Hi and welcome! My name is Berit, I am a PhD student currently living in Norway. On this channel, I'm talking about what I'm reading, which is whatever suits my current mood :)
The worst of the trilogy. 3/10. Terriblr world building, dumb character motivation, and everyone on Earth just became stupid. Why would Wade agree with Cheng? Cheng failed Earth twice, yet Wade still believes in her...
YES. Having just finished the Netflix series I am still at awe how the creator of this book justifies mass killings as “us versus the enemy” & “our history is always right”. To put it into geopolitical perspective the book is quite literally about Mr. “No bad happens to Uyghur in Xinjiang (East Turkistan)” Cixin Liu or to a broader extent chest thumping Chinese nationalists see the Western world i.e., USA. At its core, the whole “dark forest rule” thing is nothing more than some regressive ideology about blah blah resources limited survival of the race this and that… It’s quite evil, actually. FYI I have the same cultural background as the author of the book. I consider myself to have a pretty good understanding of what is going on inside his chinese incel mind. chinese society behaves similarly with the tri-solarian society and I have no confidence that creator of the book have reflected or even realized much (if at all) on the negatives of this mentality ingrained into his own creation. It’s just not that good. Compelling story? Yes! Morally bankrupt? Even MOAR! Just like the imaginary tri-solaris civilization, chinese history is civilizational collapse on repeat. Plus I’d like to point out how either “eastern philosophy” or “regressive ethno-nationalism” (depending on how u wanna look at it without being prejudiced) heavily emphasizes collective and tribal survival. The “dark forest” at its core it’s just the author glamorizing his twisted, immoral, totalitarian world view. To some extent, he perfectly demonstrated everything on his worldview, unapologetically, and assumed this is inevitable for all existence in the universe including the human race. (WHICH IS NOT) That’s why I think his work is dangerously flawed.
I have nothing good to say about 3 body. Schizophrenic fascistic propaganda branded as “sci-fi masterpiece”. Netflix has done a decent job of salvaging the original material I gotta say, but I still despise its core philosophy. It’s explains a lot why countries like china and russia despises peace and cooperation with the rest of the world.
I agree about the apparent sexism. Given that diseases can be eliminated when people are cryogenically frozen, perhaps there are advanced eugenics or therapies to make select women slim and beautiful in the eyes of men? This was not addressed.
Finally I find someone who isn’t a woke retard. Like damn. I just got done with Death’s End and not a single thing throughout the whole series was sexist. People are looking to be offended.
With the gender thing, the book sermed tk be saying that feminised men were bad and the world needed soldiers which is in part why the human race had problems. The author really doesng seem to like men who are not traditional men. Its really weird because in the real world youd always have all kinds of men (and women), thats more realistic. Like you i had a eye roll at done of it.
I couldn’t care less about their gender, they could all be cis males or females, or non binaries, all I care is about the story and how it develops. Thank you for the review ❤
I didn't find the book so much telling me that feminized men are unattractive. Rather, I thought it was explaining the character's old-world perspective and her trouble adjusting to the new world and its whims.
Great video! I'm happy to see other people enjoy the book and/or movie. I saw the movie in theaters when I was a kid (i had a great childhood and my parents are awesome don't worry lol) and it scared the absolute shit out of me. To this day, the movie still makes me look over my shoulder for a few days after watching it even as a grown man. That being said, the book was absurdly terrifying at parts. I don't want to spoil it, but the first chapter and a part with a guard standing outside the exhibit still haunt me to this day. 10/10 outstanding book if you're looking for scares.
Keeping politics out of book reviews would greatly help your review. Be succinct. Don’t get hung up on what you yourself say arr unnecessary details. Bad review.
