Haha that trilogy might be my favorite of all time but I also TOTALLY get that take. I’m just a big fucking sucker for the second and third books as they get increasingly ridiculous.
Totally worth it to read the second and third. The first book almost feels unrelated but it’s got some crucial context that gets built on to the extreme later
Easily my top 5 sci-fi
I didn’t even make it through the first few chapters, Chinese writing style is just terribly convoluted and full of unnecessary pathos. Reminded me of some early 1700s literature from Britain, like Robinson Crusoe.
But ‘Robinson Crusoe’ is good. For a solid couple months after finishing it, I was still daydreaming about some kinda survival shelter-building game set on a tropical island — only a mobile one, because I didn’t want to be perched at the desktop more than necessary.
Have you read the original? It’s half book, half bible study. There are modern copies with most of the religious context removed or shortened which are great.
I need to recheck exactly how ‘unabridged’ my audiobook was (I typically search for a while to make sure I’m getting the whole package). At least, I’m vaguely certain it wasn’t modernized regarding the language, since I would hope English from 1719 is fairly understandable. I might’ve blacked out the religious parts for their small relevance to the adventure part.
The netflix series was one of the best science fiction shows I’ve seen, it was very intelligent. I’m sad so many people thought it was slow and boring, it had real moments of humanity and awe and horror. I guess if you don’t understand a lot of the concepts and scope and scale of the ideas being portrayed it may seem as convoluted and hand-wavy as any other science fiction that doesn’t make an effort.
I can see that. I definitely gave it a huge benefit of the doubt, as it was the first post-revolution Chinese fiction-cum-political commentary I ever read. In retrospect I feel like the point of the book was the commentary and the story was just some kind of allegory that didn’t resonate as an American.
Yeah agree. I was living in China when it was recommended to me since it was super popular with the locals, but really couldn’t get through.
I did enjoy the Western series though despite the mixed reviews, they reduced all the political clutter to the bare minimum to provide historical context, so maybe that’s something to check out instead.
100% agree, just listened to it recently and wow was it boring. That and Foundation, thought since liked the show that I’d like the books, wrong. Those are the only 2 books so far that I just couldn’t get into. But I suffered through to the end with both. Even started the second Foundation book and then asked myself why I was torturing myself.
LOL! totally agree about foundation. It was like he was so busy imagining the universe that he forgot to write a story. I Have been a big fan of the show though.
Asimov was a sexist pig, so if you vibe with that, his writing is enjoyable. Otherwise, reading his works is a chore. Often prescient, but still a chore.
You just don’t get 11 dimensional particle physics. I was actually into it up until that point. As soon as they pulled that shit, I would have quit but wanted to finish for our book club discussion.
Coincidentally, eleven dimensions is how many there are in the M-theory, which is a unified variant of the different versions of the string theory, which in turn is a ‘theory of everything’ that marries gravity to quantum physics. Alas, to my knowledge, string theories don’t make new predictions that could be tested and potentially falsified, so there’s no way to know if they’re actually true.
LOL until they tried to explain to me that humanoid people just randomly rolled up like parchment and got carried around until things cooled down a bit, I was like, “OK I’ll keep an open mind to this weird political story.” And then when they figured out logic gates but only with 5th century hoards with flags, I just mentally noped out. I did finish the first book but I had regrets.
Humanoid didn’t roll up, that was just inside the game. The aliens weren’t humanoids
If that’s the case, that would A) have been explained in book 2 or 3 which I didn’t read, and/or B) conflict with clips I’ve seen from the show which showed thousands of them in a field waving flags just like from the book. Either way, it sounded stupid. Also, if they had interstellar spacecraft, why did they need post-revolutionary Chinese people to tell them “hey come here!!” before just leaving their fucked up system and find somewhere else to live?
I love you friend, but there is just so much wrong with 3 body problem.
That’s fine, I’m not saying you should like it, I just want to explain it. The clips are from inside the game, and I thought they figured out aliens were not humanoid during the first book, but that was just in passing.
The Dark Forest book talks about how every civilization in the universe is trying to hide from each other, and when Earth sent that signal in the first book, everybody noticed Earth exists, and it was just a matter of time until some more powerful civilization would try to take advantage.
I didn’t read books 2 or 3 either, and just limped to the end of book 1, but they do make it quite clear that the things depicted in the game are meant to be strange but not totally alien to the players. that’s why the leader was some ancient well know Chinese figure from folklore, despite that not being the actual name of the alien
figuring out binary logic wasn’t with flags, it explained in the book that in reality they reflected light with their bodies, but that’s super alien to humans so they used flags as an equivalent in the game
I agree though that the science and logic don’t follow with their decision making regarding earth. you could argue that with this godlike AI why didn’t they just go to the nearest uninhabited livable world instead of earth, and they kinda addressed it by explaining that the trisolarians (which is a way better name than the san-ti, Netflix) were scared of humanity so want to squash us before we can become another interstellar superpower
but I don’t buy it. I’m watching through the netflix adaptation now and I’m already disappointed in it. better in some ways for sure, but also presents its own brand new problems.
it’s a real shame, honestly, because the history of an alien civilization evolving on a planet in an unstable orbit of a three-body star system sounds really interesting, but the book cares less about world building than it does about political allegory 🤷
The 3 Body Problem. It’s trash and I’ll die on that hill.
Haha that trilogy might be my favorite of all time but I also TOTALLY get that take. I’m just a big fucking sucker for the second and third books as they get increasingly ridiculous.
If the author totally doubles down on ludicrous, maybe it’s worth a go! I only barely got through the first book.
I almost stopped after the first book, so I can understand your view.
