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Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

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Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#101

Post by [deleted] »

luyu_wu wrote: post #67
TheGRS wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I can see this in the article as well. And anyone who has read the books can probably see this wasn't the authors real interest. I can see where someone with their pulse on international politics might read into Trisolaris vs Earth being some sort of a proxy for China vs USA. But my take is that the author was just writing about sci-fi ideas from their personal perspective in China. Chinese history, politics, and…

Yeah, I would agree. I think the author was trying to force a narrative too much (they were trying to compare Trisolarians coming to WHAT exactly?). To the counterpoint as well, I think much of 3-Body it was actual a motivational tale that humanity would set aside its differences and come together in times of crisis.

[deleted]

Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#102

Post by xandrius »

simonblack wrote: post #100
xandrius wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think it's going to be US vs China, you're going to be absolutely wrong. If it remains a cold war then it's about friction and who can last longer but if it becomes active, the world will split into 3 factions as WWII and the numbers will shift.

the world will split into 3 factions One of those factions will be the West. Unfortunately for the West, the West is too small to be a major player and will be a big loser in WW3. Modern warfare is just arithmetic, and the West just doesn't have the numbers that stack up. The whole of the West is smaller than just China by itself. Also China has far more manufacturing capacity than the whole of the West combined. The…

If you throw into the "West" India and Southeast Asia, the numbers start to change.

Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#103

Post by fransje26 »

tb1989 wrote: post #32
fransje26 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To overuse the word "concentration camp" is to disrespect the tragic dead of World War II. What? No. Not at all. The exploitation and killing of prisoners in concentration camps predates WW2, and the use of "concentration camps" to describe those camps is fully appropriate. From the killing of the Boers by the British, to the genocide of Armenians by the Turks, to the killing of undesired by the Germans, to the for…

you are right. But what I mean is that there is no need to make exaggerated reports, but it should be discussed from the perspective of the Chinese government's serious violations of laws and human rights, even if the Chinese government will argue that "this is my internal affairs." Exaggerated reporting is a barbaric and dishonest act that does nothing to solve the problem and prevents the public from understanding…

There are no real receivable counter-arguments to the fact that forced-sterilization of a population group fully qualifies as "genocide", and, as such, warrants to be widely and thoroughly reported, with all the gravity an alarm necessary for such a serious matter.

We can go even further by adding that in such blatant violations of human rights, requiring a "balanced" reporting considering "the other side's" views is not much more than an attempt at diluting the seriousness of the situation to distract away from the facts. But then again, in the light of current conflicts in some parts of the world, it seems to be a favored approach.

Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#104

Post by marcellus23 »

fmoralesc wrote: post #84
marcellus23 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an exploration of the dark forest theory at least, I recommend The Killing Star. Fair warning though, it’s extremely bleak.

I read it recently and while the ideas are there, it is not a great read (the dialogues in particular are pretty bad).

I won't argue the prose or characterization is great, but then that's extremely true of the 3BP as well. In every other sense I found the Killing Star to be a better book.

Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#105

Post by marcellus23 »

xandrius wrote: post #91
marcellus23 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, I get the feeling that the people who gush about all the awesome ideas in the 3BP books, are not people who read very much sci-fi. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. But those ideas have been explored previously, and much better (IMO), in other less popular books.

Can you give me your top 3 sci-fi books/series? My favourite one so far was Broken Earth trilogy. I'm looking for something new and really awesome but I'm not interested in a series with more than 3-4 books (as they rarely keep the same level of quality across the series).

If you're interested in series, I recommend the one beginning with Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton. It's only two books, but it's a great space opera to dive into.

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson is also good. I haven't read the sequel(s) but the first book can be treated as a standalone, and has some big ideas.

Finally, the Algebraist by Iain M. Banks remains one of my all-time favorites.

Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#106

Post by xandrius »

marcellus23 wrote: post #105
xandrius wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me your top 3 sci-fi books/series? My favourite one so far was Broken Earth trilogy. I'm looking for something new and really awesome but I'm not interested in a series with more than 3-4 books (as they rarely keep the same level of quality across the series).

