'The Three-Body Problem' is... bad
I just finished it today and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what parts I enjoyed.
Spoilers
I enjoyed the parts where we get to see inside the game of threebody. That felt engaging to me, but was really the only part I enjoyed.The rest of the book felt very preachy and a lot of it felt unnecessary. I don't think I liked a single character in the book. They all felt like caricatures and not how people would genuinely act or respond to the events happening in the book. Almost every single action taken by every single character felt forced to fit a narrative.
I cannot fathom why this won a Hugo award other than the fact that it was the first piece of science fiction originally written by a Chinese author in the Chinese language to win. [edit: In terms of novelty. The fact that it was originally written in Chinese has absolutely no bearing on my opinion other than possibly due to the translation the characters seemed to have no depth.]
I listened to the audio book, as I was told the names can be confusing and the audio book helped with it. I kept waiting for it to go somewhere, and when it was over I thought to myself, "that's it?"
Maybe someone can give a different perspective on it, because right now I'm just frustrated I spent money on it.
As someone fluent in both Chinese and English, I would like to share my perspective with you. Initially, I began reading the book in Chinese, but the first chapter evoked such a powerful emotion in me that it became slightly overwhelming. Since I was not in a good mental state at the time, I decided to switch to reading it in English, which blunted much of that impact.
I'm currently in the middle of a half-hearted attempt to read it in Chinese, and what I've noticed is that I completely agree with you regarding the flatness of the characters in the English version - however, when the same ideas are conveyed to me in Chinese, the writing and the characters feel more natural in that context. I can't quite explain this phenomenon, but perhaps the more detached writing style and the difference in narrative focus make it a better match for a story of this caliber when it's in Chinese. I feel like you are missing much of that cultural context and emotional expectations, and thus it is totally understandable that you feel that way.
This would explain a lot. I had read elsewhere that the translation was good, however.
I wonder if it being translated differently would help reflect the meaning to me and make the characters feel more real.
The act of translation is not mere word-to-word like moving bricks from point A to point B, but more of an art in and of itself. If there were idioms missing in language X but present in language Y, the source material's language, then it is the translator's burden to bridge that gap.
I am under the impression that the translation is well done and faithful to its source, and that the difference in my perception is not caused by issues in translation but by the fact that some things are inevitably lost in translation and there isn't much to do about it. It is a shame, really, but in order to elicit some of those emotions and reactions, you'd almost have to rewrite some parts to adjust it to western expectations.
That's a shame and makes me wish I could have read it in the original language. Thanks for your insight.
I actually suspected this might be the case. When I read the English translation of the first book I definitely had the sense I was missing some of the meaning of the narrative, particularly in the Cultural Revolution passages where I have only a very superficial knowledge of actual events, but also actions of characters that seemed to have a lot of import which I could tell I didn't understand the cultural context of (it was a while ago and I don't remember enough detail to give specifics). Similarly, my wife and I have been watching the Chinese television adaptation of it this year, which has been quite enjoyable for a number of reasons, but at least once per episode we will find ourselves a little befuddled going "Wait, what just happened there?"
This is exactly why I felt the way I did about Three-Body Problem. I definitely felt that flatness and awkwardness, but powered through it (and the other two books) and chalked it up to a translation issue.
Thank you for this comment. I suspected that my difficulty with and ultimate dislike for the narrative was related to the translation, either due to flawed technical work or complex societal/cultural nuances just not relatable to non-Chinese audiences. I really liked the ideas but I struggled with the pacing, scene transitions, and character behavior.
Honestly, I loved the book, but I'm also a sucker for hard sifi.
I definitely hear what you're saying about how flat the characters are, and just a means to get the narrative across, but I will say a lot of science fiction has had this problem.
Take Asimov as an example. His characters are shit. Even his writing isn't the best. I always feel like I'm reading green script on a black background when I read him. But his overarching themes are what really captivate me.
Much the same with the three body problem, I care less about whether I find the characters engaging and more about the overarching themes. I will say, however, I really think that it's a trilogy for a reason, and how the next two books unfold really blew my mind in the sense of scope.
