The discussion centers on the "Three Body Problem" trilogy by Cixin Liu, with participants sharing their mixed feelings about the series. Key points include critiques of the cultural translation and character motivations, as well as the depiction of the Cultural Revolution. Some readers found the trilogy to be hard science fiction, while others questioned its narrative coherence and character development. The trilogy's success is attributed to its unique perspective on Chinese culture, despite some skepticism regarding its acclaim in Western circles.
PREREQUISITESReaders interested in hard science fiction, literary critics analyzing cultural translations, and those exploring the intersection of science fiction and historical context.
I talked about the whole trilogy. Including Deaths End.jedishrfu said:You can read about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel)
Basically, it ends with an anticipated arrival...
GTOM said:I talked about the whole trilogy. Including Deaths End.
Ok thank you. Sounds really interesting. :)DEvens said:The first book is about the nasty aliens coming. And some humans are helping them.
The second book finds a way to cope with them. Not win, mind you, but cope. The title _The Dark Forest_ is a big hint there. In a dark forest, you hide because you are afraid of wolves. If somebody is harassing you badly enough, you can make noise and attract wolves. Then you will both die.
The third book includes the really nasty aliens coming because humans made enough noise to attract them. Both the aliens from the first two books and humans get the smack-down. A very small number of humans manage to escape. Two of them manage to get into a "pocket reality" kind of thing, where they are basically cut off from the rest of the universe.
However, many different species have done this hide-in-a-pocket thing, and so the total mass of the universe has been affected. The big crunch was therefore prevented. A call goes out on pocket-reality-radio to come back out of these holes so the mass is available for big-crunch. Enough entities do so to restart the big crunch. The two humans leave only a single souvenir in their pocket reality. It's a glass bubble containing a pocket ecology with some green plants and small critters. The pocket reality contains a light source, so this pocket ecology in a pocket reality should be able to continue for some considerable time.
The trilogy ends with the end of the current big-bang-big-crunch cycle.
jedishrfu said:When I read it, I got the cultural shakes too. On the other hand, it gives you some insight into Chinese Communist culture from the inside, something we never learn much about.
It reminded of a trip to a historical site of a fort in Canada only to learn that the bad Americans crossed the water and massacred everyone and burned the fort to the ground not something you expect to hear usually and so a bit unsettling.
Tghu Verd said:I wrote my review on Amazon ages ago, but I honestly thought it lost a lot in translation. The entire opening sequence was cultural histrionics that did not resonate with me as a Western audience member, the stoic motivation of cast members seemed unlikely, and the physics that allowed the first book ending to occur felt entirely deus ex machina.
Summary, I did not like it, really didn't understand the hype, and will always wonder whether the 'China factor' underpinned its success.
GTOM said:But reader reviews praised the trilogy as really hard SF
Chalk is much harder than soap or pudding. :)GTOM said:Maybe it was awarded due to Chinese factor (nowadays i don't care about awards and barely about critic review, since they gave Hugo to Wonder Woman...) But reader reviews praised the trilogy as really hard SF.
Alastair Reynolds is not granite hard either. The characters are still pushed around the galaxy in magic boats. Relevation Space reveals how confused a story line becomes when relativity is included. If you make it through more than half of Revelation Space it does eventually make sense why the story had to jump back and forth in time.Tghu Verd said:It is hard sci-fi but beyond the realm of our understanding, so not in the same category as Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space series, for example which accounted for GR. I can't immediately think of a comparable author, perhaps Greg Egan when he's writing QM-related stories in the sense of 'hard', but it was the cast who were entirely off kilter for me.
stefan r said:Alastair Reynolds is not granite hard either.
Tghu Verd said:Who writes hard sci-fi in your opinion, @stefan r ?
stefan r said:I like TV tropes https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.
Having Copernicus and Newton sword fighting would not be historically accurate either. The description is a video game view. The game was designed to explain circumstance that a human might not understand.GTOM said:I wonder, did the laws of the 3 suns system make any sense?
I found the lack of transition phases pretty unbelievable, at first a small meteor, than suddenly, a sun that boils people.