Liu Cixin's Technologies of the Future

by vincelt • 4 years ago

160 188 4 years ago

once_inc• 4 years ago

While I highly enjoyed the trilogy (especially 'The Dark Forest'), the Science Fiction element of the story remains very soft. At no point does the author offer any meaningful explanation for any of the technologies used in the books.

I really liked the story, and enjoyed the ride, but as a fan of 'hard SF' such as the Expanse or the Mars trilogy, this book left me somewhat dissatisfied.

iainmerrick6• 4 years ago

Totally agreed. It's a strange vibe because it feels like it wants to be hard SF, but it's really not. Maybe it's something about the translation?

It's very Asimov-like, in that the elements where the author puts in the most thought and energy are about human interactions (or human/psychic, human/alien, human/robot, etc) handled in a very rationalist, almost mechanistic way.

And also like Asimov, there's super-science stuff (e.g. warp drives in Foundation, time travel in The End of Eternity) that isn't "explained" in any way, it's just part of the setting.

ranger47• 4 years ago

the author puts in the most thought and energy are about human interactions

During my reading, I thought this was the point. I'm not sure the stories were trying to be in any specific genre, maybe genre-adjacent at best, but the author wanted to focus on what happens to the human and humanity with all this advanced, arguably fantastic tech.

elorant• 4 years ago

Human interaction is terrible. All the characters are flat.

YeGoblynQueenne• 4 years ago

What is a "meaningful explanation" of technologies we have not yet created and science we have not yet discovered? In the limit, a work of "hard" "science" fiction ends up like a Star Trek episode scenario before the "tech" bits were filled-in - "Captain, the Tech is overteching. We must tech the tech" [1].

I've read the Expanse btw and it wasn't particularly more "hard" or any less made-up than anything else. I don't remember whether I've read the Mars trilogy.

_____________

[1] http://www.bryanreesman.com/2009/10/09/captain-picard-the-te...

In the interest of full disclosure I'm a total trekkie. I even like ST:E (a lot).

EdwardCoffin• 4 years ago

Isn't this the opposite of hard science fiction? In my mind, hard science fiction is that where the science rules of the setting permeate and constrain the story, rather than being things to fill in.

That said, I see more and more that people are accepting an alternative definition of hard science fiction, which is simply a way of distinguishing science fiction that does not involve outright magic from the fantasy/sf that does.

fartsucker69• 4 years ago

What is a "meaningful explanation" of technologies we have not yet created and science we have not yet discovered

The question is already not the right one to ask. Many technologies he thinks up flat out oppose our current understanding of physics, therefor there is no adequate explanation for them in any case.

Just to drill this point in a bit more because people often don't understand this: It's not just a case of "maybe we will discover new physics in the future that make this possible and the author writes in a sort of gap of our understanding", like good hard scifi authors, but more along the lines of "the author doesn't understand physics and this fantasy technology they dream up relies on apples falling up instead of down when you throw them".

99.9% of the time when any author writes something that is FTL-related for example, this is the case. It's really just a few authors who bend the rules in reasonable ways enough and then introduce good enough restrictions so it can be believably handwaved away.

A lot of physics related descriptions in the Trisolarian books are also wildly innacurate and based on an extremely superficial laymans understanding of physics. That section where they house a black hole in that one custom facility for example, ugh.

elkos• 4 years ago

even like ST:E (a lot).

Pity that they cancelled that show as soon as it was getting interesting.

wjnc2• 4 years ago

By no means disparaging and I'm addicted to the Expanse currently (book 5) - There is _no_ explanation of the technology (protomolecule, drive system, gates) in the books up until yet? Gravity and the Coriolis effect get mentioned a lot, the concept of a rail gun gets some explanation. I would classify Expanse as space opera. There's a lot more science, say, in Andy Weir. I think Andy would have a very hard time explaining the protomolecule.

mavhc2• 4 years ago

Humans in the universe don't know how the protomolecule or the gates work though

cooperadymas3• 4 years ago

It's quite stellar that readers come away from some of these series with such different notions.

Look up lists of the best hard scifi and you'll find the Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy, or at least the Three Body Problem, on almost every one.

Many readers come away from the first book stunned at how believable the technology feels compared to something like Star Trek or Star Wars.

I'll give you that the further the trilogy goes the looser the explanations get, but that's by design. We jump far, far to the end of the universe. How does anyone give a reasonable explanation for billion year advanced technology?

On the flipside, in the Expanse, humans are limited by physics and largely modern limitations, sure, but the crux of the story is built around a magical alien molecule for which we are never given an explanation. It's hard scifi to a degree, but no less soft than say, the sophon in ROEP.

ByThyGrace• 4 years ago

"Hardness" in science fiction is scarcely an academical subject of literature. I personally like Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness [0] but not beyond a thought excercise.

If you can, find me a published author stating "I wrote this story strictly in terms of a level 5 in the Mohs scale"; there will be none (unless they're targeting reddit as a reader base).

[0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SlidingScale/MohsScal...

breuleux3• 4 years ago

TBP's sophon is one of the most blithely nonsensical sci-fi technologies I have ever read. I found it far, far more egregious than the Expanse's magical alien molecule, to the point it put me off reading other books in the trilogy. IMO it disqualifies TBP from the hard sci-fi category entirely, but I admit I might be a bit too worked up about it.

schwartzworld3• 4 years ago

Many readers come away from the first book stunned at how believable the technology feels compared to something like Star Trek or Star Wars.

I cannot believe this to be true. While I'm wary of the "no True Scotsman" aspect to the term "hard sf", TBP and it's sequels are about as hard as jello.