I guess it really comes down to what you're hoping to get out of a peice of writing, especially if it's a big time commitment. If you're looking for good writing and we'll rounded characters, its definitely not going to scratch that itch, but as far as grand scope in time and space, it definitely satisfied that for me.
On a different note, if you do like good sifi that also has excellent world building and truly interesting characters I would recommend anything written by Kim Stanley Robinson.
I don't think Asimov's characters are shit exactly. I'd say he's just very limited in character expression. Each of the main characters in Foundation sound and act exactly like each other. For savant level tactitions, they come across pretty good. After the first couple, you can really smell the patterns and behaviors, so your really just waiting for Asimov to reveal the secret trick.
A bit off topic, but I remember the goosebumps I felt at the end of the Foundation and Earth when the main character glibly mentions about how they need to be ready of aliens were among them, and there's this line about one of the characters staring right at him as he said that.
That's my main problem with the book. It tries to be hard scifi, and is in regards to some of the ideas it introduces. But it doesn't explore the ideas thoroughly. It doesn't follow up with what it means for an introduced idea to exist.
Spoilers
If you introduce the idea of a species building a moon-sized space-station with an artificial general intelligence on board powered by an infinite-specific-impulse-drive and equipped with non-local communication equipment, then fold them into 13th dimensional space resulting in a intelligent weapon system the size of an elementary particle... you absolutely need to follow through! What does that mean? What other things can this weapon do? What other things can a civilization build that has the means to build something like that?If you don't do that, the entire idea seems... if not stupid, at least not hard-scifi.
spoilers
Yeah, that really annoyed me. We learn that the tri-solarans have basically figured out how to operate like computers themselves in their history, but they use their elementary particle superweapons to interfere with particle collisions rather than just putting an end to our ability to use computers? The sophons could generate a visual countdown just to dick with a guy, but they couldn't use their proton size and ability to generate emissive energy to just start flipping vital bits in our computer systems to launch all our nukes and send us back to the stone age? Hell, if they didn't want to risk nukes, there's a much more interesting story to be found from among the vast selection of more subtle ways intelligently modifying the outcomes of our computing provides. Tell that story. The "physics are breaking down because we can't get what we expect from particle collisions" thing was so freaking contrived and seems whacky when you consider that they know the power that comes from reliable logic gates and computation.I don't think this is a fair characterization. Ted Chiang is Chinese American (born in New York) and he's won four Hugo awards. It is true though that The Three-Body Problem is probably the first science fiction work originally written in Chinese and from China to hit some mainstream success in the US however -- at least in recent years.
I don't actually like Three-Body either, I thought it was a mediocre book with some cool ideas. However, my problem with it basically the same criticism I have for a lot of beloved science fiction in that the crazy ideas and concepts take center stage over the characters and narrative. As great as Asimov's works are, they often suffer from far worse paper-thin characters than Liu Cixin's do. For a lot of science fiction readers, the ideas though are what they're there for and the characters are just vehicles to explore those concepts. From all the Three-Body theory-crafting videos I've seen on YouTube, Liu Cixin seems to have successfully filled that niche among certain readers.
The science fiction gets better in The Dark Forest and Death's End, but if you didn't like the character work in Three-Body, it doesn't improve and you're better off stepping off here.
The Hugos are really unreliable indicators of a book's quality. That's what you get when you let the public vote on stuff. I pay attention to who has won the Nebula or Arthur C Clarke awards, not the Hugos. Sure, good books have won it, but some really terrible books have too.
That said, Arkady Martine has won two of the last three Hugo awards for best novel and she 100% deserves both of them. A Memory Called Empire is one of the best sci-fi books I've read for years.
I remember quite enjoying the Three-Body Problem, but it's definitely the first book in a series. There's not a lot of resolution in the first book. Unfortunately the series went downhill pretty fast and I only finished the last book because I'd put so much time in already I wanted to see how it ended. If you didn't enjoy the first book I wouldn't recommend the second or third.
I just looked up A Memory Called Empire and it's a looooong wait at every library. Must be good. Thank you for the rec!
