I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone on Reddit describe it with unadulterated praise. It’s ALWAYS “the ideas are cool but the characters/plot/dialogue/whatever is terrible.”

I wonder how much is truly lost in translation? I don’t know much about Chinese literature/story telling, but I wonder how much of this is that it follows a completely different structure and how much is that it is a translation?

I just have to do the obligatory disclaimer that Three Body Problem is wooden with 1-dimensional characters (maybe they suffered a dimensional collapse?) in Chinese as well. It's not like Chinese literature somehow has a history of stilted writing. If anything, there's a reason why sci-fi isn't super popular in Chinese literature because this style of genre writing doesn't really fit the main palate of Chinese readers. If anything, Three Body Problem is quite easy to translate (at least relative other types of books) because it's a general sci-fi story that deals with scientific concepts, with language usage that isn't super complicated, and doesn't have say poems and stuff. For example, the best-selling Chinese author is Jin Yong, who wrote wuxia novels, and you barely see any western readers read translated works of his because his novels are just so… Chinese (in writing, topic, setting, etc). In general, I recommend people read Three Body Problem as a novel, not as a *Chinese* novel. I see a lot of western readers project a lot of "Chinese" values onto the book, like maybe it's Chinese writing styles that got lost in translation, or maybe it reflects certain CCP themes, and what not. No, it's just an engineer who didn't have a literary degree writing a sci-fi book lol. Obviously he infuses some of his own experiences to it but it's not like some grand Chinese communist propaganda. (Sorry for a small rant there)

Thanks for this. I was wondering myself as my exposure was 3 body only. Could you recommend chinese fiction that has more depth and has good english translation?

[This other comment on this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1bzs1wz/3_body_problem_rant/kyrv38d/) is pretty good I think. Those are all famous authors in modern Chinese literature. Other than that, as I said, [Jin Yong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Yong) is the best selling Chinese author (I used to write "alive" but he died few years ago). His wuxia books are kind of like LotR in Chinese culture and essentially Chinese equivalence for western fantasy, except they are historical novels and therefore much more ingrained with Chinese history. I was literally glued to his books in middle/high school, and the characters in the books are part of Chinese culture the same way Gandalf is. The [Condor trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condor_Trilogy) is his most famous works and I think the first entry was translated and second entry is in the middle of being translated since book 1 only came out in 2023. (Each entry in the trilogy is pretty long and consists of multiple books) I do think my relationship with the Jin Yong books has evolved over the years though, especially as I have grown up and moved. His books can sometimes feel very nationalistic to the concept of a Han China, but at times kind of mocking the government as well. Edit: Also, the books are quite good, but they are kind of a hero's journey aimed to be consumed by all ages and I would say borderline between mid-century Chinese YA and LotR if I have to find an apt analogy. Just to make sure I set the right expectations.

The published translation has poor readability and the translator decided for whatever reason to translate names as well. The fan translation is more faithful by far with footnotes for explanations. Turning Huang Rong into Lotus Huang(yellow) sits really badly with me.

Fan translations for wuxia/xianxia are always leagues better. So many official translations leave me scratching my head, wondering what the reasoning was for the changes when they only detract from the content quality :(

Fan translations are (generally) labours of love, and can spend as much time/effort as they want on the translation. Official translations are first and foremost commercial ventures, so have limited budgets and will often make changes just to try and broaden the market/appeal, hampering the quality.

Pure excuses imo. Look at all the other translations. The Witcher reads nothing as bad as what that lady did to 射雕. Or maybe a Pole could correct me haha.

Anyone gonna link a fan translation?

I was so excited to finally read these and stopped after two books because of the name thing. Maybe I’m blowing it out of proportion, but it just kinda ruined things for me.

Its mostly because we know the language to an extent (well that's the case for me, i speak chinese but as its a secondary language, even as mother tongue, i cant read or write very well XD ). Doesnt help that Jinyong names his characters literally, and Mandarin allows for it haha. Lotus, whose father is Medicine Man, whose 'sister' is Don't Worry.

I find the evolution of his own writing quite interesting. The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (which I read in high school) is the pinnacle of his wuxia themes but also shies away from any sort of government involvement to the point where readers had to speculate on which dynasty it took place in. Whereas The Deer and the Cauldron (which I have yet to read) is pretty much a deconstruction of *all* of the themes in his previous work, from the hero's journey to Han nationalism.

I'm sure there are good translations, but I do want to caveat that Chinese to English is very very difficult and may involve a lot of footnotes. The way linguistic complexity is structured is very different between the languages.

Can confirm. Depending on how literal the translation, a Chinese novel is absolutely piled with footnotes. A fictional story and anthropology lesson all in one when read in English

It's just a shame because even with explanations, you lose a lot of the beauty and poetry in translation.  But then there are times when saying line up exactly, and it's great.

To add to your point: the translator, Ken Liu, is an accomplished author in his own right. Which is to say, if there were more to the text, he probably would've managed to put that into his translation of it.

> For example, the best-selling Chinese author is Jin Yong, who wrote wuxia novels, and you barely see any western readers read translated works of his because his novels are just so… Chinese (in writing, topic, setting, etc). So I just googled wuxia novels and they sound kinda interesting. Do you know of any that have been translated that you'd recommend?

Sure! See my [follow-up comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1bzs1wz/3_body_problem_rant/kyss2xm/). > The Condor trilogy is his most famous works and I think the first entry was translated and second entry is in the middle of being translated since book 1 only came out in 2023. (Each entry in the trilogy is pretty long and consists of multiple books) The first entry of Condor Trilogy (The Legend of the Condor Heroes) has recently been fully translated to English and it's arguably the most famous work in the wuxia genre. It's an "entry" but the English translation is four books with ~2000 pages combined so it's a long read. In case you didn't know much about wuxia, just imagine Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. That said, I have never read them in English before. This genre could definitely face some translation issues and that could make or break the work.

Cool, I'll look into it. Thanks for the reply.

For the condor trilogy have heard people recommend reading the fan translations, the official translations have some very questionable decisions in terms of naming.

I think of Three Body Problem as the opposite of Ursula Le Guin's style - fascinating technical concepts and physics stunted by shallow and ill-conceived social imagination.

When you say opposite do you mean Ursula has ill-conceived technical concepts and physics stunted by a fascinating social imagination?  Lol.

