, and it tells you what their job is!
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Apr 26, 2024 16:38
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FPyat posted:The downside of their success is that some Western readers bring themselves to the conclusion that the books are written that way because it is the conventional fashion for Chinese literature to have bad characterization. We’re talking exaggerated “the oriental mind does not value human individuals like we do” stuff. I just read the "about the author" page and it said former engineer and it all made sense. Engineer brain transcends culture
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Apr 26, 2024 16:42
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Kestral posted:If you're in the mood for Big Sci-Fi Ideas though, I'll also recommend the palate-cleanser I went to hatereading 3BP and its sequels: QNTM's Valuable Humans in Transit and Fine Structure. Absolutely wild stuff that is also reasonably well-written and wasn't authored by someone writing in the worst traditions of Golden Age SF. I haven't read all those stories in this collection but what I have is good. "Lena" is written like a Wikipedia article. That format really works for talking about mapping out a human brain and the possible side effects of that. Edit: Regarding 3bp. I didn't like how the aliens effectively brute force solves the titular problem but then it's revealed to be moot because their planet will fly into their sun anyway. Wouldn't every planet be uninhabitable by that metric? The earth isn't always going to be in a habitable zone around the sun. gurragadon fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 16:55
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habeasdorkus posted:Seconding this, Oryx and Crake was real good dystopian fiction. Yeah, Oryx and Crake is great, maybe by favorite Atwood. The sequels are pretty good too, though more conventional. 90s Cringe Rock posted:if you think the characters are flat in the first two books…  Safety Biscuits posted:Style wise, it's pretty similar to Clarke or Asimov. Not up to modern standards of characterisation, but nothing to do with the author's nationality. Yeah, it's pretty much in keeping with "Golden Age" SF in terms of characters (and gender politics). They're definitely "novels of ideas" and their characters exist to explain and experience those ideas rather than be people one can believe in. I think the first and third books are good. The second suffers from a very flat translation, but it still features some wild SF conceits. Joel Martinsen's prose is just more dry than Ken Liu's, and I suspect the original Chinese is not very poetic to begin with.
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Apr 26, 2024 17:05
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habeasdorkus posted:The Dark Forest hypothesis as an answer to the Fermi Paradox is colloquially known as The Dark Forest hypothesis entirely because of the books. Yeah, but the concept was around since forever.
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Apr 26, 2024 17:06
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90s Cringe Rock posted:if you think the characters are flat in the first two books… 
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Apr 26, 2024 17:19
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habeasdorkus posted:One of the things that's interesting to me is that the first book's translation is faithful to the original, but there's a big change in having the Cultural Revolution and Red Guard's execution of Ye Wenjie's father take place at the start whereas in the original book it was placed in the middle of the story so as to reduce the chance it would get censored. I think the English translation works all the better for that change, it foregrounds why Ye Wenjie does what she does. Oh, that's interesting. And I definitely agree, it's better off occur chronologically instead of making it a flashback reveal later on.
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Apr 26, 2024 18:03
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zoux posted:I liked the first book a whole hell of a lot more than the second, and I do think that's down to translation quality. Ken Liu translated the first and third books, but the second book was translated by somebody else and it is noticeably worse imo.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:29
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Strategic Tea posted:
"Major character is really someone else under a false identity" is a recurring motif in Reynolds' stuff, I can think of at least four more examples.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:34
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fritz posted:"Major character is really someone else under a false identity" is a recurring motif in Reynolds' stuff, I can think of at least four more examples.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:40
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How do people feel about the destroyermen series? I have them all on audible and have almost finished them, but the last book has a new narrator and is a little hard to get into because of that.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:47
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mystes posted:The worst part is I was expecting a twist like that to happen in Revenger and Eversion where it didn't Revenger book 2 had one, the guy they recruit who used to work for the book one villain is really somebody else, and Eversion's plot is basically about the narrator's refusal to acknowledge their actual identity and another character's attempt to change that.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:52
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voiceless anal fricative posted:If you can appreciate books purely for the sci-fi concepts then yes 3bp is worth reading. The action sequences in later books are much the same. If you have ever enjoyed reading Wikipedia synopses, you may enjoy 3bp
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Apr 26, 2024 22:04
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The prose in 3bp is often as alien as the concepts, which kind of made reading them like finding a pulp paperback that fell through a portal from one of the Fringe parallel universes. Then again, I thought the best part of Blindsight, by far, was the appendix. YMMV
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Apr 26, 2024 22:12
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