The epigraph from A Desolation Called Peace (the first sequel to A Memory Called Empire) gives me chills whenever I read it:
I genuinely think Arkady Martine is the most exciting sci-fi author I've read since Iain M Banks.
I have Rose/House on my ereader but I haven't got to it yet. I hear very good things.
btw there is a handy Teixcalaani name generator here which Ihave been using to name electronic devices and servers and other things which need names.
That is great. I will have to hold Eighteen Titanium in reserve as a username.
As soon as I saw the title for the book (I haven't read it), I figured it was going to be a reference to that quote from Tacitus(?).
Though as I recall that was a reference to the Roman Republic, not the Byzantine Empire that she studied. Still, I think the Byzantines would say it's close enough.
I keep a quote database, so I did some very light research when adding the source, and it seems to be attributed to Tacitus who is quoting someone else named Calgacus. I also read that the translation of desert may be inaccurate, but I really like the idea and phrasing.
It's a valid perspective. Though of course, no one is to say otherwise so long as you read it in good faith. Everyone reads books differently. Some people are attuned to characters and dialogue and how those move a story forward. Others are attuned to events and history. I think the book and the trilogy on a whole appeal greatly to the latter while having little for the former.
Personally, I loved the trilogy and read it in two or three days. I was engrossed.
But,
Liu Cixin's characters are poorly written, and his treatment of them is quite sexist. I won't divulge more for fear of spoilers.
The first book is slow and was my least favorite. It's really just a setup for the next two books, which reach a grand and dizzying cosmic scale and get really crazy.
I recommend finishing the trilogy. It's truly unique.
Thank you for calling out the sexism! I've discussed the book with people who have finished the trilogy, and no one else I know in real life has brought up the sexism, which has been strange to me because it's so front-and-center! There are huge plot points specifically built around sexism! It really soured the series for me.
I actually finished the series, and many of the scientific thought experiments have stayed with me since.
Spoilers for books 2 and 3
I enjoyed – though did not necessarily buy into – the concept of a dark forest. One of the comments mentioned that the book is written in such a way that it frames the universe as inherently hostile and amoral. I don't disagree... but I also think the dark forest hypothesis a little too clean and a little too in the extreme. Of course, I can't help but be biased.I also really enjoyed the idea that the universe originally had a higher number of dimensions and a higher speed of light, but both were pared down over time. I thought it was extremely clever and played very well with the dark forest concept. I felt like it created a very interesting dynamic where humanity felt extremely small and extremely vulnerable, but it also teased so much in terms of how awesome and interesting the universe was (scientifically).
I didn't like the weird self-mind control stuff, and I didn't like how over powered sophon particles were. While I can't say that the dimensional politics and powers aren't unrealistically overpowered, I felt like these two in particular felt so out there scientifically and annoyed me so much plot-wise that I can't really get past it. I really like the idea of folding and unfolding matter into different dimensions, so it's kind of a shame.
The female characters were consistently portrayed as weak-willed. Ye Wenjie gives into her bitter cynicism and initiates contact with a hostile alien species. Cheng Xin is portrayed as naive and weak, and when she is appointed Swordholder after Luo Ji, the aliens immediately bet that there's absolutely no chance she would pull the trigger. And for Luo Ji, as Wallfacer, he's just... given some woman to be his wife. I don't think she was even named?
In contrast, the male characters were portrayed as strong-willed, ready to do what's necessary. Shi Qiang, the gruff police officer. Zhang Beihai assassinates some scientists in order to steer propulsion research. Thomas Wade secretly develops a light speed drive in defiance of the ban. Luo Ji, whose steeliness and willingness to sacrifice both Earth and Trisolaris, is the sole deterrer of the aliens until his retirement.
I was like, c,mon. I'm a gay man, and I was struck by how Liu Cixin wrote about future humans appearing more feminine looking, and in their feminine naivety having their entire navy smashed by a single Droplet (or two?).
I was thrilled by the dark forest hypothesis, however. I remember getting chills when it was revealed. All the strange machinations of the ETO and the Trisolarans made sense.