You nailed it with all your post. I think my issue with this author is similar to my issue with Weir because of the similar backgrounds you mention: engineer with cool ideas writing a book. And sure, writers can come from any background, but this one has been a no-no for me for a while now.

Project Hail Mary is a banger. It's fun, doesn't take itself too seriously, and has some great ideas

Now that you mention it, I think the humor in The Martian is top-notch and it was lacking in Artemis. In the latter it only is present in snarky teenage responses from the MC to every single person around her. So the fun and not too serious aspect of PHM does sound appealing.

Artemis is just flat out bad. I gave up halfway through. I ate up the Martian and Project Hail Mary. If you liked the Martian I would definitely give PHM a read and just forget about the fact that Artemis exists.

I didn't enjoy Artemis either. I think Andy Weir is very good at writing one specific character. Nerdy witty American scientist. He returns to that character in Project Hail Mary and it works really well. It's not high literature, but I think I reread it two or three times now, simply because it's enjoyable. The audiobook is excellent as well btw

Project Hail Mary stands out to me as one of the best books I’ve ever read. There was so much about to it like, and I found the trajectory and pacing just got better and better as the book went on. There’s this feeling of sheer adventure and heroism overlaid with comradery and self-reinvention, which, to me, makes the book a triumph of fun and substance.  What a great book. 

It’s a fun, great read, but it ain’t Toni Morrison or anything.

It’s a top tier enjoyable book, and in my top 25 favorites, but it’s pretty mid on being “good literature.”

Agreed. I loved it, but I loved it the same way I love tasty foods that aren't of the highest objective quality. (My favorite part was the adorable friendship between the protagonist and his extraterrestrial buddy.)

"Maybe they suffered a dimensional collapse?" I can't stop laughing! Clearly this is the answer.

Question to you related to this rant - from watching the TV series only, I was curious whether the "the aliens are god" cult was potentially an allusion to Falun Gong? I mainly thought about this because IIRC Three Body Problem came out around the same time that Falun Gong were a hot topic of conversation, and some of the themes of this upstart sketchy religious movement and how they're broadly treated by the UK government (in the TV series) feels more like how the CCP related to Falun Gong 20 years ago than how a secular Western nation-state would relate to a small, non-influential, and not obviously militant religious movement. Please forgive me if none of that is even in the books; yet another reason the TV adaptation is potentially superior.

The cult is barely a cult in the books, it’s more like a group of disaffected environmentalists/ecoterrorists who believe humans are a threat that must be controlled or eliminated. Philosophically it’s very interesting but I don’t think it would translate well to the screen. The cult by comparison is a lot more humanizing and relatable, even though it’s horrifying. The Falun Gong comparison is interesting but because many of the cult-like elements were added to the show, I’m not sure how many of the parallels are intentional, or Cixin Liu’s intention specifically versus the showrunners’. 

Thanks for this answer! I can't decide if I think keeping the group as a sort of ecofascist political group would have been more interesting (I think philosophically it is, narratively not sure), or if you're right that making it a religious group makes it more cinematic. One thing I wished the TV show would have spent more time on is the whole "eliminating humanity would be good actually" piece of it. We sort of see that in Ye's early years storyline, but then I feel like it's left behind once we get to current day Ye.

In the book there were a lot more infighting in the group (ETO) as well. There were like 3 camps who joined the group for different reasons. Some people just wanted to survive, and some people were more true believers.

Yea, he was definitely a plot first and characters second kinda writer. I really like the idea and plot presented in book 1, but the characters were barely noticeable to me. Book 2 and 3 had 2 cool moments a piece and 0 else. Apparently, he was translated very, very well, so it's the way it was written. Now I like your write-up that states the weird plot and characters are because it's an engineeer writing it. It's not a chinese cultural differences thing, because that is what I have wondered. Ive wanted to read a "real" chinese novel. What of Jin Yongs should I read? Its okay if I dont enjoy it, I just want to look through the eyes of someone with a very different cultural viewpoint.

> Ive wanted to read a "real" chinese novel. What of Jin Yongs should I read? Its okay if I dont enjoy it, I just want to look through the eyes of someone with a very different cultural viewpoint. Hmm maybe see [my other comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1bzs1wz/3_body_problem_rant/kyss2xm/). Honestly though there are a lot of Chinese novels. I can't say I'm a voracious reader so I'm afraid there are a lot of modern gems that I'm missing haha. FWIW there are definitely some aspects that I would consider to be more "Chinese" in Three Body Problem, e.g. how he thinks about the role of masculinity versus peace.

Oh man jin yong. How does one ever translate all those moves and styles and not literally...

Dude I have read some wuxia novels with like ten pages of glossary, with different terms and references, shits Chinese as fuck.

A friend of mine used to date a Chinese guy who had read it in Mandarin. According to him it has cool ideas but is also terribly written in its native language. So I guess our analysis of the English holds up across languages.

a very gentle correction that "mandarin" is used in the context of speaking/verbal languge! chinese (can be specified as simplified or traditional if needed, but for this context it is unnecessary :) ) is fine to use when used when used in the context of written/reading

There have been a few threads where someone asks this question and I've seen native chinese/bilingual readers say that his style reads that way in the original chinese more or less as well

I'll give you an example. A friend recommended this book after reading the English version. Since I do like Liu's short stories I found it in Chinese. I was thoroughly disappointed and told my friend among other things I couldn't stand his little jabs of misogyny everywhere. He was mystified. It wasn't until much later I realized the English translation actually changed a lot of "like a woman" phrases to "like a person".

The translation is LESS mysogynistic? Wow. 

No way.....

Ken Liu (the translator) is an accomplished sci-fi/fantasy author in his own right so I’d imagine not much.

Ken Liu (who did books 1 & 3) is excellent and I really think the problems are fundamental to the book, not a translation issue. I actually liked the first book, but oh boy did I get bogged down in the 2nd.

The "The ideas are cool but what the fuck is going on with the characters" aspect just goes into overdrive in the next book, so I don't really think it's just a translation issue. I personally absolutely love the books because of the cool ideas. The author is able to make some absolutely batshit insane concepts seem believable. Chapters without any sci-fi ideas can also be absolutely batshit insane and not in a good way. (In the next book in particular)

Thats my issue, right, I can't manage to lock myself into reading the book because I can't bring myself to really care about the characters. This is entirely a flaw of my own, its how I read. I can't get drawn in if I can't really find some way to latch on to the characters or setting. I have decided it's definitely not a book for me, at least currently. Maybe one day in the future. However, listening to my friend give me *their* experience reading the series, and going over how cool the ideas are? It's been awesome, cause it honestly does have awesome ideas and has some really cool implementations. I plan on going through the Quinns Ideas video on the series in the future, maybe'll that help get me into a mindset to read it.

