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Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

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Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#11

Post by jrimbault »

Aeolun wrote: post #8
anon46121 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not bad. The series reminded me of 1940's-50's sci-fi from the US, for a couple of reasons: A large confidence in the industrial and scientific capacity of their country. Relatively uncritical acceptance that their country is the good guys. No consequential female characters.

No consequential female characters? I don’t know what series you read, but it was not the same one. Almost half the cast is female. Do you mean something different?

Cheng Xin, compared to Luo Ji, has next to zero initiative and is a paper thin character which seems to only be there to metaphorically scream "woman are weak and bad for civilization".

The whole section of the book/civilization where everyone is feminized and most of the toxic male behaviors have been repressed is depicted as a "bad thing" leading to weak people and a weak civilization.

The first book was decent, certainly good, science fiction, with an endearing new scooby mystery at every chapter leading into another mystery. But the other two were bad. Going on in bad tolkien-ism (I've beared reading the Silmarillion three times) with overlong descriptions of unimportant details and derailing into ideology every two paragraphs.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#12

Post by anon46121 »

anon46121 wrote: post #7
mido22 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo, the second book was exceptional and as a standalone, one of the best sci-fi books of the past decade.

Not bad. The series reminded me of 1940's-50's sci-fi from the US, for a couple of reasons: A large confidence in the industrial and scientific capacity of their country. Relatively uncritical acceptance that their country is the good guys. No consequential female characters.

Just my impression from my reading. Now I think of it I can recall three female characters from the first book. The only one who I would consider consequential was a scientist who survived the cultural revolution and lead a campaign to destroy humanity because of her horrible experiences then (didn't think she had a believable motivation). Her mother who basically sold out her father and her family to stay on the good side of the cultural revolution. The last one was a love interest of the main character who was defined by her physical characteristics (they actually found a woman who matched his perfect dream partner). I can't recall any new female characters from the 2nd book, and I am only reading the third book now. All the other scientists, politicians, police officers, conspirators etc... that I can recall were male. I didn't have a problem with this. It just reminded me of something like the lensmen series. It probably reflects a society where it is common for women to be home makers and the men to pursue careers.

Edit: In reply to Aeolun (couldn't see a reply button below your post):

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#13

Post by UglycupRawky »

It's a truly fascinating piece, but wow, I didn't expect going in that I'd come out not liking him. On the other hand, I didn't really know anything about Liu Cixin or his work before now, so maybe this is all well-trodden ground for everyone else.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#14

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

ur-whale wrote: post #9
misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

Devil's advocate here, but to be fair, there's a pretty decent likelihood that we in the west have indeed been "brainwashed" into believing that freedom is actually more important than these other things he's listing (health care, housing, education, etc...). If you set aside freedom as a goal in itself for a second, then it's actually worth asking: is freedom actually the most important factor leading to those other…

Exactly. Honestly, having lived for a while in Singapore myself, I don't think there is much logical argument to be made against that.

Another thing to be considered is that freedom in the West gets more and more relative latterly. Say the wrong thing in public (or even in private, if it is made public), and you can easily be fired, even denied future jobs. Is the overall degree of freedom in most Western countries that different to that in, e.g., Singapore? I'm not sure it is (it's clearly better than China's, though... at the moment).

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#15

Post by misrab »

ur-whale wrote: post #9
misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

Devil's advocate here, but to be fair, there's a pretty decent likelihood that we in the west have indeed been "brainwashed" into believing that freedom is actually more important than these other things he's listing (health care, housing, education, etc...). If you set aside freedom as a goal in itself for a second, then it's actually worth asking: is freedom actually the most important factor leading to those other…

One can see your point, and indeed one may choose to sacrifice one's own freedom for material prosperity. But it is not analogous.

The question is whether one thinks it's fine to forcefully lock up a certain group of society for one's own, arguably, material benefit. It is easy to preach material security when the cost is born by another group.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#16

Post by NeedMoreTea »

mido22 wrote: post #3
hurrdurr2 wrote: post #2

What a timely article on HN for me as I am reading through the Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy right now... certainly not the best sci-fi works I've ever read but some of the ideas are intriguing.