I was also thrilled by the immense scale and wackiness of the universe and by the concept of the pocket universe. Cixin really made the universe feel so... alive, vibrant, surprising, yet at the same time: cold, dead, and terrifying.
Spoilers discussion
Wow, you read my mind on the series. I had the same thoughts.
Spoilers for books 2 and 3
The thing I really enjoyed about this is Earth is a great example of this kind of idea -- and I don't just mean humans. The Earth's atmospheric and surface composition has been irrevocably changed by life and the Earth would look very different today if life never formed on it. The most obvious example is the oxygen content in our atmosphere which is entirely biotic in origin. It's very interesting to me as a physicist if the universe itself has been similarly modified over time by processes -- regardless of if we'd recognize those processes as "life" or not. I don't buy the 'science' in the series, but I do like the spirit of it.
Spoilers for books 1
One thing I'd add as far as the first book's science is concerned was the partial misunderstanding of the three-body problem itself as a physics problem which is funny since the problem was used as a metaphor for so many things in the series. Liu Cixin clearly did his homework on certain aspects like mentioned the slowly converging power series as a footnote in the first novel, but the main conceit that the Trisolarians never could predict their three star's orbits was kind of funny to me. Sure, you can't write down a closed form mathematical solution, but you can numerically solve for three body orbits to basically as much precision as you'd like. Making double pendulum simulations (which have some similar mathematical features) is a basic undergraduate homework project in a physics coding class at any university. Our solar system is a n-body system, and we have some reasonable understanding of what the solar system will look like for millions of orbits. Very few things in physics have clean analytic solutions anyway, and much of our understanding of the world comes from numerical models.I completely agree about the sexism. I kept writing to my friends while reading that some of this read very much like reading a reddit forum about women. The science in the series was great and I liked the writer of the fourth book that unofficially completes the series even if it ended up in somewhat weird christian allegory. However, it was really tough to get through the actual story itself.
I feel the need to say up front that I strongly disagree on the idea that it won the Hugo because it was a Chinese author.
I felt a similar let down when I read Three Body. But I think my problem with it is something that comes up with me when I read most hard sci-fi: I tend to latch onto one little part of the science that I don't think makes a lot of sense and pin my lack of enjoyment on that. I can easily suspend my disbelief with fantasy, so I know that there is something unfair in my reading of sci-fi.
For example, in three body:
Spoilers for Three Body Problem
It's hard for me to understand some aspects of the book, they seem so bizarre when taken at face value. There's this videogame that people play where the point is to figure out that the seasons are unpredictable because there are 3 Suns, but if you do figure it out humanity is doomed. They send their photon supercomputers to mess with your particle physics and make you commit suicide and make you see a countdown timer. It's just really bizarre. It's obviously more complex because of the red revolution happening in the background, but these aspects of it never gripped me.
I read the first book years ago but never had the intention to read the next books. It may be the case that if I found the characters more compelling I would have more buy in, but I remember feeling everyone felt flat and same-y.
My problem with nitpicking sci-fi came up again recently with Children of Time.
Spoilers for children of time, and me being a bad reader
The spiders just would have an immense, unbelievable jump in their scientific capabilities every chapter they appeared.
"I just figured out how to read genomes and perform genome editing, but also I don't really speak good and don't understand emotions."
"I just figured out how to perfectly mind control ants. Also, I've turned ants into a supercomputer."
The human half of that book was extremely good though!
I didn't even find the sci-fi compelling in Three Body. Actually, reading that book really made me reconsider if I even was a fan of sci-fi. It seemed that everyone loved that book but I just couldn't get past parts of the science I thought were a bit strange. Children of Time reinforced this idea for me, which is a bit sad. I enjoy the concept of sci-fi quite a lot, but have been disappointed more than I have found great enjoyment.
I thought it was okay. Not amazing. I didn't bother to read the last two.
I agree. Couldn't get through the first book. It wasn't worth a Hugo.
I doubt it's the translators fault as Ken Liu's original stuff is fantastic.
I didn't read the 2nd and 3rd for various reasons, but I think it's a great book. The characters are "fine" with one major exception of a character who I thought was boring actually being very very well written when you get the reveal.