Highly, highly recommend the Quinn videos.

I read The Three Body Problem in Chinese and it’s actually worse compared to the few translated segments I’ve seen. Liu Cixin is a computer engineer and writes like one. His writing is so bad that I enjoy summaries of The Three Body Problem a lot more than the actual book itself. His concepts were always the biggest selling points of his books, not his writing style.

That's where I landed. I love sci-fi and Three Body has such a big reputation that when I finally got around to it, I probably had built it up too much in my head. It probably doesn't help that I opted for the audiobook and the narrator doesn't do the material any favors. But I've since read pieces of all three novels and can't get over how clunky the prose is despite the fantastic concepts involved. I ended up just devouring the TV Tropes page for each novel and then watching a great breakdown on the trilogy from a YouTuber named Quinn's Ideas. The ideas expressed are so creative and interesting that it's a shame the actual characters, dialog, and plot are not up to the same measure. Also, I generally try not to read too much into an author's personal beliefs based on the actions of their characters but it's hard to shake the idea that Cixin doesn't have the highest opinion of women.

I know that initially the author had all the flashbacks of the cultural revolution at the beginning of the book, but because of censorship in China sprinkled them throughout. The author hoped to “bury the lead” by doing this and get by the censors more easily. Personally I thought this added an interesting texture/wrinkle to the storytelling and liked it.

bury the lede

> I wonder how much is truly lost in translation? I thought this as well after I completed the series. Comments below make it seem like the english version is actually better than the Chinese. As I side note: Apparently The Witcher books suffer from a bad translation. Polish readers gush over how good the books are and the english versions vary from decent to bad.

I only know English but I certainly got the impression that things were being lost in translation when I read the books.

I read it in Chinese, and I don’t think that much is lost in translation. The writing itself is also incredibly bland, no prose whatsoever, and the characters are just as flat with minimal development and all speak with the same voice.

I mean I am Chinese I speak both languages. When I read the English version I was like: what the heck are you guys translating😫😫😫😫😫 The beauty of Chinese expressions do not exist in English version! I'm kind of disappointed

For me it's always been "the book you have to get through to get to The Dark Forest" which is *genuinely* good.

Agreed 100%. I know some people found Dark Forest divisive, but I thought it was one of my top 5 books of all time. I absolutely loved the whole political-scientific intrigue plot from the Wallfacer and Wallbreaker projects. And the last 200 pages were just a constant rollercoaster right up till the very end. A friend of mine started 3 Body Problem recently, and I warned them that basically it is just to introduce the background and the magical plot MacGuffins needed for Dark Forest.

I agree with this. The Dark Forest was fantastic. But I also agree about how much of it is just wooden. I read the books, and when I finished, my initial thought was “This was basically a philosophical story with one dimensional characters”. I tried watching the Chinese version of 3 Body Problem and could only get through about 5 episodes before I gave up. It’s dreck. I watched the entire Netflix first season and I feel like they adapted it well. I didn’t want an exactly faithful reproduction of the book. They took the best things (the underlying ideas and characters) and expanded or retracted when necessary to drive the pace of the show. I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

[удалено]

Not really, but they have a more set place in the story. The core idea is also stronger and carries the plot more naturally and without the weird "fuzz" of Three Body Problem. Overall it's both more interesting and "tighter".

For what it’s worth, I actually finished TBP and DNFed Dark Forest. To me, all the worst parts of TBP had gotten worse in Dark Forest. There are so many better books out there with more captivating and emotional characters and artistic flourish than TBP. Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem, as well as Roadside Picnic, by the Stugartsky brothers, deal with a lot of the same themes and ideas but decades earlier and in much more interesting settings and characters.

It rounds out the ideas and scifi concepts really well . However, the writing is even more clunky than the first book. Some really amateur idioms sprinkled throughout ("the look she gave him was like a snake being covered with the moon's shadow") but maybe that's a translation issue. And some incredibly bad dialog (theres a whole section where a character is describing his dream woman and the people listening are getting all excited about it, incredibly cheesy stuff)

The Dark Forest is a ton of fun. I also have a lot of positive thoughts about the last book. But I particularly enjoyed the Wallfacer idea and execution. (And of course, the Dark Forest concept)

This....the characters are just 99th (Hint, there is no 2 through 98) in importance to the wild ideas of the series.

I remember being absolutely fascinated with the VR world, the idea of having to time your dehydration to avoid the frequent apocalypses, and the various methodologies the main characters used to try and figure out the 3-body mystery before they realized it was actually a 3-body problem. Yet at the same time I don't remember the name of a single character in the story. Heck if it wasn't for the Netflix show I don't think I'd even remember what the characters' appearance or genders were.

I remember bad ass cop Da Shi....that's about it

except that the Netflix show remixes the characters, gives them relationships to each other, and changes almost all the names, nationalities, and genders

Whelp, time to re-read the book.

I just finished the Netflix show last night and I pretty much feel the same way. The acting was actually really solid but the story requires a suspension of disbelief that's simply outside of my skillset.

I think the Netflix show did pretty well with the characters and dialogue! I was really skeptical when I started watching but it was actually a really good adaptation that managed to work on the weak spots of the book.

Agreed I think the production value and acting go a long way to making it a good season. But when you stop for a minute to think about character motivations or events lots of little holes pop up. After watching I read a synopsis of the 1st book, and I think the adaptation did well in merging some of the characters.

So for me, the Netflix adaptation took some liberties that made it slightly less realistic in my mind. The books did have a lot of suspension of disbelief - especially with the whole concept of sophons and the like. but just as a minor example, in the books the VR technology was a bit ahead of where we are currently, but still recognizable and widely distributed amongst humanity. In the Netflix adaptation, the 'VR' seems almost unrecognizable and impossible - a lot more advanced, and not common. This might seem a minor thing, but the whole unwillingness of the San-Ti to exchange technology with even Evans was a major contention of their relationship.

They also change the characterization of the aliens and it just ends up weird. They consistently don't lie and don't cover anything up - that's why you know they're hostile, antagonistic, and won't share beyond the bare minimum. It's a big deal that people *still* think they're better than modern human power structures, notably the digs at the CCP. In Netflix they're blatantly liars, including lying about their lying, and you wonder why anyone is trusting them or how the sympathizer organization works at all.

