Why I Dont Like The Three-Body Problem 🪐 Unpopular Opinion 2023 [CC] 

Appendix: comparison of some og text and Ken Liu's translation, as well as the actual meanings of the text in English. Liu Cixin's og text: 菲律宾贡献给世界的第三个美女政治家，也是在这个职位上微机前后跨越两个时代的一位（刘慈欣，2008：42） Ken Liu's translation: The administration of this Filipino politician had straddled the pre- and post-crisis eras. (Liu, 2015:146) Actual meaning of the og text: The third *beautiful female politician contributed to the world* by the Philippines, also spanning two eras in this position before and after the advent of microcomputers. Liu Cixin's og text: “嗯？”美丽的舰长转过身来，她的双眸中映着银河系的星光。（刘慈欣，2010：Kindle 9204） Ken Liu's translation: "Hmm?" The captain turned around, her eyes shinning with the starlight of the Milky Way. (Liu, 2016) Actual meaning of the og text: "Hmm?" The *beautiful captain* turned around, her eyes shinning with the starlight of the Milky Way. Liu Cixin's og text: 嗯？咨询员漂亮的大眼睛从广告牌上探寻地看着逻辑。（刘慈欣，2010：Kindle 8641） Ken Liu's translation: "Hmm?" The big eyes of the counselor looked at Luo Ji quizzically. (Liu, 2016) Actual meaning of the og text: "Hmm?" The *beautiful big eyes* of the counselor looked at Luo Ji quizzically. Liu Cixin's og text: 她什么都不是，她只不过是个女人。（刘慈欣，2010：230） Ken Liu's translation: She was nothing. (Liu, 2016:371) Actual meaning of the og text: She was nothing, *just a woman* . Liu Cixin's og text: 她像个小泼妇一样一天与那六个女人打好几次架。（刘慈欣，2010:151） Ken Liu's translation: She fought the other woman, sometimes several times a day. (Liu. 2016:250) Actual meaning of the og text: She's *like a shrew* , fought the other woman, sometimes several times a day.

4:14 - Um, in the first example you gave about the girl with one eye... I didn't get anything "sexual" or "objectifying" from that. It was a scene describing a tragedy, and seemed to subvert the severity of the situation by adding a poetic description of those final moments. "Despite her injuries and that death was imminent, her final moments were filled with beautiful memories of that old 1967 sky." A rather harmless and delicately written scene, describing a character's final thoughts, letting the reader know that their final moments were filled with beauty, and not pain or suffering.

Thank you for this! I just put this book down cause I couldn’t finish it and I’ve felt crazy cause everyone seems to love it

I've just finished the trilogy. I enjoyed the first book, but second and third...it was hard. The only thing that kept me going is the science-fiction part and curiosity what will happen next? what ethical problem will appear? But after finishing I realised that it felt more like a list of cool things to happen in a series, rather than a well written series, and it left a sour taste for me.

I read the first book in English, and hated it as well. So good to see this video! Thank you

I am the book fan and I read the mandarin version. I love those science ideas and imaginations, especially the descriptions on the future society and the dark forest theory, which is really inspiring and quite different from other science fictions I've read before. I still remember how excited I was when I first read about the dart forest theory and I almost stay up all night to finish that book. But I need to admit that the author Liu is an engineer more than a writer, and the writing is not good. So the literature value of this series is definitely not that high. And Liu admitted that he tried to include his thoughts on China's modern history from 1840s into this book series. So there is no wonder that those guys, who are not familiar with Chinese modern history after 1840s, will find this book series kind of difficult to read and hard to chew over. But I still recommend those readers that you can try to focus on the science fiction part and just neglect those society part, the dark forest theory is really wonderful.

A few years back I read to about midway through the second book. I found it very difficult to get that far because I didn’t find the characters realistic. It’s hard to enjoy a story when the motivations don’t make sense to you. A nonfiction fiction book discussing the concepts would have worked better for me.

At 2:37 I thought what was said is " jacks too long", which would not be wrong, but maybe it was "tracks"?

