I dunno - I guess if the concept is grand enough, maybe it's worth putting on the waders and slogging through the rest of the series.
“What can we infer from this picture of a footprint?”
“Well, obviously the wearer enjoys rhyming couplets and has a child who is in the process of moving to Chile.”
“Look closer.”
“A-ha! I am embarrassed. Of course, they also sit in the window seat in airplanes.”
“And from that we can infer?”
“They would have solved this physics question already.”
“Indeed!”
Oh, sure, obviously.
Also, "The Dark Forest" could've been shortened to a chapter if Ye Wenjie could have been bothered to just tell Luo Ji what she meant, saving a couple hundred years, hundreds of trillions of dollars, and untold human suffering in wasted efforts.
I have read the creators of the Netflix series have adapted the story to make it more of a global epic, changing some of the characters from Chinese to other nationalities and you see that in the trailers as well. I think this probably makes a lot of sense for Netflix given their target audiences but I hope they still keep a lot of the Chinese aspect of the books and some of the characters as I do think it's important for the story.
It's definitely the case that the characters are just a vehicle for exploring these science fiction concepts, but the ideas are so clever and imaginative that I can forgive it most of the time.
The last was a very different book than the first.
The third book has a horrible main character, the antagonist is more appealing, but the plot resolution brings you forward.
I also enjoyed Project Hail Mary, but I think the sci-fi carries it. The dialogue gets pretty tropey, but I was geeking out so I didn't let it bother me.
Another nerd disconnect was all the people who told me I just had to watch "For All Mankind", a hideous alt-future soap opera that nobody should waste their time watching.
I think three factors are at play (though not necessarily all three in every case):
1 - Some sci fi fans care very little about some things I care about a great deal (quality of prose or dialog, characters, that sort of thing) so will judge “great” a book, movie, or show that’s not just mediocre, but terrible at those things, because those readers/viewers aren’t tuned-in to those qualities.
2 - Many sci fi fans tend to over-praise works that aren’t bad, but also aren’t very impressive. I dunno if this is due to a low rate of really good sci fi creation, or what.
3 - Some genre fans don’t seem to read much outside their preferred genre, and may even hold one or another kind (I’ve seen multiple causes) of grudge against e.g. capital-L Literature, all with predictable results when they judge and communicate about works of their preferred genre.
(Clearly there may be some causal overlap between these, but I do think each likely occurs on its own, at least sometimes)
Fantasy can also be rough when it comes to separating wheat from chaff based on fan “takes”, but sci fi seems to have it the worst, for whatever reason.
I tell everyone to skip the first one. The problem is that when you hear of the series, it sounds so cool. "What if humanity knew aliens were arriving in ~X hundred years?" But it takes until the end of the first book for that to premise to even arrive.
You can read a summary of the first book, and go directly to the second, which has a different set of characters on a different timeline.
All the cool stuff in the first book:
1. The alien planet is at the mercy of 2 suns, so it deals with extreme heat and cold. Predicting the trajectory of their planet (the "three-body problem" in question) is a life-or-death problem.
2. To solve this, the aliens set up computers using a lot of alien-people, each acting as a logic gate - each person passes information to the next.
3. A pro-alien group uses lasers to cut up ships at the Panama canal or whatever.
Pretty much the rest of the book is quite boring. The pro-alien society that meets in a video game is laughable.
The second book has a propulsive cadence that's super fun to read, and the third has a series of amazing conceptually-creative micro-worlds - so captivating!
The first book is more akin to universal literature than strictly sci-fi. It literally opens with scenes from the Cultural Revolution. It's a slow burn that gradually touches on science subjects to eventually throw all the fiction into the reader's face. It has one of the best endings you'll find in sci-fi.
It's a great book especially for begginers of the genre.
So much for an accurate summary.
this wasn't THE problem? it seemed to go really well before they ran out
The next two books continue in the same vein but I really hated the point-of-view characters and found the books a bit of a slog to get through.
My longer comments[0]
[0] https://sheep.horse/2017/3/book_review_-_the_three-body_prob...
There is so much tension in the Chinese show, and so much is going on at once (without much violence). It speaks to the quality of the writing. Also the music is really good.
I'm hoping the series goes through the third book, because based on my reading of the plot summary that's where things get really crazy.