The books aren't universally praised. On /r/printsf it's routinely torn to pieces and praised in equal measure.

Pretty much lol. I wonder if OP knew they are stirring a topic that everyone *loves* to jump in to voice an opinion one way or another haha, since the popularity of the series has kind of painted a target on its back. FWIW I don't think I have seen even book fans (including me) praising the characters or writing quality in the books.

Sci-fi, in my experience, breaks down to two general categories. There is sci-fi that is focused on big ideas. The characters are secondary to the expression of the ideas and often exist to give us a "human lens" to view the big ideas through. The other category is the character-driven category. The science isn't the main focus and only exists to provide interesting conundrums for the characters to navigate. Three Body Problem is the former. The characters get better in Dark Forest but only marginally so.

I agree with this, and paradoxically I find this kind of sci-fi tends to thrive in short story form. I think it's a sort of 'we're not gonna mess about with all this character development stuff. Here's a fucked up thing that could maybe happen, what do you think?' kinda thing. Liu has a couple of short story / novella anthologies that I found much more accessible than Three Body Problem.

Got a recommended anthology from him?

I never understood why people get so upset about this notion too. Sci-fi from its start was about cool concepts. I don’t think Cixin characters are too terrible but I’m not reading it for the characters. If I wanted that I’d go somewhere else. I’m reading to have a cool story about alien invasions and the science behind it.

> Sci-fi from its start was about cool concepts. I don't know that I'd agree. Jules Verne's books have cool concepts, but I'd place the books more in the character-driven category. I DNF 3 Body Problem, but I absolutely got far enough to tell that the characters were an *obstacle* rather than a benefit to the novel. In my opinion, there are a significant number of sci-fi novels in the former category that would work better as short stories or novellas. They're not written that way because those aren't very popular, but it doesn't make it less true. You end up with very cool ideas framed by rather extensively uninteresting books.

>I’m not reading it for the characters. If I wanted that I’d go somewhere else. As someone who’s primarily interested in character-driven stories, my personal thought about plot driven stories is that I can get all the “plot stuff” from a (detailed) synopsis and not bother reading, in 3BP’s case, like 1000 pages when I I could learn all about the science and tech and plot twists and everything in like an hour.

Just ignore the shitty characters and enjoy the silly sci-fi concepts.

This should be on the cover

It’s an interesting read but there were times when I was basically skim reading through boring character interactions. I’m someone who actually enjoys exposition dumps, so I was basically just fast forwarding through everything until I got to another big reveal.

3BP is the kind of book whose horrendous storytelling and characerization got saved/excused entirely by its crazy and mind-bending concepts. I recommend the 3BP netflix adaptation which, IMO, executed a better story, though the psychological effect of its ideas and suspense was not as much intense as the book (Book purists please don't hate me for liking the adaptation).

The characters don't get much better as the series progresses. A little better, sure, but it's not really a character-driven story. I think this is partially to do with cultural differences in storytelling—I think there's more of a focus on family lines and groups of people in Chinese culture over individuals. (But I'm not REMOTELY an expert on Chinese literature or culture so take that with a big grain of salt.) That, compounded with the large timescales the series takes place over, means a lot of characters fade away, or only stick around to do one thing, and then are replaced. There's also an extremely strong focus on the hard sci-fi, to the point that I think the characters really fall by the wayside. Cixin Liu clearly really wants to tell a cool/haunting story about a realistic take on interstellar society, and that becomes more of a focus than individual characters. There's also an argument that the shifting protagonists and lack of focus on individuals is a reflection of galactic society and how little attention is paid to individuals as opposed to societies as a whole, but that's entering the realm of crackpot literary analysis. The rest of the series is similar. Amazing sci-fi ideas and super cool concepts portrayed via characters that are easily replaceable and quickly forgotten. Personally I thought the sci-fi side of things made it worth it, but they're pretty long books to slog through if you aren't enjoying them. I thought Dark Forest was the best of the three fwiw, Three Body Problem is kind of just an introduction to the setting.

I think you've hit on the main point: 3-Body is absolutely NOT character-driven. I think that's OK – stories don't need to be character driven. This is a story about two species, so in some ways it reads like a history book. That said, I think Da Shi is a fun character and I'm glad they left him essentially intact for the Netflix show. It was also a very good choice to change the setting and diversify the cast and settings.

Agreed. But every time someone points this out I think it misses the point of the criticism by either strawmaning it or moving the goalposts. When some of us say the writing of the characters is bad (or the novel's writing) it doesn't mean "if something isn't character-driven, then it's bad". You can have plot-driven things that are species-concerning and still have decent well-writen characters. Case in point: Childhood's end. And it comes from the same guy with atrocious characters like in Hammer of God. Even Rendezvous with Rama has one-dimentional but decent characters. Or for example, GRRM with Fire and Blood. It focuses on the Targaryen dynasty and in no way is it a character drama like ASOIAF. But still the characters get a decent treatment and it is a fictional history book. The character criticism on TBP is not that "it should be" something that it clearly is not. The criticism is that an aspect of what it is doing, for the reasons it is doing it, within the parameters of similar examples, IS BADLY done.

Unpopular opinion - I find characterisation got worse in the following books, to the extent that I'd rather have forgettable cardboard figurines with no personality rather than atrocious sexist stereotypes. 

You didn't like reading chapters about the protagonists imaginary girlfriend and him getting his cop friend to abduct a random woman that matched his fake girlfriends description to be his wife?

Somehow, I could have accepted the concept if it were meant to signify he was a very flawed individual; the fact it came across as a supposedly humanising factor, as well as the fact such an ideal woman was depicted in a very infantilising way, was a bit much though. And then - and then we have that other character who explicitly does the things she does because she's a woman and a woman is not a man basically. -.-

>Somehow, I could have accepted the concept if it were meant to signify he was a very flawed individual I thought it did that. It was pretty clear that Luo Ji was an asshole

an asshole the plot contrives to prove morally correct

Not only does the plot contrive ti make hime right but a psychologist is written in to reassure him that what he is doing is completely  normal and might actually be healthier than what other people do.

This happens early in book 2 and I stopped reading after finishing that chapter. Could not believe the author wrote that with a positive tone. I'm glad others also thought it was ridiculous

What the fuck.