I did not realise that it had been adapted to a Netflix TV show! I've never read it but heard it was a "must-read." Interesting that the translated version corrected some of the problems, I forget how much goes into translation. Great summary of why you don't like this book and such an interesting point about how it has effected publishers choosing future Chinese science fiction books to translate. It definitely will have had a huge effect on it! For a rant video this was very tame, so you're all good!!

oo i was excited for this so glad to have my expectations tempered 😅 i'll only be reading the English translation when i get round to it, but fascinating to know it might have been "tidied up" in terms of writing style and sexism... i found your thoughts and passion about this topic - especially about Western publishers and Chinese sci-fi - really valuable and informative 🙂

I've only read the English version 9f the first book, but from what you're saying, it seems like there were liberal changes to not just the prose but also the actual story. I don't remember feeling the 15 year old who was killed was subject to the male gaze. It seemed more about an innocent 15 year old who deeply believes the cause, running into the true consequences of war. I also feel like the main female character (I can't remember her name now, but the woman scientist) is considered extremely smart by her peers. One thing I liked about her character was she continues to follow her convictions even in the face of getting old, and even when it involves being extremely ruthless. I still wasn't a huge fan of the book, as I overall found it boring and meandering. I don't feel like they explained people's motivations well, or developed the characters mich. But I do think some of the flaws you mention were edited out, for the better.

When I first saw this video recommended, I was very sceptical since everyone swears by this book. But you are completely right. I DNFed the second book at 75%. The writing was so amateurish and the ideas stopped being imaginative in book 1 and became completely unbelievable in book 2. The video game, the ETO, the wallfacer project, all seem like a child's understanding of how the world works.

Thank you for providing context on the book in its original context and language!

finally! you speak my mind. I had doubts on my feelings towards this book when mostof the reviews i read were praising it...

I have not read this series, nor watched the show. However, I've seen and read a lot of discussions about it, since I have an interest in storytelling and ideas from different genres and cultures. And something about the Three Body Problem always... rubbed me the wrong way. From how humanity was doomed because of a woman to the underlying current of xenophobia/racism within humanity, it just. Felt kinda icky. So seeing these examples in Chinese with both the direct and published translations into English really helped put my feelings into perspective. I truly appreciate this! It seems like this story was heavily edited through the translation, downplaying the misogyny and male gaze. (On a sidenote, it's always a delight to hear people read out loud in their native language.)

From Death's End: "Of course, these elite experts didn’t expect a mere technical aide to have any brilliant ideas, but they were mostly men, and they thought that by giving her a chance to talk, they would have a perfect excuse to appreciate her physical attributes. Cheng Xin had always made an effort to dress conservatively, but this sort of harassment was something she had to deal with constantly." Then the character, Cheng Xin, goes on and manages to convince the arrogant audience on her idea. Is this scene mysoginistic ? I'm not saying Liu Cixin is a feminist because I realy don't think he is. However, at least, he seems to aware of the issues.

You seem intent on holding the science fiction genre to exceptionally high standards. Historically, however, SF novels haven't been regarded as serious literary works. I don't agree with the criticisms you've raised about Liu Cixin's writing. Why is it necessary for characters to always evolve in a story, and why is misogyny such a significant issue? From what I understand, many renowned literary works could be faulted for similar reasons. After all, most of the prominent authors in the past were male. You might argue that I simply don't like it, but your explanation doesn't seem to adequately justify your point

I really liked some of the ideas in the show so I decided to read the books and oh boy was it disappointing. I agree with your opinion, the characters felt flat and like they were just tools for authors ideas. I couldn’t relate to any of them, didn’t get their descisions and their relationships. Also, it really touched me when you mentioned about readers misunderstanding the authors misogyny as part of Chinese culture because initially I did that too. Thank you for clarifying and sharing your opinion, it’s great to hear from someone that read the original! If you have any recommendations for Chinese sci-fi that you actually enjoyed please share!

Thanks for this video and your opinions. After I read a book, especially a challenging one like this, I like to learn more about it and the author, which includes finding various opinions on it. I found the comparisons you posted of the English and Chinese versions interesting, as well as your comments on the overall writing of the original and what Chinese books tend to get a translation.

In the first book about the science fiction vector, the book series bends itself to the reader: Everyone can identify with something in the book, regardless of their position. With the second book, however, this stops, the "sci" part decreases, the "fi" part increases drastically - and I emphasized: drastically - and the rest is fiction. It's a possible extrapolation based on what we assume today, but many things have been disproven in recent years, months, weeks. Theoretically, string theory is also true. Theoretically. They are scientific assumptions. The social aspect is also based on assumptions. The statement that we should shut up and not say anything about the universe because it will kill us is based on human theories, which do not necessarily have to be those of others. PBS on RU-vid has looked at the pros and cons and does a pretty well job explaining it. Something, the book misses completely - but then it's only Scifi. Basically, this book series is not badly told, but like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, it is a mixture of very few truths, many assumptions and in the end it is good entertainment, nothing more, nothing less. But what we are already seeing is a manifested fear of the darkness of the universe and what lurks there, there have been and are now increasingly groups openly rebelling against anyone broadcasting into space (as if that could be avoided, we have been broadcasting for ages...). But there are many solutions to the Fermi Paradox, many are even worse, but ironically one of them is that in mutual fear and mistrust we disrupt and ultimately destroy ourselves in our development. What an irony.

