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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)

#41

Post by emmelaich »

mvdtnz wrote: post #7
jnovek wrote: post #6

I just finished Deaths End this morning so I'm experiencing that ponderous glow that you get after reading something thought provoking. Without going into spoilers, Death's End makes everything so... huge. It really made me feel tiny in our universe. These are good books with some flaws. You should read them.

I absolutely loved the whole series. I have never been as disappointed at a screen adaptation as I was at the netflix show. I couldn't get past episode 2. Terrible.

I read the books and enjoyed them but there's a few dead-ends and the plot is a bit meandering.

I thought the TV series was great.

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

#42

Post by burnte »

jnovek wrote: post #6

I just finished Deaths End this morning so I'm experiencing that ponderous glow that you get after reading something thought provoking. Without going into spoilers, Death's End makes everything so... huge. It really made me feel tiny in our universe. These are good books with some flaws. You should read them.

> These are good books with some flaws. You should read them.

Counter view-point: These are bad books with a few thought provoking ideas that are never explored, left behind to explore a ridiculous plot full of nonsensical actions taken by paper cutout characters chasing a political goals that also make no sense.

Granted I didn't read the third book, but that's because I gave up not halfway through book 2. When I got to the end of book 1, I had no emotional attachment to any of the characters due to the poor writing, but some of the ideas were interesting, so I opened book 2. As it went on it became harder and harder to tolerate the incomprehensible motivations, stilted dialog, and the scope creep of the story, so I read the Wikipedia summary, and promptly realized I was right to stop reading the books.

Yes, the end makes you feel tiny, so tiny that it's impossible to connect the start of the books with the ending, plus the way it ends makes you feel like there was no point to anything to start with. In my opinion the only way it could have been worse was if it was all just a dream/snowglobe all along.

Nothing is ever resolved, just a few neat ideas sprinkled out with outrageous nonsense, and the stakes keep getting higher and higher until the universe itself is no longer big enough for the ending. I truly think they're bad books, I haven't read anything this bad since Atlas Shrugged.

That said, I'm glad that other people enjoy them, and I'm not trying to say people who enjoy them are wrong only that like all art, beauty is in the eye of the reader.

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

#43

Post by burnte »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #29
jnovek wrote: post #6

I just finished Deaths End this morning so I'm experiencing that ponderous glow that you get after reading something thought provoking. Without going into spoilers, Death's End makes everything so... huge. It really made me feel tiny in our universe. These are good books with some flaws. You should read them.

IMO it’s way more than “some flaws”. I bought into the hype and finally read the first book recently. The plot, prose, the characters, literally everything except a couple of really neat sci-fi ideas is comically poor. So bad that you start to wonder if you accidentally rented 2007’s Transmorphers at Blockbuster instead of Transformers.

I couldn't agree with you more.

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

#44

Post by xkcd-sucks »

stcredzero wrote: post #23
m3kw9 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every book ever has flaws

One thing I've noticed about Liu Cixin's books, is that for people who follow futurism and hard Sci-fi beyond the shallow level of a typical mainstream layperson, there are huge glaring plotholes. Here's perhaps the big one: Ask, what if instead of doing [X], [certain characters] put those resources instead into building space industrial infrastructure space colonies? This also applies to The Wandering Earth.

> Ask, what if instead of doing [X], [certain characters] put those resources instead into [something else]

In most of these cases the outcome is "it makes a less entertaining story". The Anthropic Principle of Literature, if you will.

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

#45

Post by bigstrat2003 »

ospray wrote: post #33
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it’s way more than “some flaws”. I bought into the hype and finally read the first book recently. The plot, prose, the characters, literally everything except a couple of really neat sci-fi ideas is comically poor. So bad that you start to wonder if you accidentally rented 2007’s Transmorphers at Blockbuster instead of Transformers.

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

I definitely feel like the series gets worse as it goes on. The first book is incredible though, so it's hard to really go up from there. IMO the first book in that series deserves every bit of accolade it gets and then some.

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

#46

Post by marcellus23 »

stcredzero wrote: post #23
m3kw9 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every book ever has flaws

One thing I've noticed about Liu Cixin's books, is that for people who follow futurism and hard Sci-fi beyond the shallow level of a typical mainstream layperson, there are huge glaring plotholes. Here's perhaps the big one: Ask, what if instead of doing [X], [certain characters] put those resources instead into building space industrial infrastructure space colonies? This also applies to The Wandering Earth.

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.

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

#47

Post by breuleux »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #29
jnovek wrote: post #6

I just finished Deaths End this morning so I'm experiencing that ponderous glow that you get after reading something thought provoking. Without going into spoilers, Death's End makes everything so... huge. It really made me feel tiny in our universe. These are good books with some flaws. You should read them.

IMO it’s way more than “some flaws”. I bought into the hype and finally read the first book recently. The plot, prose, the characters, literally everything except a couple of really neat sci-fi ideas is comically poor. So bad that you start to wonder if you accidentally rented 2007’s Transmorphers at Blockbuster instead of Transformers.

Even the "neat" sci-fi ideas are often complete nonsense, such as the whole concept of sophons, which leverage a neat fringe idea of theoretical physics while running afoul of boring, well-established physics.

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

#48

Post by bookofjoe »

mvdtnz wrote: post #7
jnovek wrote: post #6

I just finished Deaths End this morning so I'm experiencing that ponderous glow that you get after reading something thought provoking. Without going into spoilers, Death's End makes everything so... huge. It really made me feel tiny in our universe. These are good books with some flaws. You should read them.

I absolutely loved the whole series. I have never been as disappointed at a screen adaptation as I was at the netflix show. I couldn't get past episode 2. Terrible.

Try the 30-episode Chinese version: it's superb.

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

#49

Post by bookofjoe »

mrybczyn wrote: post #31
mvdtnz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely loved the whole series. I have never been as disappointed at a screen adaptation as I was at the netflix show. I couldn't get past episode 2. Terrible.

Watch the Tencent adaptation - like 30 episodes on just the first book (with subtitles). Really well done and faithful to the first novel.

Yes!

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

#50

Post by ajross »

breuleux wrote: post #47
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it’s way more than “some flaws”. I bought into the hype and finally read the first book recently. The plot, prose, the characters, literally everything except a couple of really neat sci-fi ideas is comically poor. So bad that you start to wonder if you accidentally rented 2007’s Transmorphers at Blockbuster instead of Transformers.

Even the "neat" sci-fi ideas are often complete nonsense, such as the whole concept of sophons, which leverage a neat fringe idea of theoretical physics while running afoul of boring, well-established physics.

Isn't that true for basically all speculative sci-fi? The point to the form is to pick an idea with "enough plausibility" and extend it to an interesting implication. Not all "sci-fi" can be (or should be) 2001 or The Martian; Foundation and Dune are kinda good books too.
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