Honestly, the author would have been better off allowing things to just be hand wavey instead of poorly explaining everything.

shrx• 4 years ago

Calling The Expanse "hard sci-fi", especially in comparison to the Three Body Problem, is quite rich.

mdorazio2• 4 years ago

I see this sentiment a lot and don't really understand it. Until the last few books there is a very clear distinction between the human tech (hard SF) and the alien tech (magic). The main story takes place very much within the limits of plausible physics (ships rely on reaction engines and takes weeks to traverse large distances, space combat and weapons are actually realistic, powered armor doesn't keep people safe from inertia, etc.), and then there are magical elements that the characters run up against.

Contrast that with Three Body where the main plot driver revolves around FTL communication with indestructible intelligent nano-scale machines that can be anywhere any time, then gets progressively less realistic from there. I did enjoy the thread about the human ships going extra-solar, though, which was closer to Expanse in terms of Hard SF meeting a magical element (+dimensional travel).

uhtred• 4 years ago

Interesting. I didn't like The Expanse at all- I thought it read like it had been written from the offset with the intention of it being a Netflix show. It lost me early on, when a character beat up a load of enemies with her jiu jitsu.

tlb3• 4 years ago

Better to have no explanation than a bogus one, which is what it would have to be for things that haven't been invented yet.

Sci-fi should focus on the social implications of hypothetical technologies.

omgmajk• 4 years ago

It's now one my favorite sci-fi books.

Same here, same here.

emmelaich• 4 years ago

I liked it but found it meandered into dead-ends a bit too much.

izzydata2• 4 years ago

The whole trilogy was a dead end. ;)

aortega4• 4 years ago

This trilogy is the first one that I read that is on the same level, or even better, than Asimov's novels.

Concepts and ideas here are much bigger, but there are so many cramped into every book that sometimes it feels like a Rick & Morty show. And I like that the point of technology is that no matter how advanced you are, there is always a bigger fish.

chii• 4 years ago

The only real "flaw" is that the dark forest theory hinges on the inability to communicate at superluminal speeds, and yet the novel has superluminal communication (siphons). But if you ignore all that, it is a brilliant piece of SF.

vincelt5• 4 years ago

How would the ability to communicate at superluminal speeds invalidate it? Isn't the civilization who can achieve that even more dangerous?

neodymiumphish2• 4 years ago

It still takes two civilizations the lightspeed time to establish superluminal comms, during which many things can change.

sylens5• 4 years ago

It only took the sophons 4 years to reach Earth, but there are many civilizations that are hundreds of light years apart. More than enough time to start the chain of suspicion

iainmerrick6• 4 years ago

Kind of cheap to quote from the first item in the article, but:

While it could cost $10+ billion to build [...] scientists believe that carbon nanotube material could be the answer.

Yeah, that's going to cost a lot more than $10 billion!

There's plenty of fun tech and mega-structures in this book but I don't think it has anything interesting to say about the plausibility of any of it.

k__• 4 years ago

Made me think of: "You're telling me Julius Caesar, who has been dead for well over 70 years, made this salad?"

hunglee2• 4 years ago

a brilliant series, scope is mind bogglingly vast. Liu Cixin is an engineer by trade as I understand, so the sci-fi is pretty 'hard', imo he was just trying to fit in a story to the end of the time in 3 volumes. Some adaptions coming up, hope they do it Game of Thrones level justice

neodymiumphish2• 4 years ago

Well the team leading the Netflix adaptation is led by the same two who led GoT, so that's likely the expectation from those funding the project.

ribit2• 4 years ago

I’m currently reading the trilogy, and while it’s an entertaining enough read I don’t really understand the fascination with it. The overall plot is a bit simplistic, characters are wooden and storytelling awkward (but that might be an effect if Chinese literal tradition). Besides, the sci-fi elements are fairly weak and inconsistent.

I mean, I can see that a reader who is used to the run of the mill contemporary sci-fi or fantasy would see this trilogy with its plot twists and big topics as some kind of masterpiece, but that’s a pretty low bar to beat. I can also see comparison with Asimov novels (it’s pretty clear that Liu tries to follow the narrative style of Foundation in his own way), but let’s be real here - Asimov wrote the core of his stuff hundred years ago and he pioneered the relevant plot devices. The main narrative innovation of Liu is the idea of total surveillance (no matter how hand-wavy it is introduced) and the rest is mostly poking around with a stick and awkwardly bringing plot points together.

moloch-hai7• 4 years ago

It gets points for audacity that has been largely lacking in domestic production. It is forgiven various flaws, for that. Tackling big themes is hard enough that we are obliged to forgive much to get it. So we do.

nus07• 4 years ago

The Dark Forest is a great book and the first one is alright. The fascination mainly stems from having a non-western sci-fi point of view since most other sci-fi books always were written from a Western protagonist standpoint. Also the backdrop is the cultural revolution which riles up a lot of people.

lucb1e3• 4 years ago

I liked it a lot more than Asimov's, for what it's worth. It's one of my favorite stories so, yes, I would say it's a masterpiece. The plot is not simplistic and the characters do not appear wooden to me.

The Expanse I liked even better (at least until the last book or two), though it probably helped that I didn't have trouble remembering the names. My western bias shows in that I had a lot of trouble telling apart the chinese names even on the second "read" (audio book) of the 3BP trilogy, especially when they then add nicknames into the mix. Da Chu and Chu Cheng are the same person¹, but besides him and a few other main characters, I had to get who's who from context. (And, pardon, but calling people Ding, Dong, and Meow takes me out of the story the first few mentions.) Whether I'd still like The Expanse more if I didn't have this problem in 3BP... hmm, probably yes because there's this 'political correctness' stuff that isn't really my thing, but it would certainly be a close call.

