Cixin Liu's Postscript for the American Edition for “The Three Body Problem”

Isn't that the point of reading foreign SF? I grew up in Western Europe in the 80's and loved reading Cold War era Soviet science fiction precisely because it was different.

I don't think there will be a war with China, I don't want a war with China, and a war with China would be disasterous, even if it didn't involve nuclear weapons, it would disrupt the global supply chain. In fact, leaving aside China, I don't want the US involved in any wars, I don't want them selling arms, whether large or small, to countries, I don't want them running proxy wars.

I've lived in China, much of what the CCP is doing infrastructure wise is admirable. They've built 10s of thousands of miles of highways, high speed rail, waterways, electric grid, into historically underserved areas. And they have understandable paranoia having observed the breakup of the USSR, as well as bloody historical Chinese rebellions, like the Taiping rebellion, about what could happen if there is a revolution against the ruling party. This paranoia has perhaps fueled an overreaction, that is driving historical levels of brainwashing nationalism, down to the elementary school level, and insane levels of surveillance, etc. After 9/11, the US government utilized fear from terrorism to launch the Patriot Act, the Global War On Terror, invasion of Iraq, and NSA surveillance programs. Xi similarly latched on a few Uyghur terrorist incidents as an excuse to do, IMHO, massive violations of human rights.

I don't think it's a stable situation. Sooner or later something will give, either nationalism will spill over into a conflict because eventually the nationalists need to start an invasion against someone (probably Taiwan) to regain lost honor or satisfy a past humiliation, or if there is ever a financial implosion, they'll be great internal unrest, and without the "relief valve" of even pseudo-democracy, you'll great more and more tightening by the government, until a fed up population who is facing a declining economy for the first time, destabilizes the government.

This is not really about what Wolf Blitzer is saying on CNN, it's more or less about personal observations I see around rising fascism and nationalism around the world that has be deeply worried about this century, and that's without considering the Thucydides’s Trap, and that 12 of the last 16 confrontations between a superpower and a rising superpower have resulted in war.

A bit of both.

I’ll often read a bit before going to bed, so super long chapters (e.g., greater than an hour?) mean I’m just choosing somewhere “less intentional” to stop.

I would also say that I recall (it’s been a while!) a lot of extraneous detail in some passages, that made me think “ugh, I kind of wish I could skip this, but if there’s a hidden plot element in here I shouldn’t”.

The extraneous detail was probably more frustrating than “long chapters”, but I find that the two go together and usually suggest a missed opportunity for editing.

That was the express reason I chose to read these specific novels.

Makes the changes more disappointing.

> Any decent person with an ounce of humanity knows it was a barbaric crime. Then you have your Bush, Trump and I suppose you for your enthusiastic support.

Bullshit claims that whoever disagrees with you is "barbaric" and "inhuman" is just that - bullshit empty words, devoid of any substance. However, this is exactly the language that the people we're talking about used - Germans fought "barbarians" for the future of "humanity" and "civilization" - as they saw it, Japanese fought "barbarians" for the future of "civilization" - as they saw it. Read their propaganda, it's literally the same words. Both considered their enemies subhuman and devoid of any value or decency. That was what gave them the moral sanction for their atrocities. I am very happy they lost. I sincerely hope your side, whatever it is, considering people disagreeing with you sub-human, will lose also.

> It is the big bad commies

For you, it may be fun and jokes, for people who actually lived under communist regimes, it's the history of death, torture and oppression. You are welcome to make fun of it, because these people are not fully human anyway, since they might disagree with you. While furiously patting yourself on the back convinced in your moral superiority.

> yet get your panties in a twist because a COMMIE dares to criticize the best country in the world

The communists are morally aligned with one of the most oppressive and deadly ideology that we have seen so far, judging by the history of 20th century. And they should learn those lessons. It does not exclude US - or any other country - from criticism about problems they have - but communists have less right than anyone to mount the high horse and call out anybody, if they refuse to reckon with their own blood-stained past. There is a place for honest criticism - but people who deny anybody who disagrees with them human decency is not the people who you expect the honest criticism from. Especially when they openly align with the ideology that literally murdered hundreds of millions of people for the mere fact they were born to wrong parents or dared to disagree with the Party.

> A walking,talking stereotype.

Also probably not fully human. As usual from the moral high horse types, they only think about themselves and their comrades as human. All the rest are walking, talking whatever but not humans. Of course, then there's not much problem with suppressing them, and having a good hearty laugh about it.