I slogged through the first half of the book. I wasn’t sure if it was bad writing or translation issues.

I tried to read Three Body after all the noise, and while these points definitely smacked me... what *I* don't get is the arguments that it's held up by its science. Its science is awful! Character is a genius because he correctly predicted GM crops cause birth defects and environmental calamity? Right sure and I guess moonlight gives you cancer and air makes your foot fall off. And Alpha Centauri isn't a chaotic system; it's a little binary pair with a boring third meandering in a stable orbit on the fringes! Microwaves don't work like that, videogames *definitely* don't work like that... and even if they did the entire narrative purpose served by said game is thrown away when it's abruptly summarised with 'oop we have to turn the game off now we're not going to finish the story or say why, but the aliens were totally awesome just look at all these high flyers who agree because we said so'. ... Oh right and the whole 'scientists commit suicide because of contradictory experimental data' thing. Set aside for a minute the fact the author apparently got bored and didn't bother exploring that idea, introduce me to a researcher who'd be depressed in the face of *new science.* *Augh.* ... Thank you for posting this >.> Ugh I wish I could let this go, the whole way this is spreading its tendrils into the public consciousness is making me ill. I had to go looking to see if I was going mad with all the praise it was getting after given up at the 2/3s mark, but really, you can't mistranslate factual statements. What made me laugh though was it got nuclear weapons *right.* It was actually fun to see someone point out nukes are actually quite delicate at their core, and you can stop a nuclear explosion by damaging the device.

Since my Mandarin started to improve, I keep getting recommended the Three Body Problem but I've been reticent since hearing your opinion about it in past videos. I agree with your point that science fiction needs to have literary quality and not stand on its speculative ideas alone. Unfortunately, I find that much science fiction doesn't even really have interesting fictional science either. Most of the time, you can read about the same ideas online without putting yourself through the torture of someone's bad attempt at writing fiction. Combine already well-known ideas and bad writing and much science fiction is just awful. The reverse is when a well-written narrative actually draws out the significance of those ideas and is able to explore them in a way that a Wikipedia article, say, cannot. It sounds to me like Three Body Problem doesn't do that and is just a bad series that has captured the imaginations of those who haven't read about its speculative science beforehand or who have a high tolerance for poor writing.

Yep, the writing sucks obviously. He sound like he found teared bodies sexy, lovely and romantic. But, what is thing with misogyny that you so stuck with. Did you find it misogynic that girl body is described too weak and fragile and hence writer is trying to deliberately downplay the physical strength of women with his description of the scene and convince the audience that women are weak or something... I mean what? How did we get to the point that some sadistic militants turning the body someone they killed into sponge suddenly gain a misogynic viewpoint just because body is a woman body. Does any writer have to describe such a scene with a male body to escape that? I do not get what you mean? Sorry. His descriptions makes no sense to that, to that I agree, it is unnecessarily obscene which means writer is after shitty intense drama for the sell. But misogyny, that simply escapes me. I just started to watch you because you stated that a science fiction should have scientific bases supported by existing literature which I very agree to, but all I hear was misogyny and sexists. Wow! Not even one single example of bad and unfounded science presented here which is matters a lot since it is supposed to be a science fiction. Bravo!

People that label everything as problematic, can't enjoy anything.

I totally didn’t pick up on the misogyny and I read both English translation and the original Chinese version… the examples you read out I saw them was a way of describing the waste of the tender buds of youth - now scream at how that is misogynistic. The strongest and most complex character in the first book was female. She was a scientist, an idealist, a mother/daughter, a villain and a person seeking redemption. She the extremes rolled into one. Even while knowing how hard and potentially futile her efforts were continue to think about ways that she could fix the problems. I wouldn’t call that a one dimensional character.