As for the sexist talk this book is about humanity as a whole, you have to look at it from a Jungian metaphysical perspective and see the characters represent different aspects of archetypes of humans. Cheng Xin represents the Animus the feminine and Wade represents Anima and Masculinity. I'm not mad at all for Cheng Xin not pressing the button or siding with Wade, these things happened because she is loving and caring and wanted the best for humanity, also she got woke up from hibernation once and straight away got shot and then appointed to the saviour of the world and the second time she got woke up and Wade said we can do lightspeed but it will mean a breaking of the peace and a internal conflict within the humans that were left. You are getting triggered by not understanding the deeper aspects of humanity and focusing on the individual who in these books are quite metaphorical.
hahahaha K-pop idols !!! Well hard times created strong women in the first book, when the lady protagonist wanted the Aliens to come save humanity from itself LMFAO
Wonderful series. I'm on "Wheel Of Darkness" now. Fateful, I suppose, seeing as I bought or was gifted it years before, even prior to finally cracking open "Relic". Strange names and concepts at first, but endearing
15:45 i feel this is a Chinese cultural comment on Transsexual people. A bit of 2020s politics seeping through. Some comment on hard times, hard men, easy times commentry that is a favorite quote of the right wing.
The author makes it clear that neither outcomes from the decisions made by the woman (forget her name) were forgone conclusions. For instance, it's very possible that Wade would have lost the war and the company, and light-speed research would never have been initiated at all. Also, as swordholder the "right" decision would have been to press the button and doom the earth anyway, so there really is no right decision from her point of view. Perhaps the right decision was not to have her elected to swordholder, which was mostly out of her control.
Some of my thoughts: 1. You need to have read the previous books to understand this book. There is no summary or reminder in the book. Many characters and situations from the previous books are mentioned without any explanation. In my opinion that is a flaw that could be easily corrected with a few paragraphs of explananation. I read the first 2 books a few months ago, but I don't remember the details. 2. It is difficult to believe that the swordholder would be a single person. It is much more plausible that many leaders, presidents or prime-ministers of the world would all be swordholders and be able to press the button. And the deterrence weapon would only be activated if all, or at least a majority of the swordholders pressed the button. Putting the fate of the entire human race on a single person is too inplausible. 3. Many elements of the book are based on real science. It is difficult to know which elements are from the author, and which elements are from other authors or scientists. I wished there was an a bibliography with all the sources. 4. There is no mention of a Noah's Ark, at least in this book. Maybe there is in the previous books? I don't remember. If humanity were doomed to extinction, it is quite probable they would try to build and launch spaceships that worked as Noah's Ark. Such spaceship should have libraries with most human knowledge, and frozen embryos and seeds of most animals and vegetables, including several human embryos. The purpose would be that hopefully an advanced civilization would intercept and be able to revive the embryos, so humanity could survive and rebuild somewhere in the Cosmos. A more advanced Noah's Ark would have artificial incubators able to develop and give birth to the human embryos, and robot nannies able to take care, raise and educate the babies. An even more advanced Noah's Ark would have human adults in hibernation. A Noah's Ark is not that difficult to build and it is feasible, at least in its simplest form, with today's technology. Many arks can be built and launched and if at least one of them succeeds, then the human civilization could still exist and thrive somewhere in the galaxy. 5. If an alien civilization were to try to conquer the Earth, would they even bother to talk to humans? Do humans bother to talk to ants that might be living on a property where humans want to build a new house? Humans just build the house and kill any ants that stand in the way. Just like ants are completely ignored by humans, an alien civilization would just ignore humans and just kill any human that stood in the way. So to survive all you have to do is not to stand in the way of the aliens. The only problem is that aliens could want to occupy the entire planet, and possibly there would be nowhere to go to survive, except maybe outer space. And humans fleeing Earth would probably be completely ignored by the aliens.
