Incidentally, this book seems to have some sort of cult critical status; I personally found it very poorly written, despite the original ideas in the plot.
I hope Netflix are able to turn it into something much better in their translation to the screen.
Edit: be more concise
But the storytelling just falls flat in books 2 and 3, with the overlong story-within-a-story and the needless romance plot. The... relativistic stuff (lets call it that to avoid spoilers) at the end didn't do anything for me at all, and just felt tacked on to wrap up storylines i didnt care about in the first place.
Could have been 50% shorter imo.
And I'd also argue that while the dark forest theory is a possibility it tells me more about the author and their culture than an actual plausible reality. As much as humans have been completely horrible to one another in several times of history, it was always because there was "something for us" and there was never a complete wipe out of other groups just because.
But yes, apart from that, the writing is poor, the plot holes abound. Sure, the story has several interesting plot points but it doesn't hold together. And the 2nd book is the worse in my opinion (translation probably didn't help)
Netflix has some fine series, I'm sure it's perfectly capable of doing a good job with good source material; and hopefully capable of being transformative when the source quality is more mixed.
Hence, it was poorly translated. Which is a different problem.
To be fair, I also thought that the translation was terrible. The essence of the work gets lost in translation. But the ideas inside it, were gold, and quite creative.
I jest, sure, but that bitter mental taste in my brain still remains.
As far as I can tell, there is a movie by Yoozoo that was finished in 2015 but never released: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(film)
There is a Chinese produced series made by Tencent that (I think) is still in production: https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/china-t...
And there is also an animated series by Bilibili that is scheduled to come out in 2021: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-11/18/c_138564215.htm
Is the Netflix version additional, or a replacement for one of these?
Besides, why would the Chinese government go down that route when they already have the power to censor and direct the production?
While there are direct references to the CR in the first few chapters, the real cleverness is the indirect approach and the (traditional) use of SF to critique the present society. In the book, advanced higher-dimensional aliens have invaded earth .. with a pair of subatomic particles. Since these are under their full control, they are able to warp reality in higher-order physics experiments to prevent humans ever learning certain things.
The parallel with the CR and Maoism (or indeed post-Bernays propaganda states) in general is obvious - the ability to finely control what information someone receives, especially at critical moments, is the ability to control what they think and know.
Edit: a scene where someone comes out of an obervatory or what was it.....
edit 2: why is this being downvoted.... i wrote an observation, didnt offend anybody, what??
Xi puts the blame for his misfortunes on "wrong kind of dilettante communists," and being wronged, not that CR was wrong, it's just some poor pissants perpetrating it were wrong for taking on grand "true communist" personas who his family were.
So, the only wrong thing about it he sees is that the he wasn't at the helm back then, and not acknowledged as being worthy to join the purgers.
It seems we read different history books.
But I'm all ears on how alien civilizations will engage in costly missions to completely wipe civilizations out of their reach
Groups wiped just because, would be the jews, the armenians and a long list actually (1). You could argue that some of them is because territorial fights, but is it not that also the reason of the "Three body problem" aliens?
About why alien civilizations could decide to engage in this kind of thing: if you are paranoiac enough you can frame it like a preventive attack, if you are reasoning that you will be fighting them for resources in the far future.
About how, there are many ways. The most obvious, though expensive, is just accelerate a lot of stuff (ideally antimatter), the closest to light speed as possible, in a interception vector with the undesirable solar system.
This is not the kind of thing I was planning to think about in Christmas eve.
(1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_tol...
Some of our most popular fiction authors are frequently accused of not being able to write endings - there works are either drawn out way too long, or wrap up way too quickly.
It feels like there's few examples of consensus around what's 'just right' for how fast, and neatly, to wrap up many concurrent plot lines, especially in obnoxiously surreal universes.
Looks like you havent watched the last few seasons.
I agree, it's not a conversation for Christmas Eve, and thanks for actually explaining your point.
Huh, that wasn't what I took away from it while reading, might be lack of awareness on my part but I feel like saying that is a theme of the book which is sexist seems a bit much to me. could be interpreted as maybe, if you could name examples?
IIRC, this society then attempts to pursue diplomacy only to get massacred before the archaic male heroically sets up a MAD situation.
The archaic male then controversially hands over control of the MAD response to a weak willed/nuance entertaining female, and the trisolarans immediately attack.
Apologies if I’ve mixed the timeline, it’s been a while and the human story draped over the skeleton of an interstellar war was a bit thin.
Ultimately, Earth sends the MAD signal, and ends up destroyed. The goal of the artificially installed defeatism was to make humanity flee the Earth, and it's only the those who fled the Earth who survive its destruction.
I probably should have written "can be interpreted as"
Chinese Viewpoints are fascinating in some respects.