Thank you for posting this. I read the English translation and found the book very difficult to read because of the poorly written characters. I hope we get more and better-written Chinese fiction.

i certainly did enjoy it and i don't think you ever did a negative review like this but this one was powerful and seems very justified..wow those really were women as objects even in death/

i agree for the most part what you say about the girls in the book, except for "ai" in the last book who is taking the role of correcting cheng xins decision making. i just finished the third book in english and especially book 2 can be extremely bland and boring for long periods of time. i even jumped chapters about luo ji falling in love with a woman in his dreams.....what the. but what i dislike the most is the excessive turn of tide moments, one moment humanity is doomed. then luo ji awakes from his hibernation and humanity and the santi are in negotiations. then humanity is doomed again.....luo ji saves the day......cheng xin makes the wrong decision and humanity is doomed again....oh not yet, one space ship did transmit the dark forest message...humanity is saved again.....but for how long? and so on and so on.... also the thing between tianming and cheng xin, what the heck was that? during their early years, she hardly noticed him and because he gives her a star as a gift, suddenly all she thinks about is seeing him again. and that shows the bad writing again, after such a long time of trying to meet and its just moments away that tianming and cheng xin can finally reunite.....BOOM.....something happens again and we jump 18million years to the future, tianmin and ai had a nice life and cheng xin will explore the universe a bit more before everything will collapse into 2 dimensions. the books are definitely not as good as the hype tries to make it.

You are right on all counts. I hated the Three Body Problem so very much. I thought for sure it couldn't get worse but it did. The two sequels each got successively more terrible.

Thank you for your video, an exchange student from China recommended the first book to me and I was so excited to read it. ( I read a lot of SF) Around the middle it really got difficult to continue and the last 100 pages I just skimmed and was so disappointed ... now the only thing I am happy about is that I bought it second hand, so I did not support that author!

I've never read these, but feel like I have after your descriptions. Great review. I know it wasn't you're intention, but you really made me laugh.

My curiosity I guess is did anyone find the militarism of both the West and China as this overly positive thing kind of off-putting? I found the science side interesting, but when militarism seems glorified, it leads to kind of a take that all other social structures get to answer to it. Perhaps that is just me

I think those are fair points and real problems but I still greatly enjoyed the overall points and the ideas of the story. The violence in the beginning is a bit gratuitous I agree but I think it was to emphasize the real violence that happened during that time. I also agree that all of the characters felt very flat and 1 dimensional but disagree in that the main villain (spoiler) is a very smart woman with deeper motivations for doing what she did. She was prob the only character with actual depth though. She did not come off as soft and delicate to me at all but sharp and intelligent. I'd even argue she's the actual main character. The main dude is very flat and one-note. He's more like a vehicle to tell her story. I also trust your judgment in that a lot probably gets lost in the translation.

From what I've read the story is simply stupid cuz the aliens are written so overpowered and inconsistent, yet you focus the beginning of the video talking about how you didn't like the way they write about a character's body XD That's like saying "I don't like math cuz my teacher is mean".

Checking out the books before reading, I read a few reviews that said they were difficult to read (in English). I read plot summaries and was put off by plot holes, poor science, and "technologies" that were no more than space magic. I found both TV adaptations mildly entertaining, but now I have even less incentive to read the books.

Hi, I'm late to this video, but I'm glad I found it! As a translator myself, I wonder what you think of the English translation having a more polished language. On the one hand, I'm sure it contributed a lot to the work's success and its adaptation. However, I can't help but feel it's not the translator's job to rewrite a book to make it more palatable. If the style is bland in the original, shouldn't it be the same in the translation? I really have mixed feelings about this.

I'm happy you made this video. The book didn't work for me either! I read it in English, and while I thought the translator had a decent English prose style (and friends who've read the original suggest he also re-ordered some scenes?), my problem was just that I found it so misanthropic. It seemed that every single character had either done something awful in the past, or went on to do something awful by the end as if turning into a horrible person were inevitable. And the author's note at the end suggests he intended to portray humanity as irredeemable, so I didn't care to read past the first book; I understand that he witnessed some disturbing historical events in his life, but this worldview put me off. I absolutely get the sense of some wonderfully imaginative literature coming out of the Chinese-speaking world, and I agree with you that what's available in translation doesn't do justice to the variety of what's being written. I wish more of it could be translated for us 不會讀中文書的人 to experience!

Glad to see I'm not the only one feeling iffy about the book! I wanted to read it after watching the netflix series and hearing about how the immensely better the book was... so far I'm not convinced. I'm also struggling with the flat characters and the weird pacing. It abruptly alternates between slow scenes with vivid details, and fast-paced matter-of-fact description. And I was disappointed when I realized that all the main characters were men. I'm only halfway in the first book, but so far, I prefer the netflix version: more fleshed out characters that you can root for, including female characters, smoother pacing. But don't tell anybody, I might get strangled for saying that 😅

I read the first Three-Body problem book for the Hugo's a few years ago, and didn't like it either! I did NOT vote for it. I have been feeling so alone in not liking it. 😅 I felt as the first book alone just dragged out. So repetative. It has been translated into Norwegian later, and I have debated on reading it in Norwegian, but decided not to. Great video!