Just on the sexism. I think it was much better handled in this book than the 2nd (luo ji was ridiculous and hilarious tbh). Some comments you pointed out are actually coming through the eyes of Cheng Xi who is used to common era men, whereas AA have the exact opposite opinion about what she is attracted to. So I guess there’s no jugement there in the end. For the rest I wont repeat the other good takes from the comment section. Really good book, better than 2nd (the doomsday battle really made me roll my eyes to no end…)
I loved your analysis! I'm from Brazil and I was absolutely impacted by the scale the trilogy risked to go. Some of the "scenes" these books brought to my mind were literally things I never thought I would be able to imagine - like the 4th dimension part. Hard-sci fi is my favorte kind of SF books, and I always had the Foundation/Robot series as the highest level a human could go of real science extrapolation - like Asimov did with the science available at the time. And from this perspective, in my view Liu's trilogy got at almost, if not the same, level. I approached the books with hard sci fi expectations, with low hopes of charachter development or love, and knowing the origin of the author. I was very curious to read a book written from a Chinese perspective - the sexism was crysfal clear, but I'm also from a country with big social problems, with a bigger ratio of sexist men than other places, so it did not surprise me. I noted it and also saw it as widely unnecessary, but in the end it was compensated by the rest of the book and mind blowing ideas (I believe that, for not being part of the offended group, it is "easier" to make this compensation, even though I can relate to the critics and don't think they are wrong). But I really loved fhe series, and youf reviews were amazing!
first of all you are very compelling yourself as a reviewer. the tone of your voice and pace are excellent. great work. i disliked the first book because it was so flat and mostly because it read like a young adult novel story. i may have to read the other two -- still on the fence, but you are giving a good push to do it thanks.
OMG being a female protagonist and taking bad decisions is a very big deal with ghis reviewer. This book answers the question why she didn't pressed the button how mothers instincts are... and u stretching this thing sooooo loooong omg
Why did Wade get killed by laser? Why not normal bullet or leathal injection. High powered laser uses massive amounts of power. Laser weapons in Sci fi do not seem to have advantages over gunpowder weapons.
Cheng Xin was pressed by the expectation of the masses to run for swordholder. The masses wanted her to be the swordholder. She just had to comply. That's her mistake. It's not her mistake that people wanted a lovable swordholder. Deterrance lost its charm when human chose a lovable person to be swordholder. It would get much much worse if she did push the button when droplet struck. Human would get destroyed from the anger of trisolarans. Trisolarans only had to leave their trisolar system immediately and their technology already could do that, but for human, it's annihilation. It's right to not push the button after trisolaran's droplet struck. She kept 2 civilizations safe from the dark forest. And because of that, Trisolarans didn't take revenge on human after their trisolar system was destroyed. Anyone in her place won't agree with Wade's terrorist war against the government and the innocent people, especially when the majority sided with the bunker project. Wade had zero chance against the government and the battleships. And he knew it. That's the main reason that he and his followers gave up so easily after Cheng Xin said No. The research still could be restored under the table when the fire of conflicts was put down. I felt this book is more a love story than sci-fi. Cheng Xin brought staircase project to Tianming. Tianming bought a star to Cheng Xin. Both of them changed the other's the path of life, and they both got a chance to play an important role in saving humanity. Cheng Xin researched on sending human probe to space, and suggested Tianming as a candidate. She also enlisted Tianming after he was about to kill himself. She kinda pushed Tianming into an unknown hell inadvertently. And Tianming agreed. Likewise, that gifted star sent Cheng Xin onto a terrible life path. At first, she felt sympathy for Tianming. But after knowing it's Tianming who gifting her a star, she felt mostly regret and guilt for him. And there was a feeling of lost love in her heart. Since then, she would think about him whenever she suffered or felt lonely. At that meeting in earth's orbit when Tianming told her that he had been watching her through sophons, and knew everything good and bad happened to her. He knew that she lost sight and try to kill herself. He didn't judge her, but only showed care for her in his eyes, at that moment her feeling of love for Tianming transcended into true love immediately. She completely fell in love for this man. He was the one for whom she would keep on living, hoping one day they would meet again on their star. Even everyday she had to endure so much regrets and guilt, she just wanted to meet him again someday on their star.
If you didn't like the sexism in this book, it gets SO much worse in the 3rd, To the point where I couldn't even keep reading it. It was really disappointing because I really did enjoy the sci-fi.
Very well described/explained! I read the book but you helped coalesce the various stories within a story (history, science, physics, drama, etc). It is the biggest sci-fi book intellectually speaking that I have ever read. I too didn’t get the game parts but i also didn’t notice the misogyny… I just thought that was Chinese culture! Just about to start “The Dark Forest”… Cixin Liu is an astounding writer.