¹ Now that I look it up on Wikipedia, it's apparently spelled Shi Qiang and Da Shi. (Original spelling is from memory, last time I listened to the books was about a year ago)

djtango• 4 years ago

I'm Chinese but not fluent in mandarin and I struggle with Chinese names. I wouldn't feel too bad about it...

Mainstream "English" names (like James, Mark, Lily, Sarah etc) are essentially independent words whereas Chinese names are compositions of characters which are much more opaque to non-speakers. Not to mention that that romanisation is lossy see how `Wu` contains numerous different surnames[0]. (Aside, I only recently found out similarly for Vietnamese `Nguyen` can also include more than one surname)

Without the additional meaning they're just symbols and good luck differentiating between Zhang Chang Zang or Zu Zhu or Min and Ming etc

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_(surname)#:~:text=W%C3%BA....

throw12346512343• 4 years ago

Liu Cixin is a bad author, in all regards. Still, the Asimov comparison holds water in that Asimov never could write a character anyone cares about either. He does seem to be more self-aware of it than Cixin is though. Cixin actually tries to write personalities, whereas Asimov bypasses them. Clarke bypasses them. Very unfortunately, late Stephenson largely falls into the same pattern, despite standing quite a bit above the rest. Though Stephenson obviously built on the foundation (hue) Asimov and Clarke established, so it's not fully fair to compare them.

In short, these books are bad. Cixin is closer to NK Jemisin than other Nebula Award winners.

spditner• 4 years ago

The Da (Big) / Xiao (Small) prefixes are direct translations of family honorifics that in the simple case directly indicate the relative age of one family member to another. The more common use for family is with more layers of indirection -- so when referring to my mother's younger sister, I would say "Xiao Ai" (Little Aunt), and when referring to my mother's older sister, it would be "Da Ai" (Big Aunt).

In this case I imagine it was more in a professional context, so "Shi Qiang" -- family name "Shi", given name "Qiang" -- was likely elder or the superior of people around them, so would be called "Da Shi" (Big Shi / Boss Shi). If Shi Qiang were the younger, they'd likely be called "Xiao Shi" (Little Shi / Subordinate Shi).

causality0• 4 years ago

I think there's enough great literature out there you don't have to feel bad for not being able to enjoy a particular piece, even if it's for unusual reasons. As an example, there's a novel with a good reputation and fascinating plot summary I found unreadable because one of its quirks is that the protagonist doesn't have gender so the pronoun use in the narration is effectively random. Trying to read that was like turning my ADHD up to 11 and I had to give it up.

zelphirkalt• 4 years ago

I actually enjoyed reading about what characters in the book come up with, in terms of ideas for solving difficult situations. Quite clever really. Also I did not find the characters to be too "wooden". They have their individual mentality or views on life and act according to those.

It is not the best science fiction novel series I have ever read (that would probably be the original Dune novels), but it is a good one in my book (ha).

sebastialonso2• 4 years ago

Thanks for sharing! Last two years I've been feeling like I'm taking crazy pills with all the hype for the trilogy. I finished the first book with high uncertainty if I should even open the second one, which I did, only to put it back after 50 pages.

It's not necessarily bad (subjective after all) but there's an argument that it lacks many elements to be considered a masterpiece. Even accounting lost-in-translation-ness, you still have a more or less average storytelling structure, with not that much innovative elements. Hype definitely makes an average work turn into something annoying if you happen to disagree with the hive mind. I did like the part about the mass computer and the sequential cycles. The narration of that arc was super enjoyable.

jstrieb• 4 years ago

I felt like you do until about two thirds of the way through the second book, which is where things really pick up. These books have since become some of my favorites.

I understand where you're coming from, but I encourage you to try and power through to the end of the second book. The things you complain about are long gone by then, and you might change your mind like I did!

in3d• 4 years ago

Not all good books have to be high literature about well-developed characters going on emotional journeys and learning about themselves or whatever. We can use books about thought-provoking big ideas with some twists thrown in.

jnsie• 4 years ago

This is a strawman. There is a whole lot in the middle between "wooden" characters and "high literature about well-developed characters going on emotional journeys...". One can write an interesting character without attempting highfalutin literature.

wrp• 4 years ago

Similar reaction. My favorite fiction genre has always been SF, particularly hard SF. Having read so much, it's hard to find something that really catches my interest with its novelty. I started reading the trilogy because I kept hearing that it was so good and had a lot of novelty. Well, the 1st book was a struggle, IMHO pretty bad writing, but I kept at it because people said it got better. It didn't. Then I started the 2nd and got half way through before I gave up on the writing ever getting any better. I skimmed through the 3rd to see what I might miss and was really unimpressed. Now, of course people have different tastes, but I can't see why people who say they like hard SF think these are good books.

rendall3• 4 years ago

Same. Malevolent far away creatures with such power to perceive everything on Earth and understand what they are seeing enough to make a countdown timer appear in someone's visual field could probably think of cleverer ways to destroy us. The "science" was implausible. It might be a scary idea in a fantasy setting - demons from another dimension or something - but science fiction has rules.