Imo, the second book was exceptional and as a standalone, one of the best sci-fi books of the past decade.

Just to set an alternative point of view, I thought the first had some very interesting ideas but was roughly written with weak characterisation. OK, it's a first novel and a translation, so let's see how the series and author progresses...

The second on the other hand, had no idea where it was going, no characterisation at all - or terribly cliched attempts, and one of the worst books I've read. I honestly couldn't see the appeal that so many seem to see. I didn't bother with the third!

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#17

Post by Tinfoilhat666 »

misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#18

Post by v-yadli »

jrimbault wrote: post #11
Aeolun wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No consequential female characters? I don’t know what series you read, but it was not the same one. Almost half the cast is female. Do you mean something different?

Cheng Xin, compared to Luo Ji, has next to zero initiative and is a paper thin character which seems to only be there to metaphorically scream "woman are weak and bad for civilization". The whole section of the book/civilization where everyone is feminized and most of the toxic male behaviors have been repressed is depicted as a "bad thing" leading to weak people and a weak civilization. The first book was decent, ce…

Mind you, weak && bad does not imply inconsequence.

Try to put the PC for our time aside, and think about this again. In the cold and cruel universe, what would survive?

Advance, advance at all costs.

Edit:

You don’t have to save the universe in bold to become a character.

Being paper thin and then destroy the 3 dimensional universe, on behalf of the will of mankind?

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#19

Post by mamoswine »

ur-whale wrote: post #9
misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

Devil's advocate here, but to be fair, there's a pretty decent likelihood that we in the west have indeed been "brainwashed" into believing that freedom is actually more important than these other things he's listing (health care, housing, education, etc...). If you set aside freedom as a goal in itself for a second, then it's actually worth asking: is freedom actually the most important factor leading to those other…

The problem with this sort of reasoning is that it relies on the benevolence of a dictatorship (and I don't use the term dictatorship pejoratively). It's all fine and good to have a system where people's needs are provided for and in general the populace is taken care of (for example, the housing situation in Singapore is very good and much better than places where people have to pay through the nose for shacks, like for example Hong Kong and SF).

But the real problem is that this system is by its nature fragile. On the one hand, this means that you never know when leadership will no longer be so enlightened and shit will hit the fan with nothing you can do about it.

From another perspective, because of this fragility, it's not capable letting its crazy people reach their potential. Can you imagine what the system would have done to creative hippies or even Steve Jobs if he didn't toe the line? If you don't give free enough reign to these people, your society will hit a ceiling where you don't produce the most innovative culture or people.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#20

Post by brobdingnagians »

Tinfoilhat666 wrote: post #17
misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.

I think the core problem is this:

The people who run China believe in "freedom" for themselves. They think of ideas and implement things, they have a great degree of freedom and set up the systems to watch everyone, but they themselves have ways around it, connections, access to information about what's going on in the world, etc.

They fundamentally believe they are better than the other Chinese they make decisions on (bureaucrats have a tendency to arrogance and belief in their own "best ideas"). Maybe they have some good ideas, maybe they don't. But the fact that _they_ view themselves and treat themselves differently is the point. In such a system, the violent and ruthless usually rise to the top, which eventually shows in society. Humanity has tried that lots of times, it doesn't work out.

In a truly free society, you are free to _truly_ start a competing system or a different system. You can take your strange ideas and start up a commune if you want. You can start an authoritarian commune (as long as people choose to let you and can leave), or an artistic commune, or a free-love commune. That is where you get different systems, and everyone can make a different system. Yeah, it's great to have that, but that gets us back to square one: people being treated like they individually can go do something important of their own choice and different than those around them. Instead of one bureaucrat thinking their ideas are the best ones and then imposing it violently on everyone else. That's not different competing systems, that's hell.

It's all great for the homogeneous, apathetic majority, but where are the schools, education, healthcare, spacious apartment, etc. for the Uighur?

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