Still almost no one comes away from 3 body saying "wow what interesting characters". It is 100% about the concepts and how they're handled. It's ringworld levels of accurate detail, and touches on a lot of stuff that many other books gloss over, in a very accurate manner. The conflict actually feels like it's handled realistically for the most part, mostly because the writer is actually willing to handle things like game theory instead of "believe in yourself" or "space magic". And they logically extend from there. There's not a ton of stuff in the hard sci fi space, and even then not all of it is good, let alone as good as 3 body (ringworld came to mind a lot reading it, but I think it's much "softer" in many ways).
I also think that part of it is that it's realistically portraying how boring some of these characters absolutely would be. Too often books have characters who are way more well rounded than the average person, especially in fields like theoretical cutting edge science.
I'm not exactly sure why you felt the book was preachy, so I can't say too much on that. Overall I will say that the major "point" of the book is-
Large spoilers
That it's a very real alien apocalypse tale. We're not alone, and that's a really really bad thing. Other species are much the same, and in this case are literally desperate for a solution to their problem. There's a dread in that everyone is utterly fucked from before the book starts, and it's handled fantastically. He brings up several very real theories that have horrifying implications for humanity and possibly physics as we know it, and weaves them into the story quite well rather than just throwing around concepts lightly.It's as much about sociology/game theory/politics as it is about scifi/physics, and I think it weaved together very well.
I did skip on the next 2 mostly because it is A LOT and I wasn't sure I wanted to commit that much to what was clearly going to be a very existential horror/depressing story.
I thought some of the ideas of the first book were pretty interesting. The human computer was utterly moronic at first until they got to explain it. But I agree that the book and the characters are a bit flat. Apart from not liking any of them, I don't think I could relate to any of their motives - the humans were more alien than the aliens.
It was a little exciting to read scifi focusing on particle physics, since that is my own field. I think the description of the accelerators, experiments and detectors as well as the justification for fundamental science pretty accurate (if basic). But oh my god, don't get me started on the sophons - out of all the plot tools he could've chosen, that was a very poor choice and really ruined it for me. It is akin to explaining it all away with magic. And it wasn't even needed - the story could've worked without them.
As for the second book - I liked it even less and wrote about my struggles with it here. It was very anticlimactic.
I'm now a third of the way through the third book and so far it's pretty cryptic. Don't think I'll be able to recommend it to anyone.
I, too, hated this book. The characters were what really killed it for me. I wasn't able to finish it. I appreciated the parts on the Cultural Revolution, but that was about it.
One lens through which a book can be looked at (and it is by no means definitive) is on the spectrum of it being character-driven or plot-driven. While I am a huge sci-fi fan (it's something like 95% or more of what I read), I have noticed that there are large swaths of sci-fi fandom that are perfectly content to read books that sit firmly on the plot-driven side of the spectrum. As long as the book presents interesting, novel ideas, a very large number of people seem willing to overlook unrealistic dialogue, flimsy/nonexistent character motivations, etc. On a related note, these same people seem to be similarly willing to overlook "writing fundamentals" if a sci-fi novel has a certain hardness to it; things like, plot contrivances, quality of prose, etc.
My wife and I are both rather particular on both of those fronts: we want realistic characters and dialogue and plots that are at least internally consistent. Despite that, while I strongly suggested against reading it after my experience at attempting it, my wife really enjoyed the book.
Admittedly, I don't have a lot of experience reading books in translation. I was concerned that part of my rejection of the book was simply due to my inability to cross the cultural divide that the original author was communicating from. Indeed, my wife (who is a Comparative Literature major) said it reminded her of the books she read in college that had been translated into English.
Click to expand spoiler.
But my favorite example of things that I can remember of the book's failings was when the detective who is giving one of the main characters a hard time appears out of nowhere on a random street in a large city at something like 3 AM simply because the author wanted him to harass that character. I don't recall there being any good reason for the detective to have been there. Certainly, I don't remember it being explained that the detective was doing a 24/7 surveillance of the perspective character. That doesn't feel like a translation problem.But my demands for verisimilitude might reflect my own cultural biases. Clearly I am in a minority in disliking it.