Even Donnie Darko with a wormhole in his chest was more plausible.

nostrebored• 4 years ago

While many of the plot devices and tropes are core to sci fi, the delivery method is very different. I don't think the characters are wooden so much as presented and characterized differently than in western sci fi. It's a lot like watching a Korean drama vs. an American one in terms of the way that the arc unfolds and the suspension of disbelief that's expected.

jacquesm2• 4 years ago

It's a bit like Jean Michel Jarre's concerts in China. It's not by far the best that we've produced but it was the first to be performed at that scale in a culture that had relatively little contact with Western music. The flip side is that very few Chinese books make it to the West in translation, and as such it is both a first and a sample at the same time, it may not be the greatest book ever written but it certainly isn't the worst either. Hailing it as a masterpiece is a bit over the top but then again, if that incentivizes publishers to translate more books from Chinese to English then it has my vote.

FWIW I'm pretty old school when it comes to SF and found it readable but certainly not at the level of the holy trinity.

ectopod• 4 years ago

What's the holy trinity?

ducharmdev2• 4 years ago

Having not read any of Liu's works: how exactly is the idea of total surveillance a narrative innovation of Liu's?

I'm reminded of Arthur C Clarke's The Light of Other Days; that to me was total surveillance.

everly• 4 years ago

[Spoiler alert I guess]

Having only read the wiki page for The Light of Other Days (now very interested in reading the book, thanks!), it seems you’re mostly right, with the difference in Liu’s work being that total surveillance of earth is achieved by an alien species from another galaxy.

sdwr• 4 years ago

The writing is bad, but the sci-fi elements blend with history and real life perfectly. There's a reason Obama gave a blurb for it.

There are great threads in there. The dark forest as an illustration of paranoia matches up with the culture of fear in unstable political climates, and is also a hopeful description of peace in a nuclear time. "Hot contact" with an advanced alien race mirrors the US and China. The exploration of hidden information with sophons, wallfacers, and star signaling.

Foundation was written when the US was cementing its empire. It thinks about legacy, decline and planning. The series reads as safe, cozy, paternal (some of the main antagonists are petty bureaucrats and gentle public disapproval).

Three Body is much more chaotic, jumbled, in the trenches. The systems are bigger and stronger than the people, practically and narratively. Asimov's robots were essentially human, dealing with how to be good citizens. It's all human scale. Liu's people are triggers for events far larger than themselves.

pjc50• 4 years ago

There are great threads in there. The dark forest as an illustration of paranoia matches up with the culture of fear in unstable political climates, and is also a hopeful description of peace in a nuclear time. "Hot contact" with an advanced alien race mirrors the US and China. The exploration of hidden information with sophons, wallfacers, and star signaling.

Yes. It's very specifically linked to the Cultural Revolution, and the question of how it's possible to know things in an environment that's specifically intended to prevent you finding out the Truth - whether that's communist China, or a universe in which distant aliens can mess with your particle physics experiments.

The writing necessary to support the exploration of this idea ends up being very didactic - the huge VR section in Three Body Problem - but then so does Neal Stephenson.

michaelwilson• 4 years ago

I often wonder if it's the writing that's bad or the translation.

I really get the impression lots of the sentences and paragraphs are stilted translations which don't succeed, either because of the translator of the inability of english to express the nuance of what the artist meant. To be clear, I think the latter limitation goes both ways, indeed any time you are translating between languages.

havblue2• 4 years ago

Is the "bad" writing partially just different cultural values of the writer? Lots of people object to the emphasis on female beauty in the Dark Forest, along with the subplot of finding the "perfect" mate.

thinkoid2• 4 years ago

On the wooden characters. I subscribe to this point of view. Initially, I thought it was just the inability of the writer to write convincing motivations but the more I read it dawned on me that there is a serious socialist propaganda undertone in his brush when it comes to the Chinese characters and plots. Motivations are off and the discourse is as unbelievable as to make the characters seem like pure fantasy and not of the good kind. My opinion is that either he is hopelessly unable to escape the propaganda tone (with a serious reek of Young Guards) or he deliberately wrote (or rewrote) the offending parts to make the material more palatable to the censorship apparatus. The western characters in the novel are even worse. High notes on the scifi, abysmal on the human milieu.

shakow2• 4 years ago

unable to escape the propaganda tone (with a serious reek of Young Guards)

We're still talking about the guy whose book opens on a bortherly civil war between two Young Guards factions, followed by a public lynching by the same guards, and a young girl ending in a re-education camp? An opening that has been damaging enough by Chinese censors to be moved a few chapters later in the Chinese edition of the book?

mxkopy• 4 years ago

The simplicity is part of the aesthetic. IMO the trilogy is more philosophical exercise than narrative, so if you weren't looking for that then it makes sense you wouldn't be too hype about it.

At risk of spoiling things, I do recommend you go til the end, it's quite a journey

ajoseps• 4 years ago

I also felt the same way around the characters. They all felt very stiff to me. Not sure if it's the translation or if that's just how they're written.

manmal• 4 years ago

I’ve seen an analysis that claimed that each character in 3BP represents an idea, and that’s why they don’t develop. Some of them do transform (once) and grow stale/useless after they got to shine.

arkh• 4 years ago

I don’t really understand the fascination

Decent sci-fi not written by a White heterosexual male. And for the first volume, a description of the Chinese revolution lot of people prefer to hide.

KMnO4• 4 years ago

not written by a White heterosexual male

Completely unnecessary. Please don’t bring racism/sexism into your opinions of media.

jorvi• 4 years ago

I think most hard sci-fi readers don’t give two hoots if their literature of choice is written by a western white man, Māori non-binary person or even an AI.

