The three-body problem books

[Kyriakos]

While I am as much of an adventist as anyone else of alien origin, I now have read most of the first book and have to say I am quite disappointed.
The main issue, as I see it, is that this collapsed to some kind of ridiculous drama, instead of serious scifi. There are many reasons for this, but primarily

Spoiler :

the insistence on promoting rather insignificant personalities, like Ye, or the cheap counter-weights like Da Shi, but also the generally funny and anti-atmospheric use of science in the trisolaris computer game.

Sadly it also includes cheap cyberpunk-reminiscent sequences, such as the

Spoiler :

death of the second most important adventist, by a dumb Neuromancer assassin.

I'll probably keep reading to at least the end of book1, but I have lost hope that this is a serious scifi book. Seems to be (in regards to tone, not science) less serious even than something like Childhood's End. And the science there, albeit more realistic/real, isn't put to imaginative use like in Phillip K Dick's novels.

 

[aelf]

I now have read... and have to say I am quite disappointed

Hate to break it to you, but this is not news. Probably doesn't deserve its own thread.

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe some of the people who read this can participate, say @hobbsyoyo or @Birdjaguar .

I am sure that Prokhor Zakharov would never declare war on Earth - that sounds more like Lady Deidre or Miriam...

Re Ye

Spoiler :

while it's interesting that this entire mess started due to a single female's hatred for the People's Party, I really don't think it works as a plot. The scale is ridiculous; would many people cause the downfall of Earth just cause their life sucked?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Not interested, thanks

 

[Birdjaguar]

They were great books and I enjoyed them. That is what I read a book for. I'm not into analysis or critiquing.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm all for analysis and I wrote quite a bit when I read it. But we're not going to get that out of this thread.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm all for analysis and I wrote quite a bit when I read it. But we're not going to get that out of this thread.

You don't need to send a message to the trisolarians, you know. I am a pacifist.

They were great books and I enjoyed them. That is what I read a book for. I'm not into analysis or critiquing.

I accept that, ok. I did find positive elements as well, of course. Maybe the hype played a role

 

[Gelion]

I assume that it has something vaguely to do with Alpha Centauri?

 

[Kyriakos]

I assume that it has something vaguely to do with Alpha Centauri?

Spoiler :

That is where Trisolaris is supposed to be, with Alpha Centauri having a twin star and the nearby Proxima Centauri all being a system.

 

[Gelion]

Spoiler :

That is where Trisolaris is supposed to be, with Alpha Centauri having a twin star and the nearby Proxima Centauri all being a system.

Sounds kind of interesting, but I somehow understood that its referring to the old (but good!) game. My other guess was some sort of religious text.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, I did get to the end of book 1.

I have a question, I know @hobbsyoyo doesn't feel like discussing it, but still,

Spoiler :

Why would the Trisolarians send long info, revealing the existence of the sophons? I mean, one could argue they thought humans were bugs, then again some pages before they also feared humans would develop far beyond Trisolarians, so why give them any info about their weapon against that?
Let alone that it doesn't make sense to send the info as a novel. You'd just summarize that they built sophon, what a sophon is, and what it will do.

 

[warpus]

These books have been on my radar, but my reading list is too long to really think about reading them anytime soon. I mighty very well do that one day, but I do remember reading that the sequel or the third book is disappointing, or something like that.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I loved them all.

 

[FriendlyFire]

These books have been on my radar, but my reading list is too long to really think about reading them anytime soon. I mighty very well do that one day, but I do remember reading that the sequel or the third book is disappointing, or something like that.

End of Death is probably the weakest of the trilogy but still is a very strong finale
The throw back to Byzantine seemed a little out of place and saddly the exciting stuff like a huge space battle and the alien architecture / culture is never really explained.

 

[Estebonrober]

I liked them a lot but they are Asimovy, as in they lack a lot in the actually narrative department but are really cool in idea department.

 

[Kyriakos]

These books have been on my radar, but my reading list is too long to really think about reading them anytime soon. I mighty very well do that one day, but I do remember reading that the sequel or the third book is disappointing, or something like that.

I found the last 50 pages of the first book to be really problematic. Also, the aliens just aren't alien; they are humans wearing alien skins (or rather not even that, given up to now they aren't described either)

 

[warpus]

I liked them a lot but they are Asimovy, as in they lack a lot in the actually narrative department but are really cool in idea department.

Sounds like not my kind of book, although I found Asimov to have had decent narrative & characters. Mind you I read most of his work when I was much younger, so maybe my opinion would be different now..

I found the Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars trilogy to be horrible in terms of character development for instance, the character work in the first book is really bad. I tried to read it twice and had to give up with times. That never happened to me when reading Asimov books, especially something like Rama or Nightfall that had such great characters and narrative as well.

 

[Kyriakos]

Sounds like not my kind of book, although I found Asimov to have had decent narrative & characters. Mind you I read most of his work when I was much younger, so maybe my opinion would be different now..

I found the Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars trilogy to be horrible in terms of character development for instance, the character work in the first book is really bad. I tried to read it twice and had to give up with times. That never happened to me when reading Asimov books, especially something like Rama or Nightfall that had such great characters and narrative as well.

Rama is by Clarke

 

[warpus]

Doh, right you are! Their prose is very similar though, and Nightfall remains an excellent example of Asimov's work that had great characters and everything else. IMO it's one of the best sci-fi novels written.