If you're interested in series, I recommend the one beginning with Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton. It's only two books, but it's a great space opera to dive into. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson is also good. I haven't read the sequel(s) but the first book can be treated as a standalone, and has some big ideas. Finally, the Algebraist by Iain M. Banks remains one of my all-time favorites.

Do you have any non-space related books (non-series are ok)? Just curious :)

Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#107

Post by luyu_wu »

throwaway4good wrote: post #89
luyu_wu wrote: post #61

I'm happy most of the comment section is discussing Liu Cixin's works instead of this article, but having made the mistake of reading said article I have a bit of a rant. This journalist seems so intent on making everything political (from the beginning to the end of the article) that it reads like they have no interest in anything he's actually written. The author of this article never describes a single genuine que…

Politics can add another layer to sci-fi. For example "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is a great sci-fi on its own. But the background of McCarthyism and the red scare of its time makes it much cooler and much more entertaining and thought provoking. I am slightly annoyed by Netflix's adaption of the book which takes the technocratic communist China out of it. I understand why it has to be like that but still we wou…

Definetly agree! Three Body has a lot of politics as an element, which makes it all the more interesting. I just didn't like the way the reporter tried to push their own narrative.

About the Netflix adaptation, I'd agree. I think by stripping away all of the positive angles of China from the book and only leaving the negatives (bloody cultural revolution), it lost a lot of meaning. IMO if you're gonna make every character intensely English-born, there's no reason to leave Ye Wenjie as Chinese. Perhaps her story could've been changed to something regarding residential schools or colonialism.

Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#108

Post by simonblack »

xandrius wrote: post #102
simonblack wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the world will split into 3 factions One of those factions will be the West. Unfortunately for the West, the West is too small to be a major player and will be a big loser in WW3. Modern warfare is just arithmetic, and the West just doesn't have the numbers that stack up. The whole of the West is smaller than just China by itself. Also China has far more manufacturing capacity than the whole of the West combined. The…

If you throw into the "West" India and Southeast Asia, the numbers start to change.

A good pointer whether those countries will side with the West is whether those countries put sanctions on Russia when the Western countries did after February 2022.

The West has treated many countries badly, and yet still thinks those countries will side with it? Not likely at all. The chickens come home to roost.

As Napoleon/Rommel/whoever is reputed to say, "God is on the side of the big battalions."

Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#109

Post by irowe »

jnovek wrote: post #37
ospray wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The series gets better don't stop at the first book.

FYI, the first half of the second book is very slow and somewhat cringe at times. You just have to plow through because the back-half of the second book + the third book are a wild ride that's totally worth it.

I'd agree that the second book has the highest cringe per page. The Luo Ji character was laughably bad.

Re: Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)

#110

Post by marcellus23 »

xandrius wrote: post #106
marcellus23 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're interested in series, I recommend the one beginning with Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton. It's only two books, but it's a great space opera to dive into. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson is also good. I haven't read the sequel(s) but the first book can be treated as a standalone, and has some big ideas. Finally, the Algebraist by Iain M. Banks remains one of my all-time favorites.

Do you have any non-space related books (non-series are ok)? Just curious :)

I'm not sure I know of any that are similar to the 3 Body Problem that don't involve space. But if you're just asking about SF in general...

Spin, which I mentioned above, takes place entirely on Earth. But it's definitely at least somewhat "space-related" in terms of its plot.

Caves of Steel by Asimov is a certified classic who-dunnit in a far-future underground New York City. If you're interested in golden age scifi at all, this is a great one to check out.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite books of all time. It has a tiny bit of space in it, but the whole book pretty much takes place on a single planet.

Permutation City by Greg Egan is all about computer-simulated consciousness. Thought-provoking but also a bit horrifying.

I also love Fine Structure by qntm (author of Lena[0]). Though it's a bit rough around the edges, I find that every time I pick it up to re-read it, I can't put it down until I'm done.

Those are just some ones I personally like. There's more I could list, but SF is a very wide genre and I have my biases — you should check out /r/printSF for some more broad recommendations maybe.

0: https://qntm.org/lena

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