On topic, I deeply disagree with the original commenter, these books can easily stand shoulder to shoulder with series like The Expanse or the Zones of Thought trilogy (by Vernor Vinge).

hardwaregeek• 4 years ago

Yeah the extended sequence where the dude invents an imaginary waifu and then he uses his all-powerful position to find her? And he actually believes that she’s cool with this?

The writing is awful and has no sense of psychological realism, and falls into the typical “logical science man” who can do no wrong, really the sci-fi equivalent of a mary sue. Sure the ideas are neat but I’d rather read a synopsis than this cardboard writing.

sylens5• 4 years ago

Man that part is really awful. I have skipped over it entirely on subsequent re-reads.

nafey• 4 years ago

I think it was implied that the girl was a government spy and used plastic surgery and the copius amount of details given to Da Shi to play a role. That being said i think the whole premise is somewhat sexist.

irowe• 4 years ago

Not to pile on too much, but I feel very similarly. It seems like about 80% of the way through the first book (beginning with the Panama Canal attack), Liu gave up on trying to write characters and started trying to compensate with bigger (and admittedly very cool) sci-fi set pieces. Overall, the first book had a good set of strong characters (Ye Wenjie, Wang Miao, Da Shi) and was still good enough to be one of my favorites.

The second book still had some good character writing (mostly in Zhang Beihai, although Luo Ji had a okay arc), but I felt like the plot really meandered to the point where I almost put the book down before the reveal of the Dark Forest concept, which was interesting and novel enough to compel me to finish.

The final book has the whole kitchen sink of cool sci-fi conceits thrown at it, but there are even fewer memorable characters, and the plot time-jumps so many times that it feels like the antithesis of “show, don’t tell”.

What’s sad is that the core storytelling skill of Liu is clearly there (for example, with the fairy-tale allegories), but it’s so buried under the drive to introduce a new technology every chapter that it’s hard to appreciate the final book as a good novel.

saiya-jin• 4 years ago

Yes I have to agree, sci-fi/technology parts are properly novel, creative and give you the reason to want to read more. I presume in 50 years it will be less so but thats fine. But characters are flat, simple even, and I really didn't care about most of them.

Without giving major spoilers about the end, its china and chinese above rest of humanity, every single non-chinese I recall is portrayed as evil. Also the end was properly disappointing. Can't call a novel great with such big flaws, but I understand why HN crowd likes it so much.

For what's worth, I enjoyed ie Hyperion cantos much more. A bit less quantum gadgetry (or is it) but basically 7 very different stories ranging from space operas to nearly cyberpunk and characters I enjoyed following till very end.

dirkg2• 4 years ago

the final book has the most infuriating, idiotic and worst character I've read in scifi. She repeatedly makes the worst possible choice, literally is responsible first for humanity being enslaved and then being wiped out, before making sure the entire bloody universe is wiped out, and at each stage is not only forgiven, but never questioned, celebrated by everyone else, and given even more power.

petesergeant• 4 years ago

What’s sad is that the core storytelling skill of Liu is clearly there (for example, with the fairy-tale allegories), but it’s so buried under the drive to introduce a new technology every chapter that it’s hard to appreciate the final book as a good novel.

Hopefully the TV show (I assume there will be one) can tighten it up, like they did with GoT

KineticLensman• 4 years ago

the Panama Canal attack

I gave up at that point. (spoilers). Recovering hard drives from an 'enemy' ship travelling through a canal by slicing it into small pieces with monofilament cables. I think even 12-year old me would have this completely barking.

jrochkind1• 4 years ago

I also didn't really love the Three Body Problem, even though many of my friends did, I had a similar review to you. (Didn't read the subsequent ones. I am a heavy SF reader, although of course i don't like everything I read, even if other heavy SF readers did!).

I wondered, like some in this thread, if it had something to do with Chinese writing styles and/or translation.

BUT. I actually really loved Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang -- translated into English by the same translator as the Three Body Problem, Ken Liu!

I think I could recognize some overlap in 'style' in writing between the two, like a certain literal descriptiveness and lack of a lot of psychological interiority. I don't know for sure if that comes from Chinese writing styles, or the translator, or just a coincidence/my imagination.

But I really liked Vagabonds a lot, despite not liking the Three Body Problem. I really recommend Vababonds! It's still a pretty philosophical book. About the experience of immigration to a culture other than you grew up in (and then return), among others. But I found the philosophical topics more engaging, and the story interesting, and the characters sympathetic and identifiable. I cared what the outcome of the plot would be, while also finding the philosophy engaging.

I'm still a bit surprised as to the Three Body Problem being so popular, don't totally understand it!

cyp0633• 4 years ago

Liu seems to put stress on the world view instead of giving detail about characters. Many Chinese authors are pretty good at shaping characters, such as Lu Yao. He doesn't write sci-fi, though.

kevin_thibedeau• 4 years ago

It's not the translation. The writing is just bad. It isn't anywhere close to Hugo level work suggesting there was a payoff for international recognition.

tgv3• 4 years ago

I found The Three Body Problem disappointing. The "big idea" was more of a magical contraption which couldn't work in practice (there's no true 2D in our space), and the scene with the tanker mentioned in another comment was utterly unbelievable. That can't just have been the translation.

Around the same time, I read Exhalation by Chiang, who is of Chinese descent. That was a truly wonderful book, which addresses "big themes" in short stories. If you haven't read it, here's a rather big idea I'd never encountered before: what if the Biblical creation story is true, but God doesn't seem to listen? How alone would we be?

agentwiggles• 4 years ago

Chiang is absolutely amazing, and my only criticism of him is that he needs to write MORE!