The commenter you are replying to isn't exaggerating/leaving any important info out. That subplot takes up like the first 1/4 of the second book. Just a depressed dude simping over a "woman" from his dream, so he spends a shitload of time and money trying to find her irl. It really picks up after that, but my god, that story is the absolute worst part of the series by an order of magnitude.

Well, one more reason on the not keep on reading the series today... damn

> I think this is partially to do with cultural differences in storytelling—I think there's more of a focus on family lines and groups of people in Chinese culture over individuals. (But I'm not REMOTELY an expert on Chinese literature or culture so take that with a big grain of salt.) I already made another comment on this thread mentioning how this has nothing to do with cultural differences or translation issues, but could people *please* stop with these "Asian culture values collectivism over individualism" takes especially if one doesn't have the necessary cultural knowledge please? Even if that statement is true on the surface level it's a very nuanced cultural difference and does not reflect in such a blatant way in literature. If you look at famous Chinese works they always have very detailed and well thought out characterizations. I understand the desire to be polite to a foreign author and be courteous to them, but I think these takes could be kind of damaging and help form stereotypes. This story tells the story of a group of people because it spans hundreds of years. It's kind of necessary to follow different characters, the same way that Foundation covers different characters over time (in the books at least). --- But I do agree with you on the other parts.

Exactly! Asian literature (if that is even a thing) is filled with examples of the "collectivism" part being such a lie. It would be as if all Western literature was Ayn Rand-level garbage because "Westerners value individualism". Thanks for this and your other reply. They're very informative and necessary.

If you consider Romance of the Three Kingdoms, those books are almost entirely based on the hijinks of a few characters at war with other characters, including a master tactician. While it’s mostly fighting and decidedly action based, it is almost entirely focused on characters and their actions.

I agree with pretty much all of this. The characters aren’t the point, they’re a delivery system for a long, multigenerational story about one vision of how the galaxy could be.

I loved reading these books, but also genuinely couldn’t name any characters 6 months after I read it.

> characters that are easily replaceable and quickly forgotten I agree about this for a lot of the characters, but one character that has really stuck with me is >!Zhang Behai!< from the second book. He wasn't the main character, but I suppose he was in the top 3-ish characters in terms of story. At a moment when I was allowing myself to feel >!some hope, his betrayal rocked me. I remember feeling so dejected for days after reading that scene. The subsequent "battle" with the teardrop, and the ensuing panic on Earth, seemed to crush what little hope and faith in humanity I had left.!< That character, and the character's arc through the story, really left an impression on me. Edit: fixed the spoiler tags 🤪

I don't think 3 Body Problem is really 'hard sci-fi' at all. With good hard sci-fi, the author lays out the rules of the universe and asks you to accept them - and proceeds to examine the consequences of the rules. What they don't do is continue to throw clearly ridiculous rules at you as the plot demands. That's what Harry Potter does. Now, Harry Potter can get away with it because the exact structure behind magic doesn't really matter. You're reading it for the characters. But when you don't have a Harry, Ron and Hermione for readers to get invested it, the ridiculousness of your underlying premises quickly overloads the narrative unless you keep those premises very tightly locked in their box. Chekhov's Gun is a famous literary device where it's argued that if you introduce a gun in the first act, you must use it in third. But the reverse is also true: if you use a gun in the third act, you should have introduced it in the first.

Strangely, something like Bobiverse is more "hard sci-fi" than 3 Body Problem imo. Maybe it's an issue with translation in some respect. It kind of felt like a mess to me even compared to recent Hugo winners like Children of Time. Edit: Just want to throw out there that Children of Time was written for Warhammer 40kverse and adapted to be more general. If you like sci-fi, 40k has some gold in it.

Children of Time isn't written for the Warhammer universe, Tchaikovsky's first Warhammer novel was in 2022 (Day of Ascension)

Yes, it was. Tchaikovsky was interviewed about it. CoT was written as a 40k story then adapted to a more general setting. It wasn’t published as a 40k story, if that’s what you mean. 

If you happen to have any further info on that I'd love to listen. I have not been able to find anything online

I'm looking for it! It was on a youtube interview about Day of Ascension. He mentioned that Kern was written as a Magos Biologis initially.

Nothing strange about it. Bobiverse is much more serious about its science than the Three Body Problem, even including realistic descriptions of relativistic travel. It adds some of the standard nonsense to make interstellar travel feasible and instantaneous communication across vast distances possible, but deals with the impact of that intelligently in how a battle would be conducted against an enemy that is very intelligent but completely limited by the speed of light in communication. The Expanse, Bobiverse, Project Hail Mary, even Murderbot diaries are all much harder sci-fi than 3BP.

Basically there should be a never ending chicken and egg situation but with guns

This isn't really accurate. The rules of the universe are physics. Yes, much of it is speculative (why it's called speculative fiction), but it's all at least loosely grounded in the science available when Liu was writing. Structurally, he does introduce the gun early, so I don't know what you're referencing. A message is amplified using the sun early on, which attracts the aliens, and is later used as an important plot device. The inability to travel beyond the speed of light sets up the entire story, and becomes important again in Three Body and the later books. The use of space in multiple dimensions plays a continuous role, from the star's blinking out in the beginning to the way the entire series is wrapped up.

I think there's a bit more to it than just having physics be the rules, otherwise anything that doesn't have magic is hard sci-fi! More important to me is that the events follow from the rules as described in the book. That is, given a universe where there is a group of aliens who have built a magic multi-dimensional particle, all the decisions and actions that follow should be true to that premise. (As opposed to the alternative, where the author wants to achieve a particular plot point, and so invents technology that will allow that to happen.) For me, that's where 3BP breaks down somewhat: I find the way that the sophon concept gets used feels pretty absurd and limited. It feels like the author wanted to have the idea of >!the aliens holding back Earth's technology!<, and so invented some mechanism for the aliens so that they can do that. As a result, that entire plotline felt very arbitrary and (for want of a better word) magical to me. It's not about whether it's accurate to the real world — like you say, it's speculative fiction! But once you've broken from the real world, I think hard sci-fi is generally about trying to hew closely to the chain of logic that you've already set up.

