21st Century Literature discussion

I'm opening this topic for people who have read the 2nd book in the Three Body Problem series and would like to discuss it. Since there's not a set date for reading, there will just be this one topic. Following this first post spoilers may abound, so proceed with caution if you haven't finished the book.

I'm only half way through myself, but here are some things I'd be interested in hearing people comment about to start:

- How does the 2nd book compare to the first? Does it have that "sophomore slump" that's a problem with a lot of middle books in a series?

- What do you think of the characters? Do they serve the plot well in their respective positions?

- Did you buy the way that society changes in the book. both technologically and socially?

- For those reading the books in translation, how do you think the two translations compare? Anywhere that it was apparent you were reading the work of a different translator from the first book?

These are just a few things I'm interested in, please feel free to branch off in any direction you'd like, this is not intended to be any kind of 'formal' discussion.

Oh yay I finished this weeks ago but had no one to discuss with! I hadn't realized it was a different translator but had noticed differences in the writing so now I don't know what that is due to. Basically I found the second far easier to relate to. The first was stiff, more technical, colder, and the characters basically served the plot, somewhat superficial. I attributed that partially to being Chinese politics. The second was what I call warmer, characters more fleshed out, and the story proceeded from the 4 oh jeez already forgot their titles.

The technological advances were believable since they really hadn't advanced that much and couldn't. The social and politics were believable because in spite of the alien threat unifying the world the superpowers still had their BS.

I don't want to say anything more til you're done.

Oh and I like Dark Forest better even tho I thought 3 Body was great.

Feel free to say whatever you like, Lori. This is a thread for people who have finished the book, the rest of us read at our own risk.

I think I'll be talking to myself. That probe battle was one of the best military sf battle I've ever read, it really got to me. The incomprehensible physics was frightening. The superiority we encountered in the dark forest. The notion of the dark forest, didn't Hawkins say we were fools to announce ourselves? It was brutal for a girl of the 60s who formed my ideals on the Federation of Star Trek.

Lori (Hellian) wrote: "I think I'll be talking to myself. That probe battle was one of the best military sf battle I've ever read, it really got to me. The incomprehensible physics was frightening. The superiority we enc..."

I'm a fan of three body problem trilogy, but I don't agree with the Dark Forest theory.
If you have ever played the great computer game named "Civilization", you would agree that communication between different civilizations is the most essential factor for the technology development of the civilizations. Therefore those who believe the dark forest theory and hide themselves will be surly surpassed by those who opens themselves to the whole universe.
It's interesting that Liu actually mentioned this point in the 3rd book...

What a great idea for a thread! I haven't read The Dark Forest yet, but I'm picking it up from the library today so should be able to do so soon.

Zhao you've read the third book! I can't wait for the translation to be released. Reading the 2nd was the first time I got swayed by the dark forest notion, it's not one I readily embrace myself. The book was so good it was the first time I seriously considered it and I look forward to the counter argument. It seems to me that any intelligent alien species would have resolved their own aggressive tendencies as their technology advanced to travel the galaxies. One of the reasons I love the Culture of Ian Banks.

Lori (Hellian) wrote: "Zhao you've read the third book! I can't wait for the translation to be released. Reading the 2nd was the first time I got swayed by the dark forest notion, it's not one I readily embrace myself. T..."

I agree with you. Those who fail staying in peace would have much less chance to obtain the ability of travelling in the galaxies.

I think Liu is right on the opposite side to Ian Banks, this even gets more obvious in the 3rd book. In the 3rd book, the theory about how the universe comes to be is one of the most hopeless and darkest theories I ever know. And I felt so cold when the story went to the part when an alien called "Singer" *cleared* the possible Dark Forest threaten with a casual air, chanting rhymes. The 3rd book was so dark that Liu had to create a very soft protagonist to balance, who actually has made the story darker in my opinion.

After all, it was an unique and unforgettable reading experience. Luckily I don't believe those theories, but I do know many people have changed their view of the universe after finish reading this trilogy.

Hmm now I'm kind of dreading the 3rd book. :) I resolve not to let it infect my idealism!