Hell is the Absence of God is probably my all-time favorite spec-fic story (from his other anthology, Stories of Your Life). The dude's fiction is phenomenal.

yboris2• 4 years ago

I found the first book in the trilogy to have more character and history stuff per unit of science fiction than I'd like. I felt like 50% could be removed without losing too much importance. But I'm so glad I stuck through, the follow-up books are excellent, and the whole story is amazing. I chose to listen to all three as audio-books; they made for an excellent commute before my 100% remote started.

Phelinofist• 4 years ago

The German translation was good in all three books IMHO. But yeah, it still felt foreign sometimes, but I guess this is caused by the fact that most of the characters are Chinese and thus act "foreign". I haven't read much sci-fi before, but have a fair bit after and found the trilogy to be my favorite. Currently I'm reading Arthur C. Clarke Childhood's End and like it so far.

amsilprotag• 4 years ago

Totally agree with poor plot and dialogue. But if you had read it on publication in 2008, viewing the aliens as US and Earth as China, you would have been one in a small minority to foresee something like the Oct 2022 Biden order to revoke citizenship from anyone working in the Chinese semiconductor industry.

cdelsolar• 4 years ago

the Dark Forest is an absolute masterpiece, from someone that has read a lot of classic sci-fi.

rendall3• 4 years ago

Liu Cixin has read a lot of classic sci-fi?

Zababa• 4 years ago

I don't agree with the storytelling being awkward and the characters wooden. I do feel like the novels don't leave much to do after you've finished them, while in some other works you can dig and dig and dig and never stop, but I don't know if this is true or just me.

As for the sci-fi elements, just like with Hyperion I read these books as fantasy. It's in the future and they've got spaceship and robots, sure, and they often try to explain the technologies, but they do that in fantasy too when explaining how magic works.

In general I don't think much about stuff like "objective quality" when reading or watching something, and prefer to dig into the actual story or universe, or the story behind it (how did they get the idea and stuff like that).

thedrbrian• 4 years ago

if you want some interesting sci fi. I've just finished "the Saturn Run" by John Sandford and Ctein.

One of those stories like Portal 1/2 I'd like to forget and be able re-experience for the first time

schwartzworld3• 4 years ago

I don’t really understand the fascination with it.

People who aren't used to sci-fi think the ideas in the book are mind blowing. It's like someone who has never heard rock music hearing a shitty cover of Sweet Child Of Mine.

rendall3• 4 years ago

I'm not a fan of the books either and as an avid reader, science fiction is my overwhelmingly favorite genre.

Still, I think this is unfair. Lots of hard core scifi fans love them. I don't get it, either, but let's all be ok with people appreciating that which we do not without insulting or questioning their taste.

Lewton2• 4 years ago

My “favorite” part of the trilogy, is when a character in the book praises the writing and quality of a couple of fairytales that are part of the plot and written in the book

As in.. Cixin literally calling his own writing great and patting himself on the back

lucb1e3• 4 years ago

It's a plot point that these stories are well-liked. The stories themselves are objectively simplistic, but in the minds of the party to whom they are supposed to be good (trying to avoid spoilers here), it can make sense that they would like them. I didn't cynically read it as the author saying their own stories are so amazing.

I do think the embedded extra meanings are well-made. Whether it would actually work and remain undiscovered by the aforementioned party is a bit besides the point for me: the fact that the author made it work at all is nicely done. A lot of 'bad' writers show only reactions and never more than shards of the actual text to avoid having to make something that lives up to the claims.

Lewton2• 4 years ago

You gotta admit, it's pretty funny though

And to your edit, I agree, the fairytales were a highlight of the book

andrewf• 4 years ago

The characters in Tolkien's books really liked singing Tolkien's songs.

WiSaGaN• 4 years ago

In fact, Liu was found praising his own books in a forum using burner accounts after the publication, and also reminding people that the Hugo award the novel received was "huge in the Western sci-fi world". He was probably truly happy when Obama said he was a fan.

ss1085• 4 years ago

I was going to read his books, but then discovered he parrots Chinese government propaganda about the Uighur genocide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Cixin#Political_views

detritus3• 4 years ago

Just buy them second hand then and don't put money in his pocket.

Or don't.

moloch-hai7• 4 years ago

He does not mention Uighur genocide in his books.

He has hypothetical future governments doing things arguably worse. Fiction is largely about fictional people doing bad things, or being forestalled trying them.

ss1085• 4 years ago

He does not mention Uighur genocide in his books.

So? lol

"It's ok if he believes putting certain people in concentration camps is good so long as he doesn't mention that in his books"

throwaway17_173• 4 years ago

This is not intended to be flame bait, but what else would you expect? He is a Chinese national writing within China. This is not an ex-pat safely secluded in a western country writing sci-fi and attempting to get it allowed back in China. Even if he is aware of the full scope of the CCP’s actions against the Uighur peoples I don’t see how you expect a published work in China to contain anything but the Party line.

He is just a guy writing fiction in a country which does not tolerate political dissension from established narratives. As soon as he had any success the ability for him to deviate from Party approved thought became smaller and smaller.

But, I do like siblings suggestion to buy and read the books used if you want to avoid financially supporting the publishing/advertising machine (both East and West) that is profiting off material that ignores and covers for tragedy.

Edit: I should have specified that I am talking like it’s just his written output, but I think my comment applies to his presence or appearances in media in any form (interview, reviews, promotion, etc) not just the actual stuff in his books.

ss1085• 4 years ago

Why should I believe that such statements don't represent his actual views? Why would I want to consume anything he writes then?