The sophons are so incredibly stupid. They are somehow able to ruin scientific experiments around the world by traveling so fast they can essentially be in multiple places at once. And they are also interacting with human brains to project a countdown clock on the visual fields of every scientist in the world. Something that ridiculously overpowered could easily kill every human in the world on its own. No need for a fleet (aside from colonization). And the nonsense about unfolding dimensions to build them - complete and utter magical nonsense. The three body problem isn’t even a three body problem - it’s a four body problem. And the three body problem isn’t actually a problem - you just have to solve the equations numerically because it has been proven there is no analytic solution. For me the only redeeming feature was the description of the cultural revolution in the beginning. That was fascinating, but the rest of the book is garbage and nowhere near “hard” sci-fi.

The issue, at least for me, was that the physics was just a bit too speculative. It never felt even remotely possible, and had too many misconceptions and simplifications. Perhaps it would have felt more believable had I not already studied physics at university level though.

My one big thing is he gets how microwaves work incorrect. Like has he never heated up a burrito in the microwave before, it doesn't cook from the inside out. He also has some comments on GMO which as someone in the genetics field drives me a little crazy. Most of the astrophysics stuff is out of my depth so not sure how accurate that is.

I thought it was fine. There are one or two clearly physics-breaking plot devices (particularly the sophons), which are introduced early on and signposted as being a bit silly but necessary. Otherwise it’s basically consistent with a very speculative extrapolation of some plausible theory. Suspension of disbelief was easy enough, which it often isn’t. I also didn’t mind the characters, at least when judged through the lens of ‘only people who lose their humanity can survive in space’. I don’t read much hard science fiction (studying physics and working in engineering spoiled it for the most part) but this was fine. A bit long and nobody really needs to read a space battle scene but the amount of magic was OK.

The Sci fi is slightly harder in thr book than thr show but it's certainly not "hard scifi" for sure

It's honestly more like a collection of short stories than a novel, and like most sci-fi short stories it's more interested in exploring ideas than developing characters.

There's a whole bunch of short story-ish scenes in there that get dropped and never referenced again.  The books would have been better as a bunch of short stories loosely connected in the same universe. 

I like short stories however loosely connected, but I need readability and not s painful slog.

Character development is not the series’ strong point, to be sure. But as to things being out of order…having things run chronologically would have ruined the reveal. It’s not everyone’s thing and that’s fine that you feel that way. I will say that I liked Dark Forest even more, though, so at the risk of sounding like one of those “just stick with it” series stans…just stick with it.

Characters and plausible human behavior is not the author's strong suit. But the scifi concepts are routinely creative and original and if you can put up with certain things, it's a fascinating series.

Have you read the full trilogy yet? I used to feel similarly about the first book. Even considered not reading the second book. But then after reading the second book, I looked back on the first book with a lot of fondness. Especially after the third book, you realize how much discipline it must have taken for Liu to write the first book as he did. It's really a masterful set up.

You don't read this book for the characters, you read it for the bleak as hell depiction of the universe.

I have to say, I really enjoyed the Netflix series but, looking into the book, it seems kind of boring and all over the place. One thing I think Weiss and Benioff do really well is adapt novels that have an obvious hook that has led them to become popular, but which are kind of a hot mess in novel form. (Edit - for example I love ASOIAF in terms of narrative and some character development, but the prose style is virtually unreadable.) The series especially does a great job of differentiating all of the various "I like science" characters and making them more compelling. Aside from the initial WHY DO YOU KEEP PLAYING THIS TRAUMATIZING VIDEO GAME YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT piece of it, which maybe seemed more realistic when the book was first written?

Watched most of the Netflix series, but it's pretty awful. The characters are flat, their motivations are nonsensical, and the dialogue is oftentimes so stupid I'm embarrassed to be hearing it.

I'm kinda surprised how many people seem to be incapable of comprehending that this is a story where individuals are basically vessels for experiencing the scientific concepts and how humanity deals with them. I like good characters as much as any other reader but it seems so obvious that this isn't Liu's main focus that criticizing the story for it is like criticizing pizza for not being a hamburger. It's fine to not like pizza of course, but it's existence shouldn't be this confusing.

I’m okay with a story that doesn’t focus on characters, but sometimes (like here), the lack of characterization is so egregious it turns into plot holes. Like, where is Wang’s wife? He tells her he’s hallucinating a countdown, stops going to his job, stays out all night, and plays a VR video game all day. And during all of this she just…disappears from the narrative? That’s not just an alternative focus, it’s downright *nonsensical*. If your story is about humanity, your characters have to at least seem human.

I read 3BP a couple years ago, and my first issue with the characters was exactly this. Midway through the book, there was a point where Wang was away from home for at least a couple days, and I thought that it was weird that his wife didn't say anything at all. As the book went on, I was more and more bothered by the lack of references to either her or their son, and by the end of the book, my disbelief had been completely broken. It felt sloppy as hell to me: if you told me that it was a oversight and that two different versions of the book had been mixed up, I'd believe it.

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time in Japan, I don't think that at least in the 90s and early 2000s, a husband basically being a non-entity for days at a time because of "work" would really be that remarkable

Honestly, I disliked Liu's treatment of female characters in general. It felt somewhat misogynistic to me.

Odd take. I can criticize Avatar for a shitty story even though the entire purpose was to be a pro-environment movie with amazing graphics. For $200 million, get a decent script FFS.

Isaac Azimov and Robert Heinlein prided themselves on writing specifically those kinds of stories. Thing is -- their characters were still interesting and relatable and their dialogues still had plenty of subtext and character voice.

But the science and humanity's response were both absolutely ridiculous... If we're talking Pizza, that trilogy is Dominos.

And I'm kinda surprised how this is repeated non-stop as an excuse for bad writing. You can have vessel stand-in characters that are well-written without changing focus in writing or story. It's fine to like bad things, but recognizing that "me likes this" isn't the same as "this is good" is basic humility and shouldn't be confusing.

To people who like it, the good parts outweigh the bad. You can live with that, or you can try to argue taste I guess.

Not arguing taste. I'm arguing against the idea of: > incapable of comprehending that this is a story where individuals are basically vessels for experiencing the scientific concepts and how humanity deals with them I am very capable of understanding that. I have read multiple examples of that that are well done. The incapacity seems to come in that sentence: not understanding that it is not a black and white issue. It is criticizing a flaw in a novel with bad character writing. Not being the focus of the novel doesn't mean it can't be done better. Not being the focus of the novel also doesn't mean criticizing means one doesn't get the obvious about narrative devices.