The effemination of men is a negative. Men and Women have a polarity. This is natural and correct. Remember the Chinese author is not western, and thus glued to the western brainwashing propaganda of the new gender cult thats griping the West. Even more so, the author is a student of history, thus he would know about Mao's government enforced genderless society and dress. For example, During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Mao’s famous political slogan ‘The times have changed, men and women are the same’. They made the women and the men get the same haircut's as well as the same dress. This writer is both non Western, and what appears to be anti CCP, thus he would be anti- adrogeny in either way. You mention K-pop, He may also argument because Korea (south Korea) is under the total control by the USA, which at this time is the flagship of the West. Kpop has long been mocked for being effeminate, as they are also trying to mock their fellow asians for being dominated by the West. Simply, to attack effiminatity in men, is to attack Kpop, to attack Kpop is to attack Korea the vassal state of the West.
Great review, super insightful and thought provoking, just finished the series. I really didn't even think about the sexism of the woman needing to be the Madonna and the man needing to be the stern, tough, unemotional and unfeeling cowboys that essentially Wade was made out to be. Something irked me about those subjects in the book but I couldn't put my finger on it until this review. Like Trisolarans were actually relieved when she took over because her deterrence percentage was so weak and the man's deterrence was nearly 100%. I wonder if that came from sexism in the history of humankind as portrayed in all of the art and society that the Trisolarans consumed, because history is blatant to treating women as weak unfortunately. With the more feminized men than the other era, I absolutely thought of k-pop idols, and I thought the need to bring it up as unattractive was just a character choice in the beginning and would set up a future love interest which kind of panned out, but you're right it does go on just a little long than necessary and makes a statement. Overall I really loved the series and have never thought so much about a set of books in my life. Thanks to your review I'll be rereading the first two and looking at your content for those insightful views. Thanks for your thoughts here!
Just finished reading the three books a few days ago and I gotta say that the third book wasn't very good & they missed a good opportunity to write one of the best ever sci-fi stories. I'm a guy & even I found the sexism in the book very unnecessary & I think that is what lead to the poor writing of the main character in the final book. Like the real first savior in the story was Luo Ji and he was portrayed as being a monster & charged with " mudocide" yet Cheng Xi first was pointed about her being a women & her maternal instinct & love & the author seemed to constantly try to excuse her stupid decisions & cowardly behavior as first sword holder (note she could have just initiated the sequence of the buttons for the signal transmission & scared off the probes but she did nothing, she later acknowledged this herself) because of what she symbolizes & then the constant commenting about the men of Lou Jis era vs the feminine men of future eras & the people of the older era being better at certain things....over all it just felt that they gave no good reason for the stupid decisions of Cheng Xi or that future era dumb leaders but constantly emphasized how feminine men were now & Cheng Xis maternal instinct & Love...then there was another part I think it was like the president of the main international national government and she gives some brief message & author just focuses on her beauty without going into more detail as to what she had done or accomplished. So in short, author kinda said in the last book that current era men are masculine & make difficult necessary decisions (wade & Lou Ji) but women & men of the future are feminine and make terrible decisions.
perhaps this is a cultural thing-- Guan Yin even emphasizes to Cheng Xin that everything is not her fault, that she chose love and is the best of humanity--she represents positive qualities. She never seemed weak at all.
@@Zen-jp1gb I think we have different interpretations of characters, their motivations, and storylines, and that's okay. These are all influenced by our upbringing. I am coming from the perspective of an Asian woman living in Asia. I just finished the books and was looking to have fun discussing with other fans of the book. Have a great day.
@@lovebunny2345 that is a very good point about the influence of our upbringing. Can you please elaborate more on your experience as an Asian woman living in Asia? I know Asian women here in the states but they must be different life specially because they are younger & don't think they ever lived in China
Loved to see other readers who had read this book! In my country we just have book 1 translated and I really wanted to read the other books.. unfortunately I cant find them online but your video helped me to understand other books :) also I heard there is more books than 3 ??