But compared to the second and third, it’s basically just a boring opening chapter
2 and 3 get weird and wild
Might be worth giving it another try
Totally worth it to read the second and third. The first book almost feels unrelated but it’s got some crucial context that gets built on to the extreme later Easily my top 5 sci-fi
I didn’t even make it through the first few chapters, Chinese writing style is just terribly convoluted and full of unnecessary pathos. Reminded me of some early 1700s literature from Britain, like Robinson Crusoe.
But ‘Robinson Crusoe’ is good. For a solid couple months after finishing it, I was still daydreaming about some kinda survival shelter-building game set on a tropical island — only a mobile one, because I didn’t want to be perched at the desktop more than necessary.
Have you read the original? It’s half book, half bible study. There are modern copies with most of the religious context removed or shortened which are great.
I need to recheck exactly how ‘unabridged’ my audiobook was (I typically search for a while to make sure I’m getting the whole package). At least, I’m vaguely certain it wasn’t modernized regarding the language, since I would hope English from 1719 is fairly understandable. I might’ve blacked out the religious parts for their small relevance to the adventure part.
Related:
The tencent tv adaptation was boring as hell lol, couldn’t get past like episode 8/30 as a native Mandarin speaker.
The netflix adaptation was far more enjoyable.
Also tencent cut out the cultural revolution scene from the book… boo… governments really stifles creativity.
The netflix series was one of the best science fiction shows I’ve seen, it was very intelligent. I’m sad so many people thought it was slow and boring, it had real moments of humanity and awe and horror. I guess if you don’t understand a lot of the concepts and scope and scale of the ideas being portrayed it may seem as convoluted and hand-wavy as any other science fiction that doesn’t make an effort.
Yeah the Netflix show was a good watch, agree. Didn’t even try the tencent one, I saw it coming…
I can see that. I definitely gave it a huge benefit of the doubt, as it was the first post-revolution Chinese fiction-cum-political commentary I ever read. In retrospect I feel like the point of the book was the commentary and the story was just some kind of allegory that didn’t resonate as an American.
Yeah agree. I was living in China when it was recommended to me since it was super popular with the locals, but really couldn’t get through.
I did enjoy the Western series though despite the mixed reviews, they reduced all the political clutter to the bare minimum to provide historical context, so maybe that’s something to check out instead.
100% agree, just listened to it recently and wow was it boring. That and Foundation, thought since liked the show that I’d like the books, wrong. Those are the only 2 books so far that I just couldn’t get into. But I suffered through to the end with both. Even started the second Foundation book and then asked myself why I was torturing myself.
LOL! totally agree about foundation. It was like he was so busy imagining the universe that he forgot to write a story. I Have been a big fan of the show though.
Asimov was a sexist pig, so if you vibe with that, his writing is enjoyable. Otherwise, reading his works is a chore. Often prescient, but still a chore.
And it’s worth remembering what decade it was written in, a lot of the older prose and pacing hasn’t aged well.
You just don’t get 11 dimensional particle physics. I was actually into it up until that point. As soon as they pulled that shit, I would have quit but wanted to finish for our book club discussion.
Coincidentally, eleven dimensions is how many there are in the M-theory, which is a unified variant of the different versions of the string theory, which in turn is a ‘theory of everything’ that marries gravity to quantum physics. Alas, to my knowledge, string theories don’t make new predictions that could be tested and potentially falsified, so there’s no way to know if they’re actually true.
Probably not a coincidence
LOL until they tried to explain to me that humanoid people just randomly rolled up like parchment and got carried around until things cooled down a bit, I was like, “OK I’ll keep an open mind to this weird political story.” And then when they figured out logic gates but only with 5th century hoards with flags, I just mentally noped out. I did finish the first book but I had regrets.
Humanoid didn’t roll up, that was just inside the game. The aliens weren’t humanoids
If that’s the case, that would A) have been explained in book 2 or 3 which I didn’t read, and/or B) conflict with clips I’ve seen from the show which showed thousands of them in a field waving flags just like from the book. Either way, it sounded stupid. Also, if they had interstellar spacecraft, why did they need post-revolutionary Chinese people to tell them “hey come here!!” before just leaving their fucked up system and find somewhere else to live?
I love you friend, but there is just so much wrong with 3 body problem.
That’s fine, I’m not saying you should like it, I just want to explain it. The clips are from inside the game, and I thought they figured out aliens were not humanoid during the first book, but that was just in passing.
The Dark Forest book talks about how every civilization in the universe is trying to hide from each other, and when Earth sent that signal in the first book, everybody noticed Earth exists, and it was just a matter of time until some more powerful civilization would try to take advantage.
I didn’t read books 2 or 3 either, and just limped to the end of book 1, but they do make it quite clear that the things depicted in the game are meant to be strange but not totally alien to the players. that’s why the leader was some ancient well know Chinese figure from folklore, despite that not being the actual name of the alien
figuring out binary logic wasn’t with flags, it explained in the book that in reality they reflected light with their bodies, but that’s super alien to humans so they used flags as an equivalent in the game
I agree though that the science and logic don’t follow with their decision making regarding earth. you could argue that with this godlike AI why didn’t they just go to the nearest uninhabited livable world instead of earth, and they kinda addressed it by explaining that the trisolarians (which is a way better name than the san-ti, Netflix) were scared of humanity so want to squash us before we can become another interstellar superpower
but I don’t buy it. I’m watching through the netflix adaptation now and I’m already disappointed in it. better in some ways for sure, but also presents its own brand new problems.
it’s a real shame, honestly, because the history of an alien civilization evolving on a planet in an unstable orbit of a three-body star system sounds really interesting, but the book cares less about world building than it does about political allegory 🤷
Thanks for your take on this! So much better than “you should watch it” or whatever. I’m going to give it a shot just so I can have an honest opinion.