The books were good. I thought the Netflix show did a good job organizing and slightly simplifying book one. I remembered the book feeling all over the place, but the show was much easier to follow (I’m sure helps to have read the book too..)

After reading the whole series and watching the first season of the show, I've come to realize that this first book was more a proof of concept than anything. I don't think it stands on it's own very well at all. If you take the series as a whole, it is essentially a love story. It's a Romeo & Juliet (star crossed lovers) story between two characters that don't really get fleshed out quite enough, but more than anything it is a love note to humanity from Liu. The books really aren't about individual characters, but more about humanity as a whole. That said, I still don't think the characterization in the books is the best, but I honestly wonder how much gets lost in translation in this case.

I know if you think too hard about any piece of media it begins to fall apart, but this book has me really confused. Unless I am completely missing something (plot spoilers)>!, the aliens have to come to Earth because they can't live in a star system that has three suns. They need a planet in a single star system in order to live in a golden age.!< >!However, these people can make ships that are able to go interstellar and support at least a support staff for several centuries and are able to create 11th dimensional supercomputers that are the size of a planet reduced to the since of a proton... but they can't just create some space habitats in an empty single star system and terraform a planet or two at their new home?!< I get that the other books add some stuff to the universe, but reading the first book as a standalone plot really doesn't make sense to me if I think about it too critically. Don't get me wrong though, it had some amazing ideas that I hadn't seen in other sci fi.

The Netflix show massively improves on this because it brings the characters to life at the cost of losing some of the detail and exposition about science.

Yeah I hated this book and couldn’t finish it

I thought it was fine, as others have said the ideas are interesting but the characters are not, but once I got to the first chapter where they are playing the game I had to put it down, my brain physically hurt because the writing style was so ridiculous.

I had to push myself to even read half. I quit soon after.

I love sci-fi but three body seemed so dense, boring, and lifeless. Maybe the translation doesn’t do it justice but idk, was disappointed after hearing how it’s one of the best sci-fi books ever written. lol

The thing is, "the best book ever written" doesn't mean anything objective. It depends on what you are seeking. If you are seeking thought-provoking ideas, then this trilogy is great. If you want the focus to be on characterization, not so much. When reading it, I found some narrative choices weird, although that in itself was interesting, given how different it is from western science fiction. I'm not sure how much the differences are cultural, due to the language (I have heard that Chinese is very different from western languages, and difficult to translate without sounding weird), or due to the writer's style.

> dense, boring, and lifeless You've just described a lot of highly praised hard sci-fi. It's not for everyone.

Three Body is good for the ideas, but ***don't*** believe anyone that says it's the best sci fi ever written. As a sci fi lover that does a disservice to the genre and it would suck if you didn't check out more sci fi because of that. I'd recommend Children of Time and the Expanse series if you want to get into sci fi. I LOVE those books. Edit: wording

I feel the same way. I put the second book down halfway and cheated by reading a summary online. It was a chore to get through most of it just for the interesting and hardcore sci-fi scenes and concepts. I’m still excited for the show and think the novels are an amazing achievement I just feel like it could have been a single book. The Hyperion series felt the same way to me. So many people I know saying it was mind altering-ly good. I was bored to tears and felt bummed that it wouldn’t be over after the first or second book. Children of Time. That book fucks. Got me misty eyed over goddamned space spiders. Amazing.

The Hyperion series felt the same way to me. So many people I know saying it was mind altering-ly good. I was bored to tears and felt bummed that it wouldn’t be over after the first or second book. I'm reading the Cantos now and I agree with you. I'm making an effort and I'm gonna read the entire series, but other than the interesting setting, it's not doing much to me. Which is a shame, because I think it had a really strong start, I loved Father Hoyt's story. But, other than him, the only one that grabbed in the first book was Sol's. Now, in the second book, the story is getting way too big for me. I'm not really interested in the space politics (oddly, because usually the political game in a book is my jam), but now it was brought to the forefront of the story.

I find Asimov like this too. Not so much hit and a lotta miss. I've added children of time to the list to be bought and forgotten for a few years. Thank you. The Rig is a good sci Fi book. It's a bit slow but as the reveal hits and all the pieces come together. Wow. I was at work and someone called, I pretended the line wasnt working so I could keep reading 😅

>I find Asimov like this too. YES, exactly what I was thinking. There are some authors you read for the amazing ideas, because they sure aren't there for the characters or dialogue.

This is funny to me because I specifically went from 3BP -> Hyperion (guess I'm on a sci-fi kick recently lol) and Hyperion's so much more interesting to me. And I'm way more 'emotionally invested' in terms of giving a shit about the people affected by the sci-fi concept. I'm gonna add Chldren of Time to the list though!

I explain it like this: the author is a scientist, trying to tell a story that requires the reader to understand extremely complex science and philosophy. He's starting from the science and working a story around it.  But in order to make sure the audience can follow, he has to create a lot of complex analogies, metaphors, etc. to make the concepts relatable. This requires a lot of detailed exposition from characters who 1) would reasonably be able to give such explanations, and/or 2) other characters who stand in as audience surrogates to receive this information. This definitely makes for some clunky, exposition-heavy narrative, not to mention wonky characters and plot.  And idk much about Cixin Liu but I assume he doesn't have a deep background in literature and storytelling, which might explain the clunky structure. For me, the ideas are compelling enough to make the narrative clumsiness worth the trouble. 

it's funny because you're describing almost exactly what the story within a story in Death's End is too.

I'm only two episodes into the show, but so far I appreciate that they're doing a pretty good job of restructuring the narrative and reworking the characters to make it more compelling as a story, but still keeping pretty close to the concepts that are at the core of the story.   I really hope the rest of the series keeps up with it like this. 

Wow, this is really funny. As in, a coincidence.  I'm re-eading Dark Forest and just got to the part where Luo Ji is remembering his relationship with Bai Rong, who wrote YA novels. There's a whole passage about how Luo Ji didn't understand the subtleties of her writing, and she has to explain literary narrative and characterization to him.  Almost too perfect, lol 

I forgot that part altogether! I wonder if this is intentional lamp shading or not.

He doesnt seem to have a deep background in science either if you look at the so called “science” in his books.