It's amazing the mental gymnastics people can go through to tolerate evil. Most people nowadays to think that if they were in a really fucked up situation like Nazi Germany or something they'd be one of the good guys, like they'd be helping Jews escape the country. But I don't think that's the case...

p-e-w• 4 years ago

Ironically, buried in a footnote at the end of the article is a reference to the only technology that will actually matter in the future:

"All images generated with Midjourney."

alex_suzuki• 4 years ago

I extremely enjoyed the trilogy, was hesitant at first because I‘ve never read Chinese sci-fi. One thing I enjoyed reading about was the whole concept of the „Dark Forest“: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis

Semaphor• 4 years ago

Sidebar:

For anyone who liked it, and wants a related, a bit more "out there" story: The Redemption of Time is fan fiction, but the novel has been officially blessed by the author and published by the original publisher, and later by Tor in English.

It’s not quite on the level, writing wise, but quite close. This sequel takes place so many years in the future, that it’s buttery-soft sci-fi, though. I still enjoyed it.

lucb1e3• 4 years ago

Redemption of Time really disappointed me tbh. I'd much rather than the original author wrote more than rubber stamping this fan fic.

sylens5• 4 years ago

I think there are some good ideas in Redemption of Time (like what was the real cause of the Trisolaran cultural reflection) but the last third of it just goes off the rails

thehm2• 4 years ago

Nice graphics, but the article misses what was the most interesting new (to me) idea in the books: the Droplets, which are made of "strong interaction" material so dense that miniscule amounts can destroy planets. I'd love to read more about this idea.

vincelt5• 4 years ago

True! I missed this one. Will read a bit on it and add an edit.

aortega4• 4 years ago

There are much more ideas, I.E. (Spoilers!) dimensional attacks, slow light-speed areas and their effects, math attacks, destruction of the fabric of spacetime, nano-scale multi-dimensional computers, whole universes trapped inside elemental particles, etc. There are so many interesting plots that each one could be an entire book on his own.

jefc1111• 4 years ago

I read the trilogy and thoroughly enjoyed it. But yes, not exactly hard sci-fi through and through. My favourite idea wasn't even really a sci-fi thing. I really liked the idea of the Wallfacers. Really clever bit of storytelling, I thought.

https://three-body-problem.fandom.com/wiki/Wallfacer (spoilers, I guess)

Viliam1234• 4 years ago

The Wallfacers were amazing. I also liked how "no good deed goes unpunished" applies to everyone who saves humanity from extinction. I suspect this is the part that actually rubs most people the wrong way.

moloch-hai7• 4 years ago

SpaceX's Starship+Superheavy ("can+kicker", informally) promises $100/kg to orbit. (Musk is on record lying that it might be $20/kg.) So, the space elevator would need to do much better than $50/kg.

Anyway there are better alternatives than the space elevator that have the advantage of being, y'know, possible. The orbiting, rotating "skyhook" concept, that dips down to snatch a payload from the upper atmosphere and fling it to space, is one. A ring-shaped version, rolling, might be more structurally practical.

None of the ideas cited in the article originate from Liu. He riffs on them. What would make them more interesting would be knowing how to achieve them. But we don't. People are working on some of them. Some are just bad ideas, the Neptune one spectacularly so.

vincelt5• 4 years ago

Thanks! Will add an edit mentioning your points on the elevator.

As for the Neptune idea, assuming 200+ years of technological progress in chemistry and physics, isn't there something that could be remotely viable about the idea? (Not fixating on Neptune in particular, but as in using materials from other planets.)

moloch-hai7• 4 years ago

An advantage of alternatives to rockets would be that they do not contribute to destroying the ozone layer.

Restoring the ozone layer by dispersing ozone could be a useful idea, but all it requires of material is oxygen, which we have plenty of right here. Neptune has nothing extra we need. The sun turns oxygen into ozone by the gigaton, today. To really address the problem, you would need to remove the fluorine compounds that consume the ozone. Nobody seems to have a better idea than not to vent more.

The space elevator notion relies on discovering a material strong enough to build it of. Other schemes seem possible with existing materials.

Neptune has helium-3 that might someday be useful as fuel for aneutronic fusion, if we can get that to work. Hardly anybody is trying. Getting to Neptune and collecting it seems even harder than getting aneutronic fusion working.

WinstonSmith84• 4 years ago

Really loved this trilogy, sure there might be some inconsistencies here and there, but it's still pretty much hard sci-fi or borderline so and more importantly I don't know any other sci-fi books which are so intense like this one. Relentless twists, there is really little time to be bored.

pharmakom• 4 years ago

The AI generated images were excellent. I love that the cost of such concept images has come way, way down.

vincelt5• 4 years ago

Thank you! I did spent a substantial amount of time playing with prompts, variations and upscales to try and get decent results. The space elevator one for example, way harder than I thought.

Still not fully satisfied but good enough.

detritus3• 4 years ago

Myeh, they're clearly AI-generated but that's not my complaint here - the absolute inconsistency in style and ultimate lack of 'overall style' or visual grammar's what bugs here. It may as well be a poorly-considered selection of clip art, from multiple disparate sources as used to be a problem back in the 90s.

It'll take a while for people to get used to considering graphic generation as more than mere visual placeholders, I suppose. Early days.

vincelt5• 4 years ago

Yes, I struggled to get a semblant of similar styles between the pictures, despite the same suffixes or playing with 'remixes'.