I have the first audio book. I can't finish it. It's a miserable story that made me both mad and sad. I don't care about any of the characters. The sci-fi had not shown up by the point in the book where I quit. I was looking for hard science fiction not miserable politics.
I love this series, and at the same time I would mostly agree. I appreciate the others' comments about how the prose might be better in Chinese or how the context of the first book might be speaking more to a Chinese audience. As a Westerner, though, I just feel like the entire first book is a prologue to something really, completely different. The whole grandiose space opera that unfolds in this series occurs in the third book, and almost the entire conceptual point (the Fermi paradox and one of its many explanations) is laid out in the second.
I cannot guarantee you that you will like the other books, but I can almost certainly say they will feel different, and you might find ideas that you like in them. I can also promise you that it does indeed go somewhere.
A lot of storytelling relies on there being something called a moral universe. It's very nearly a universal concept. This book is written as if a moral universe does not exist. It can throw some people off.
I enjoyed reading the book despite its issues. The concepts used were quite interesting, but I agree that the characters were rather flat. I definitely enjoyed the sequels more than the first book, though.
A couple of friends and I read it for our book club ~6 months ago and we were pretty ambivolent on it. I really liked the first half, but I at least respected the dedication to the "realism", or at least I felt like they were using words that were related to the subject at hand. Then, halfway through the book the author takes a right turn into a snowbank and everything goes off the rails. I'm not really sure what inspired this becoming a gepolotical thriller, but the subject matter got so rediculous it felt like I was reading one of the worse clive cussler novels.
As someone who loved the trilogy, might I ask what sci-fi you are a fan of? Personally, I didn't mind poor characterizations, because I was reading mostly for the story and felt it mostly lived up to the hype. Especially the second book.
Not going to lie, I'm not sure how much I want to engage with a thread when it includes
This statement is wholly unnecessary unless the OP is intending to be provocative, to put it mildly.
This is not a controversial take. In the same vein that I would fully expect the first half decent science fiction piece written in a native american language or the first X to also win a Hugo.
Simply put, the politics of first X supercedes quality and judging by the quality of the book, its the only thing that makes sense.
Honestly this is a pretty ignorant remark, not the least because it makes the assumption that there are no existing works of Chinese/Native American science fiction worthy of being considered "half-decent" before the publication of the Three Body Problem. Just because those novels have not been translated into the English language does not mean they aren't there.
The Hugos have always been more of a popularity contest than anything else, and this series resonated with a lot of people despite its flaws. Why would you jump to the conclusion that the book won due to factors outside its own merit, instead of merely not aligning with your reading preference?
It makes the assumption that this is the first book originally written in Chinese to win a hugo, which it was. That is why I added the qualifier first X. It has nothing to do with the language in which it is written and more importantly about being the first X.
Because judging by it's merit, it was bad to me. If people want to get hung up on this portion of the statement, you can direct your outrage elsewhere.
Seriously? I have massive criticisms of the book, but are you so sure that you yourself are the best judge of what is quality? I don't understand how you can make this statement as opposed to simply 'I disliked this book for xxx reasons.' I have major criticisms of this book, but I can recognize its merits and how popular it genuinely is.
Frankly, your own politics are showing here.
I have only my opinion after I've read them. But as stated, the quality isn't there. And of course I am the own judge of what I deem to have quality. Others can influence you, but in the end the decision is always yours.
Really? And what politics are those?
You are the judge of what you deem quality, but to say that the fact that the book being written in a language other than English "is the only thing that makes sense" to explain why it won the Hugo Award is a statement suggesting that other people liked the book only because it wasn't written in English.
Believing that accolades are awarded solely on the basis of the identity of the creator due to some kind of politics is, itself, a political statement.
Or... that it mainly won because of the novelty of breaking new ground, and not based upon it's merit as genuinely good piece of science fiction.
I do not believe all accolades are awarded for novelty of first X, but I am not naive enough to assume they are not sometimes.
Look, I recognize that we're unlikely to change each other's minds, so I debated whether or not to even respond. But I guess I want to clear something up, since I think I see this misunderstanding in other comments you've posted.