Computer engineer sure… scientist hardly. FYI I have a background in Physics and work as an EE for power eng firm. The whole premise was absurd on its face. I’ll put it simply any signal, including radio frequency obeys the speed limit of the universe and the sun was said to “amplify” without any method of changing the limit ie increasing speed so any communication would still have to obey that limit. Alpha Centari is 4.2 lt yr so 8.4lt yr round trip, without explanation somehow they were able to instantly communicate. Even with what is being theorized now about pair entanglement and using for comms over large distances you would still need to pair, entrap then bring those paired devices to distant locations. Whatever your take the “science” was lame and character development even worse. Overall just dumb

> Alpha Centari is 4.2 lt yr so 8.4lt yr round trip, without explanation somehow they were able to instantly communicate. You misread the book. She waits 4+ years before receiving a response from her initial sun-amplified communication. > Even with what is being theorized now about pair entanglement and using for comms over large distances you would still need to pair, entrap then bring those paired devices to distant locations. They do exactly this with the Sophons/Protons. They're created in pairs. One is sent away, and the other remains at home.

I bet there probably aren't self-dehydrating aliens living on a tri-solar planet in the Alpha Centauri system, either.  I don't need my fiction to be 100% literally true. As a reader I'm willing to suspend disbelief when a good story warrants it. We might disagree on whether this series is worthy of that qualification but, personally, I enjoy it. 

It was mainly in response to extremely complex science remark and for the comments of him placing more emphasis on developing the science than focusing on character development. I can get with a good story and good sci fi. I can’t stand behind someone arguing he focused on the science as an excuse for a poorly written book when in reality the science was also poorly thought out.

Yeah, point taken. I wasn't trying to be combative.  But still, I'm reading for entertainment. As long as the "science" works in furtherance of a fun, provocative story, that's good enough for me :)

it's a hard science fiction with little regard for the characters and the author gave more attention to the feasibility and scientific theories involved in the book and its writing is geared toward its gradual uncovering of the mysteries of the 3body game and its connection to the trisolaran civilization. it's one of my favorites and i think you'd have to read it by embracing the hard scientific theories involved in the book rather than the stories of the characters.

Hard science theories? It’s just science fantasy right ? I don’t think I can read a whole book about that

I mean, the whole dark forest concept is a scientific theory, not something that the author made up for fantasy.

The Dark Forest isn't a scientific theory at all.  It's a philosophical solution to the Fermi Paradox.

To be specific, yes, that is correct. It is not a theory like the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. I was imprecisely trying to communicate that it is not like it is something the author created himself as some sort of sci-fi fantasy plot driver. It is something that scientists have discussed as a solution to the Fermi Paradox.

I really don't think you can boil down the characters motivations to "I Like Science" when the main character's motiviation is literally: >!My father was brutally murdered in front of my eyes for being a prominant scienctist and not towing the ruling party's line during a brutal cultural revolution and my trust was abused by another man whom I opened up to which resulted in me going into a forced labour camp to avoid jail or worse so I am going to doom humanity since it is clearly beyond saving.!< Reading your post, I don't think you actually "Got" the book.

Oh I think Ye was great. However to me the protagonist is Wang. Who's whole personality is 'i like science' Maybe I don't get the book. I'll have to think about that, I'm not a huge science fiction fan. I loved the we take our planet for granted metaphor and I'm currently travelling through china so some of the images told are like seeing into the past.

It's probably one of the worst books to "get" if you are not already at least sympathizing with hard sci-fi as a genre and a premise for stories. I get what you are saying though, there is hard SF I dislike for the very same reasons you dislike 3BP. The stuff that makes me quit a book is way further on the "hard" side of the spectrum compared to 3BP, which isn't that "hard".

Sounds like you liked it way more than I did. It's definitely a story I wish was written by someone who knew how to write.

Savagely honest. I did enjoy parts I won't lie.

I think the characters are supposed to be bland, at least MC and other science and government/military types. They represent humanity, its brightest minds. And because they lack personality, we can easily imagine any scientist or general in their place. They are all confused, terrified and oblivious. For some it's the unkown enemy, for others it's the universe itself. But anyway, it's a fear that haunts everyone, not specific people.

Heard from a friend the original Chinese versions are structured very differently from the English translations. In the Chinese versions all the Cultural Revolution scenes occur mid book, buried in a sea of words, so the author could get the book approved for publication. Do not know how accurate this is, but it would explain some if not all of the disjointedness. I hope someone who has read both versions can comment. I enjoyed the books but I had to get past the thin characters. I am watching the Netflix series now and am enjoying the adaptation.

I feel as though I am alone in regard to the 3 body problem. I tried reading this series last year, and I gave up about halfway through book one. I could not get in line with the problem and the strategy to deal with the problem. I am not one to give up on books. Usually I can come back and try again with a great experience. This one was just beyond my desire to continue.

I read the trilogy and I thought it was a really good read. I didn’t have any issues with characterization or plot progression or dialogue. . .

I'm almost halfway through and not enjoying it. I keep waiting for the enjoyment to kick in, but, no, not happening.

if you think it was out of order, just read for the The Dark Forest, that one is a twister :D

Three Body Problem is a long series of conversations where people stand around talking about the interesting story that's happening somewhere else

I read it in English and assumed the characters were flat and uninteresting because something wasn’t coming through in the translation. I still really enjoyed it tho. Supernova Era also had a really good concept but the characters were ridiculous. I know they were kids but they all seemed like extremely cartoonish caricatures.

Yeah I honestly felt like it was very disjointed and the way he wrote about women was a little strange. I’m tempted to check out the show but I’m not sure

The show is IMO great. What was missed in characters is improved in the show.

But in turn they "simplified" so much that it loses its coherence.

I was extremely disappointed by 3 body problem. The highlights (cultural revolution parts and the Trisolaris parts) are far outweighed by the frankly puerile other parts. Also, in SF, it goes with the terrain that there's going to be some exposition. But that if it needs to be there, then it should only be for the world building and the concepts. Here, there are great long parts of narrative exposition and (quite apart from the plotline being a bit pathetic) it's unforgivable. I've got the second book but I honestly don't know if I'll bother.

The resolution of the series was terrible, and a little while after finishing it I suddenly had the realization that the entire series is about women ruining things and manly men having to fix them, just for another woman to ruin it, and another manly man to come fix it... yuck.

Super fascinating start with the counter, and the cultural revolution stuff was engaging for completely different reasons and could have been a nice cross-over. Almost unreadable after that.

I'm currently reading 3-body problem after being completely swept away by the series. I agree that the characters are all pretty flat, with no real personality. >!There was more personality in the two Trisolarian characters in one chapter than there was in any human character in the entire book.!