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I'm plugging my way through The Dark Forest trilogy for the second time. It's pretty good sci fi. Also it is a look into Chinese culture where the Chinese culture isn't the star of the show. Like an American writing about Chinese culture will make the culture some big obstacle or spectacle or something. It's refreshing just reading what people do someplace that isn't my country. Although this author really leans into the trope of everyone getting a label and acting in accordance with that label. Like oh redshirt is Lutheran and we'll call him "Lutheran redshirt" and here's a list of characteristics that all Lutheran people share therefore this is exactly how Lutheran redshirt will behave and he's going to retire and tell us stories about Lutherans until the moment of his very Lutheran death. There's not a lot of complexity in characters. One guy literally dedicated his entire life to solving a math problem, and that was his only personality trait. Just Math Problem Dave. Great trilogy though, would recommend.
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Dec 26, 2023 07:49
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Finished up Three Body Problem reread. It was ok, above average for sure but I still don't feel it was the revelational scifi that people say it is. I know it's a novel, which often necessitates having a main character, but there's a really hamfisted main character syndrome thing going on. Anyway I picked up the same author's The Wandering Earth. I'm 50 pages in and the main character is a complete jerk, let's see how this goes it could be interesting!
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Mar 1, 2024 07:30
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Earwicker posted:are you referring to the series or just the first book? i thought the second novel was a lot better than the other two and the one that i thought was the main reason the series is held in such high esteem. but yea i agree the characters are pretty weak I thought the third book in particular was really weak in this area. There's exactly one lady who rose from low-level scientist to world-saving messiah figure for no reason. And then ascends again to being the only world-saving messiah figure throughout history because she constantly goes into hibernation only to be awakened at history's greatest need. And then she also happens to own the biggest corporation in the world, which has employees who will work to grow her wealth and status while she hibernates. Because she's apparently the only person in history capable of running a corporation. After she completely bottles the role of world-saving messiah the fourth or fifth time, she just happens to be in secret possession of the thing that can save her from the apocalypse, which the inventor of invented during her hibernation, kept secret, made only one of, and then didn't just use himself or for his family. Come on.
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Mar 1, 2024 18:38
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TK8325 posted:I'm two thirds of the way through The Three Body Problem and...it loving sucks. It's so boring. I feel like the author crams in a bunch of technical bullshit to cover up a mediocre story. I don't loving care about the wavelength size of the red coast dish. If I wanted a technical journal I'd read PLOS One. Unless it picks up I don't think I'm gonna finish the trilogy. The third book is so much worse than the first two. Abandon them now. I found a collection of The Best American Short Stories 1993 that my dad bought for me. He inscribed the inside "to Bighead, one of the best short readers of 1993."  And I am reminded that John Updike starts paragraphs with the word "And."
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Apr 4, 2024 05:06
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