I've been told it's how modern Chinese novels are written. To a Western reader, it reads like juvenile fiction. The language is childishly simple, and all of the character's inner live — motivations and emotions and thoughts — are spelled out rather than inferred, and there's little no depth or ambiguity anywhere. I liked the historical context, but I found the whole thing to be very wooden and unimaginative.

I finished the first book, but I couldn't deal with it either. I think it could have worked terrifically if it had been written in a satirical style like Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s The Sirens of Titan. Some of the chapters about the aliens do come across like Vonnegutian comedy, but I'm not sure if this was intended. Overall, the book takes itself very seriously.

Here's an interesting perspective on the english translation: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/wired-book-club-ken-liu-interv...

I doubt their state education system is full of literature teachers who encourage a lot of looking past the surface narrative of things.

Lol love the casual racism

It doesn't have to be racism. It could be a reflection on the fact that China has a totalitarian state with strong censorship. Hidden subtexts are hard to censor.

Maybe the point is to spell out the core narratives so that the reader can build on it themselves?

I'm not one for subtlety if it doesn't add any insight.

The ideas in the book were good, but I found the characters and the style of writing to be _awful_. It was _tiring_ to read. I think atombender explains it better. The whole style of the book was different (and in a bad way for me).

The way people/groups of people/organisations/societies acted was also not realistic. They all had the same way of reacting.

Still worth a read if you can stomach the writing.

Liu Cixin himself was quoted that he couldn't start the narrative as straight up science fiction because this genre is essentially unknowm in China. So he decided to build up to the actual science fiction part of the story in a deliberate, slow pace. The story arc then develops from an almost historic setting with Rwd Coast Base as a starting point to some crazy ending to the arc that is way out there at the end of book three.

Every serious critique of the books that I came across mentions the poor character portrayals. But the story offers a view of a universe that is intrinsically hostile in a very depressing way and I did enjoy it for that.

> Liu Cixin himself was quoted that he couldn't start the narrative as straight up science fiction because this genre is essentially unknowm in China. So he decided to build up to the actual science fiction part of the story in a deliberate, slow pace.

Apparently the order of the story is different between the Chinese and English versions.

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/wired-book-club-ken-liu-interv...

The article explains the reasoning as being sensitive to the culture part of it and not the sci-fi portion.

Personally, I loved it. A lot gets translated in a clunky fashion, and I thought book 2 was the clunkiest translation, but the ideas are fantastic.

I have a feeling that the "Dark Forest" theory is going to be accepted as a valid answer to the conundrum of the Drake equation.

Apparently there is also a easy solution to the Fermi paradox by taking the uncertainty in the Drake parameters into account: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404

"We examine these parameters, incorporating models of chemical and genetic transitions on paths to the origin of life, and show that extant scientific knowledge corresponds to uncertainties that span multiple orders of magnitude. This makes a stark difference. When the model is recast to represent realistic distributions of uncertainty, we find a substantial {\em ex ante} probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe, and thus that there should be little surprise when we fail to detect any signs of it."

See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#It_is_dangerous_...

The opening chapters were awful from a literary standpoint and didn't offer much in the was off science fiction either. It does get better. It's probably overrated (how could it not be at this point), but it has redeeming qualities and provokes thought.

I persisted till the end and still have no slightest idea what is it that I'm apparently missing.

I was so fascinated with the story that I read all 3 books in 3.5 days.

Wow. I think it took me a month. If you don’t mind me asking, have there been any other books or book series that you have read at similar Cannonball Run speed?

No, not at this speed.

I'm currently listening to it and I agree so far. There are a lot of very dragging and near pointless chapters. But there have been some stories that pulled me in a bit and that moved the whole topic along.

I still don't understand what the opening chapters set up or tried to explain. Maybe it was just about the political/environmental setting or maybe it starts to make sense later on...

Think of it as a period piece setting. American equivalent might be growing up during the Civil Rights movement. Establishes motivations for characters. Something this book could have used more of, not less.

You gotta stick with it, the whole first half of the first book is slow exposition and it’s much more gratifying if you can get past it.

I read all 3 books, and the prose was ok (I'm not a native English speaker though). But the science and plot devices were absurd and I couldn't treat it seriously as a sci-fi book.

The opening was the best part. It's the rest of the book where it defines itself as complete tripe. The initial set up was a good foray into Chinese history.

Seems a bit silly to judge a 1400+ pages sci-fi trilogy based on a few chapters. It's not like science fiction books are usually great in prose.

Perhaps, but OP is absolutely not wrong to have done so either - the characterisation and exposition across the trilogy is generally awful and sub pulp fiction quality.

That said, I did enjoy the books and I thought some of the 'science' profoundly novel (if occasionally wince-inducing in its unlikelihood, but hey it's science 'fiction'!)

It's certainly true that a surprising number of books are poorly written. But even if you want to win me over on the strength of your ideas rather than the prose, you still need to lead with those ideas. If a book doesn't grab me in the first 4 chapters, I'm unlikely to read much further.