Sometimes, adding one extra word to the prompt (even though it doesn't describe the style) will change the whole visual style or change the thing you're trying to highlight.

It was my first time with Midjourney, I'm sure there are tricks to improve on that. Might revisit the images, I do agree that the styling inconsistencies don't look too good.

ur-whale• 4 years ago

Worth noting, the sentence at the end of the article:

All images generated with Midjourney.

Amazing.

sixstringtheory• 4 years ago

I loved the trilogy even though I agree with various criticisms discussed here. But I think those can be easily forgiven if you’re trying to see the forest (heh) instead of the trees.

Yes the mechanics of reading are kind of a slog due to the translation, and constant repetition of full character names. You just have to figure out how to efficiently read it. And there are plenty of scientific and technological incongruities, of the form “if they had the tech to do X, why do they still do Y?” Sometimes there was a narrative reason for such, and the rest I just left to entertainment value while consuming a social commentary.

It was the first time I think encountering some narrative devices which I enjoyed. I liked seeing the dialogue with Trisolarans that appear in a sans-serif font. I liked the excerpts from A Past Outside of Time in Death’s End, although sometimes they wind up sort of repeating what had just happened in the previous chapter. Also the fairy tales in Death’s End I thought were some of the best writing and devices in the whole series.

tlb3• 4 years ago

I'm disappointed by the slow progress in cryo-suspension. It seems like it should be possible, and would be very useful on earth too. You could just hop however many years into the future. It'd have fascinating social implications if people could do that.

The main problem is apparently that ice crystals grow and damage cell membranes. Surprising that that should be so unsolvable.

tgv3• 4 years ago

Why should it be possible? We weren't built for that. The stories about the bodies that have actually been frozen are horrifying. And I don't see the use, apart from personal curiosity.

But imagine yourself waking up, 200 years in the future (if anyone would be willing to thaw you): you're an old, penniless, and clueless body without papers, adding extra weight to a world that has its own problems. People will still be people, so you're not going to like it.

tlb3• 4 years ago

"We weren't built for it" isn't really an argument. There are so many counterexamples of things we weren't built for but are popular.

It lets you make a bet on the future being better. Wouldn't a guy who froze himself 100 or 200 years ago be mightily impressed by today's level of technology and prosperity? The bet can go badly, of course. The world might get worse. But it's a reasonable bet to make if you believe in continued progress.

bookofjoe2• 4 years ago

Coming this year: https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/the-three-body-problem...

asgerhb• 4 years ago

The space elevator. Ah yes, famously introduced in Liu Cixin's The Dark Forest.

sylens5• 4 years ago

I am a huge fan of the trilogy but it's because I accept it for what it is. Most of the characters are not that well written and do not have satisfying arcs; instead, they are merely there to push the plot in a certain direction at the required moment.

I also didn't think that the technologies got too fantastical until Death's End, where everybody inside the solar system as well as outside of it are experiencing new things every 25 pages or so.

I still think back to the trilogy as different events over the last few years. Looking back at the actions and habits some people started during the early weeks of the pandemic (washing groceries) feels a lot like humans at the end of the Dark Forest looked back at the early years of the Crisis Era - a lot of grasping at straws and trying to give the appearance of doing something. And it's very easy to see how people would turn against Escapism in the end.

yboris2• 4 years ago

I absolutely LOVED Liu Cixin's The Wandering Earth collection of short stories. One of my favorite Sci-Fi books. Surprised no one else mentioned it here yet.

molly0• 4 years ago

Liu Cixin manages to write a great sci-fi trilogy with an interesting global plot without pissing of the chines communist party - that's what I find really impressive.

izzydata2• 4 years ago

I'm pretty confident that it is intentionally not about the characters. People are so used to stories where specific characters are individual saviors of everyone else, but I don't think that is the purpose of the characters in this story. There just needs to be characters to help guide the story and have a lens to view the world through, but who they are and what they want is not the purpose of the book.

It's more about the collective response of humanity to situations and any individuals perspective is not that important.

This was one of the things that I actually really enjoyed about this series. I really don't think a book that is as grandiose as this where the entire world, solar system and universe are at stake can have an individual savior like a super man.

evrydayhustling• 4 years ago

I liked the illustrations on this post. Where are they from?

avmich• 4 years ago

The space elevator has an unsolved problem of colliding with satellites in space, so even if we find a good material to build it, it won't work.

wwarner• 4 years ago

I thought this trilogy was full of fresh takes. For one thing, it’s written from a Chinese pov, so things like the cultural revolution and appeal of authoritarianism are big themes. Second, it’s full of dry humor. It’s hysterical when aliens’ super weapon doesn’t work, over and over again. Third, it toys with issues in the philosophy of science, like how how our view of reality can change because of long periods of comfort or difficulty, or just boredom too, even though reality hasn’t changed at all. I would read more of these if he wrote them.

bwanab• 4 years ago

The space elevator was proposed by Arthur C. Clarke in Fountains of Paradise in 1979.

That said, I do love Cixin Liu's work even if I don't love his prose.

Mikho• 4 years ago

For those who enjoyed the trilogy, there is a fourth book "The Redemption of Time: A Three-Body Problem Novel" written by Baoshu [1]. Originally one of the first fanfics by the Chinese sci fi author. Later approved by Liu Cixin himself for publishing and translated into English by the same sci fi author Ken Liu who also translated the original trilogy. The book envisions the aftermath of the conflict between humanity and the extraterrestrial Trisolarans.

1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42646354-the-redemption-...

Liu Cixin's Technologies of the Future

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