I would recommend this series to anyone and everyone, but it's a great idea more than a great read.
Trying to explain and explore concepts where the Characters are just talking carriers of ideas. It's b Not everybody's cup of tea but I loved it.
1) Golden Age SciFi (Asimov, Clarke, etc) had the same “problems” 2) It’s leveled as real criticism instead of a matter of taste? I think there should be room for fiction-as-idea-vehicles as much as there is room for characters-as-core.
3BP and its sequels sit very squarely in both the latter camp as well as follows a lot of cues from Chinese fantasy epics (classic and modern). It has been a while since we have had some good High Science Fiction and the ideas were thought provoking enough.
I have a personal bone to pick with the Cult-of-the-Character but that’s something for another day…
1. It's old school high concept scifi where protagonists are smart like scientists.
2. It's alien in two levels. First story, secondly the writing and style has many aspects of Chinese culture that seems alien western reader. Really refreshing.
ps. Chinese already made 3 body problem into long tv-series. It's really slow burn and follows the plot quite close. The ship cutting scene was well done.
Then I read 3BP, and I really really loved it. Historical plots, present day, big ideas, imaginitive author, focus on multiple technologies rather than one, and so on.
Since then, I have been trying to find the high I found in them. And I am mostly failing. I disliked Blake Crouch's Dark Matter. But I liked the lighthearted "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir. I am currently reading "Anathem" by Stephenson. I really like it, and it's different from 3BP. I also found Ted Chiang's short stories, and liking them.
Can you suggest me books that are like 3BP? I know they are not perfect, but damn did they blow my mind!
I got Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu, but they read like fanstasy, and haven't given the series a proper chance.
I wrote about my own thoughts on SciFi here: https://ritogh.substack.com/p/project-hail-mary-andy-weir-a-...
I still can't get over the fact that Trisolaris is actually a four body problem, not a three body problem. I've heard some explanations that this is because you can ignore the mass of the planet. While I'm not an astrophysicist, I'm not sure that's true given that the entire point is to figure out how three suns affect the planet.
I didn't realize there is also now a Netflix series. I saw the promo on Netflix, but I thought they just licensed that same Chinese-made series. I'll have to check out the Netflix adaptation to see if it's more accessible than the first-mover.
Review of "Three-Body" here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/arts/television/three-bod...
It seems like the ending doesn't go well for humans though which is sad. I typically like scifi that has a positive spin. I do like hard sci-fi or sci-fi with expansive world building like ring world, mote in God's eye, revelation space, and rendezvous with Rama to name just a few.
Spoilers:
It seems to me that the major achievement of the book is in making the concept of dark Forest mainstream. The concept of being silent and not attracting unwanted attention is hardly new though. The spin is on how it might be best for any species to simply launch some planet killers in the direction of anything that makes noise. Of course I don't believe that.
I had the same question, but more so. Why not just pre-emptively fire everywhere, all the time, 24/7, regardless of whether stuff makes noise? It seems like that would make just as much sense from the dark forest principles. If you wait for noise you're possibly leaving yourself open to existential danger.
They are good, the themes are fascinating (and I actually disagree with many of it's viewpoints, but still love the books) and the scenarios are really well written with it sounding too wild and crazy but once you learn more about what is happening it makes sense. The alien world is like something out of Stapledons Star Maker.
I'm very picky about scifi, but this is highly recommended.
A civilization that can unwrap protons and build machines that violate energy conservation inside of them wouldn't need to care about taking over other species as basically all the material and energy of any solar system, regardless of whether it had life in it or not, would be available to them. And if you could build such objects you could probably find a better way to destroy our enemies than fiddling with their particle accelerators.
The Dark Forest idea is also very dumb. The universe is so stupidly big that going out of your way to destroy other lifeforms, especially if you are a technologically advanced species, is a huge waste of resources for no gain whatsoever. Furthermore, even in a hostile universe there is much to be gained from alliances, especially for intelligent lifeforms for whom the idea of a "civilization" is not tightly coupled to a specific biological underpinning.
I'm not saying a book couldn't be written with these premises. Obviously fiction can go all sorts of places. I just found the presentation of these ideas highly implausible in this text.
It premieres in 3 days? (March 21, 2024)
Or you were at sxsw? In which case you mean the first episode was amazing?