So, wow. Just finished The Dark Forest. Did not disappoint. I love how fearless Liu is about taking on The Big Questions. I had some vague expectation that this book was largely going to be about the era he refers to as "The Great Ravine", with earth falling apart due to a combination of despair at having no future as well as having all resources put towards militarization. And I thought it was a great decision that he skipped over those years and just gave us enough to know how miserable they were. It reminded of how Emily St. John Mandel skipped over the immediate post apocalypse years of rape and cannibalism in Station Eleven. We're all familiar with these bleak years, so let's just get on with what happens after.

And speaking of what happens after, the humanist in me loved that the technological leaps happened after people decided to focus on taking care of the earth and each other instead of defeating the enemy.

I'm fairly certain that Liu must have read Greg Bear's The Forge of God, where I first encountered The Dark Foret Theory; although it wasn't put in exactly those terms, it was damn close. In the Forge of God, the explanation for the Fermi Paradox (name checked in The Dark Forest - the question of why we haven't encountered evidence of other advanced civilizations) is that many of those civilizations destroy other planets at the first sign of intelligent life. Efforts to contact extraterrestrials such as the SETI project and the Pioneer plaque turn out to be as foolish as a child crying in the woods and drawing the wolves. Here's a quote from the book (spoiler alert), as the main character is watching Earth being destroyed:

"Home. Arthur connected suddenly with all that he saw; the abstraction took on solidity and meaning. The stars behind the glowing, swelling Earth suddenly filled with menace; he imagined them as the glints of wolves' eyes in an infinite night-bound forest. He paraphrased what Harry had said on his tape:
There once was an infant lost in the woods, crying its heart out, wondering why no one answered, drawing down the wolves…"

I'm hoping first contact will be a Vulcan!

Hi guys, check this short movie that created by the fans of TBP trilogy. I was shocked.
http://www.project-57.org/

Whoa! How cool is that?

Whitney, thanks for creating this post! It is good to have other people also reading this sequel to talk to.
I am still only half way through the book but I am enjoying it a lot. It feels like a different book from 3 body to be honest, since we are dealing with more intergalactic warfare issues than the mysteries at the beginning and most of book 1, also other technological and future progress problems, plus the Wallfacer project, which I think is such a interesting and original concept. I am excited to see what happens next.

I think maybe I liked this one better than the first. I loved the creativity of the characters figuring out how to outmaneuver the aliens. I continue to be amazed at how Cixin Liu can come up with strange, original ideas, one after the other.

There are some plots that are not so realistic.
1. Although human race faces a doomsday, I don't think they will commit huge resources preparing for it. I think most ordinary people won't care about it, while the leaders will definitely exploit the situation to carry out their own agenda.

2. Based on same hypotheses, it is impossible for a wallfacer to live in selusion. World powers will definitely try to manipulate him. And people's patience won't last 5 years, long enough for him have a child.

I don't think you can enjoy these Liu books or his stories without be willing to suspend disbelief more than ever. That's what I've found for me. The science or other aspects of the story are outrageous, but I like the writing so much I am willing to suspend disbelief.

Just the idea that a civilization could survive the way he describes in The Three Body Problem is ridiculous. But it was fun, so I let it go (except to point out the scientific problems to my husband. I just had to tell someone).

Wen, I was thinking about if humankind would really try to prepare for an invasion 4 centuries in the future, that is just insane. But maybe some leaders will actually try to do it, that's why he points the UN to be the head of it. If you combine all the resources in the world I think the Wallfacer project might be possible. And 5 years in a 400 year plan is nothing.

I think my biggest problem so far was the protons from the end of the last book until now. I mean, having such small organisms (Are they even organisms?) be so incredibly powerful, that's insane. But I also have learned to enjoy it without trying to make everything work in the real world.

Wen wrote: "There are some plots that are not so realistic.
1. Although human race faces a doomsday, I don't think they will commit huge resources preparing for it. I think most ordinary people won't care abou..."

Coming from a cynical perspective and a country where the military industrial complex is huge and very powerful politically, I can buy it to some extent. Politicians here get huge sums of money from the corporations that benefit from military spending. I think that an imminent threat of destruction, even 400 years in the future, would be readily exploited to politically justify pouring vast resources into those corporations, at least here. But it would be harder to get buy-in in many other countries I think.