Saying that it's "the novelty of breaking new ground" is not substantially different from saying that The Three Body Problem won because the author is Chinese [and wrote the book in Chinese]. In fact, I consider it to be exactly the same issue; so much so that I was really confused with your response, since it seemed to me to be repeating what I said back to me and then saying that it was different and more acceptable. It is still saying that the book won because of the identity of the author, novelty or not. Being Chinese and writing a book in Chinese are not, after all, entirely separate concepts. It seems ridiculous to pretend that judging a book based on its language and judging a book based on the identity of its creator – a writer born and raised and currently living in China – are completely different topics.
(emphasis mine). I would like to point out that neither did I say that you believe "all" accolades are awarded for the novelty. It stuck out to me because you also started this topic by stating that identity politics could be the "only" reason it won the Hugo. Quite a lot of all-or-nothing statements.
You disliking the book is not the issue. The issue is that you clearly seem to believe that there is a sort of disingenuousness on other people's parts. Rather than keeping an open mind and understanding that other people may have liked the book that you didn't, you make the assumption that most voters in reality believed the other English-language were better (have you even read them?), yet "only" voted for The Three Body Problem because of the identity of the writer. Do you even understand why this assumption is offensive to so many?
Yours is a controversial take, considering you believe your judgment to be superior to those behind the Hugo Awards, and considering the success of the series internationally. It's one thing to say you don't like a book for one reason or another; it's another thing entirely to dismiss it, and the awards it's won, outright.
You can have your own opinion, but don't pretend yours is somehow superior. Particularly given how quick you are to dismiss the author on the basis of race.
This is a willful miss-characterization of what I said. If you are not interested in having a good-faith argument, then there is no point in further discussion.
That is what you said. You entered into the conversation in bad faith. I've seen little to suggest that has changed.
This argument is exactly what I used to see on reddit where someone makes a statement based on their opinion and then defends it to the hilt with some weird circular argument.
OP stated quite a bit elsewhere how it was bad quality to him and it's his opinion and then carries on arguing that it is poor quality (as if objectively) and must only have won because the author is Chinese until he ends up with the mashed up edit (quoted below) to his statement because the author only wrote it in Chinese.
That edit alone blows some of his assertion out of the water let alone the fact that while it might not have been good or quality to him personally, it still may actually be good.
is too much for his mind to stretch to.edit: that last bit was a bit unkind and also this is something I believe we all do sometimes.The assertion is that the book is not good. This will always be a subjective statement because I'm the one saying it, and not forcing you to do so. It neither loses strength or gains it based upon the qualifier, "to me".
The qualifier, "to me" or "in my opinion" is spelled out elsewhere because, as like you have done, unless it is specifically spelled out some people feel as if I am forcing them to also say my opinion is their opinion.
When I, or anyone, says something is "bad" you can rest assured knowing it's a subjective opinion in terms of writing a review about a book.
And yes, the edit was done because the way it was originally written was factually incorrect and distracted from my intent, which was why it was changed in the first place.
If you have a differing opinion on the book itself, I'd love to hear it semantics aside.
That isn't what a bad-faith argument is.
I have no interest in having a discussion with someone who simply wants to win an internet argument. I've clarified what I intended it to say. If you cannot accept that, then I cannot change your mind for you.
I see this sentiment quite a bit online. The funny thing for me is that if I look at a list of Hugo Prize Winners and read the last few decades, I recognize almost nothing on the list. Much less the runners up! So who am I to judge whether it deserved a win? Of course I’m sure there are some massive Sci-Fi fans out there that read the winning book year after year. But I think in general the book just marketed well its winning of a prize that few readers actually care about.
You also may not represent the wider public, many of whom may well have read those books. Maybe you could pick a few up, you might enjoy them!
That said, your wider point is true. Awards are largely picked by people within the industry, rather than the audience consuming the products. But still, people tend to hold awards in fairly high regard; winning a Hugo may not be absolutely indicative of quality, but it could certainly be a factor in helping one make up their mind on what to read next.
Of the Three Body Trilogy, I liked books 2 and 3 much more than the first.