Re: Jessica and Michele's posts. I don't find the science that outrageous. I think that Liu has an excellent understanding of and utilization of classical physics. As for the advanced quantum physics, yes it's all horribly theoretical, but he gave himself the out by having the Trisolarans destroy earth's potential for advancement in particle physics, leaving the field open enough to invoke Clarke's Law (any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic). I.e., he dealt himself a hand allowing for a little outrageousness.

What did people think of the idea of the "Chain of Suspicion" as essentially creating a universal law that any civilization would automatically destroy another one to protect itself? I know that the attitude of many involved with things like SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) is that a technically advanced civilization must also be an ethically advanced civilization. Does that sound like a reasonable truism?

Or, in general, is it even possible to draw conclusions about the motivations of truly alien species?

I think both approaches sound reasonable. I don't think that we can know until we find out. I think what humans end up doing will be a good indicator of what aliens are capable of.

Michele wrote: "I think both approaches sound reasonable. I don't think that we can know until we find out. I think what humans end up doing will be a good indicator of what aliens are capable of."

But what about what Da Shi is saying about even the act of trying to find out ending up condemning us, the "child crying in the woods and bringing down the wolves" metaphor? Personally, I think I'd rather risk destruction than huddle in fear in our little galaxy like sad little isolationists.

I can't get behind being isolationist. I am too curious.

Well, the paperback came out recently and I just finished reading it. It was a fun read, even if I don't buy a lot of it (and to quote: "Disbelief should be suspended, not hung by the neck until dead."). The problem with Liu's solution to Fermi's Paradox is I don't think the 2nd axiom of Cosmic Sociology -- "Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant." -- is valid. Advanced technological societies don't require large populations, and why would they need to expand? Also, there is an awful lot of matter and energy in the universe.

I finally finished the book and am very excited to read the third one - it's coming out fairly soon, right? I really enjoyed the Third Body world of the first book but found this one easier to follow because it proceeded chronologically and because I already had a basic understanding of what was going on.

The science aspects pretty much washed right over me - I get the gist of it but am not equipped to tackle whether any of it's realistic or not. I was struck by the philosophical questions raised at the start of the book - do we fight the enemy, accept defeat, or try to escape? I was especially impressed with how Liu Cixin is simultaenously able to write coherently about complex theories and weave beautiful imagery throughout the story. I loved the Zhuang Yan pieces of the story and how Luo Ji continuously recalled her painting and comments on blank space even when the fate of humanity looked pretty bleak.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As a matter of fact I liked it better than The Three Body Problem.
The only thing I found to be a little hard to swallow in it was certain matters related to the society that exists on Earth in the future.
They were decidedly naive, gullible, and easily rattled for citizens living in such an advanced era..
The way they sent the ENTIRE DAMN fleet to greet the water drop probe and then line themselves up in close and orderly proximity. Like one of the characters in the books said "it was an unforgivable error"

Peter wrote: "Well, the paperback came out recently and I just finished reading it. It was a fun read, even if I don't buy a lot of it (and to quote: "Disbelief should be suspended, not hung by the neck until de..."
About the point of there being a lot of matter in the universe, Lou Ji talks about this in the book. It is a lot of matter, but civilization expands exponentially so that even with a lot of matter it will be consumed.

Yes... but I don't buy the civilizations expanding exponentially, either. Also, there are problems with his physics anyway. If the sophons can communicate faster than light, then time travel is possible and causality is a local, not universal condition, This makes very advanced civilizations potentially very strange.

Mind you, any SF book that has FTL communication or travel has this potential issue, it's just most don't deal with it (see however Charles Stross's Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise). But most authors don't try to extrapolate the sociology of such civilizations, either.

My husband and I were also bewildered by the naivety of the future generation and by them sending the entire fleet to investigate the droplet. I'm not sure if the mental seal will ever be brought up again, but we were wondering whether its effects inadvertently spread to the general population. Side note: the whole Battle of Darkness and escapist part made me want to go rewatch Battlestar Galactica.

Was the ant climbing the tombstone in the prologue supposed to symbolize the reader?
To paraphrase, the ant crawled over the letters on the tombstone but lacked the neural network required to remember the previous letters he crawled over.
This is happening literally as the protagonist learns of the critical piece of information he will need to execute at the end of the book.
However, WE the reader lack to neural network to remember this bit of information during over the course of the book with all its new information and amazing events happening.
Just a thought. Liu Cixin might be being very clever with us here.