This one was on my backlist of things to watch for so long! I'm just laughing out loud al your disclaimer: I recommend you Boba and a bath ! 😂😂😂 I knew that when I saved the video a moment will arrive when I'll be tempted to read this book and I'll have to reference back to the video. Fortunately I remembered to watch it while being tempted to buy a used edition of this book. So money saved! Thank you for this video 💕 I loved that you mentioned the translation, because it sent me on a little mission and I discovered that the Italian translation was made by someone who has not studied Chinese, which means that the translation in Italian comes from an already "tampered" English translation

Thanks for your thought Meniocorn. Cixin Liu seems to struggle with misogyny. Ken Liu when translating the English version certainly scrubbed the problematic misogynistic issuss with Liu's novels. Many successful authors have flaws or controversial views. H.P. Lovecraft was a racist while JK Rowling is critical of the transgender movement. Frank Herbert also had some ingrained homophobia. We can appreciate great writing while not being blind to their creators' flaws. The Netflix adaption is a loose one that injects more humanity, diversity and female characters into the Three Bodies Problem.

Great review! I am currently studying Mandarin Chinese and came upon this book. I noticed early on some of the issues that you have mentioned. It definitely is misogynistic. I am unable to keep going with it due to many other writing style issues. You have done well! Keep up the great work.

After watching the Chinese adaptation and listening to the audiobook, it really felt like the adaptation was the final draft. Still had a lot of problems with characters speaking in exposition dumps, but enough was added to the secondary characters that I enjoyed my time with them. The two main characters were the exception with the better written Ye only being slightly better than her book version, while Wang was the most boring protagonist I think I ever encountered in both. He's a little better fleshed out in the adaptation, but to externalize his thinking, he ends up being led by his nose to every solution and comes across as clueless. The Netflix version is my favorite, but I did enjoy the Chinese adaptation quite a bit, while I don't think much of the novel beyond its concepts.

I agree that better written Chinese novels aren't getting enough attention and it's hard for most of them to get a decent translation. I read in Chinese mainly since it's my native language. There are MANY good stories I've come across that I WISH could be translated. But they are not, because they are just some small web novels and don't have authors as big as Cixin Liu.

4:09 I think this is the opening scene and it just gets worse from there whenever a woman is being described doing literally anything I had a lot of eye rolls through this series. I still enjoyed most of it, but hated the ending.

I was searching for reviews for the recent Netflix adaptation version, and I was looking for people's reactions to the showrunners' (lack of) respect for the source material; I was initially a little disappointed at RU-vid for the search result, but I held back the urge to close this video and made it to the end. I must say that I agree with your opinions, this certainly gave me more perspective. I didn't read the book, but I watched the Chinese TV series version which is said to be completely loyal to the source material, from there I was feeling a little insufferable but couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time; now I know that it's because about how people in the story are so... "dumb" in the sense of emotional intellect.

I've seen this book many times and have contemplated reading it. After your first example, I've decided it's not for me. I don't like violence at all. Thank you for saving me the trouble of trying to read it and being disappointed.

Thank you for your point of view. I just finished the first book in french, and thought it was weird because of "chineese culture" as you said ... Although I kind of enjoyed the scientific ideas in the book, I will certainly not read the 2 other books, now that I understand why I was half bored during the reading ... But can you recommend a good chineese science-fiction book (also translated), so I can really see the difference, thank you.

EDIT: Okay, so this video kinda made me re-examine the books and yeah holy cheese even worse than garden variety mysogyny. I was blinded by all the cool science stuff. OG comment below---- Hi, there. Reader of Ken Liu's English translations. The vibes I got weren't necessarily plain, garden-variety misogyny. The vibes I got involved a very specific kind of misogyny that I told myself I was gonna keep my mouth shut about. I got clued in on this in the opening chapters of The Dark Forest with what Luo Ji learns from that writer when his car breaks down. I'm not saying "go read it again." Just saying... It's fishy.

I like it because it's a Chinese person who can understand subtleties and euphemisms...there is a reason why alot of people in America like it. It's beautiful and drawn out with less filler and more explanation

Yup, the misogyny is **clear and undeniable** . Yet the science fiction is **truly unique and brilliant** . As an Indian reader, the racism is also quite apparent. Yet, I have learnt to come to terms with these issues, it's just an everyday thing in any piece of media I consume. You are right about literary quality. Had he put out his idea as something that walks a line between a thought experiment and a popular science essay, it would best suit his abilities. But in the absence of any other medium in which this idea may be conveyed... I will still recommend this book to folks into this sort of stuff. Peppered with the obvious warning about racism and misogyny.

yesss!!! thank you for making this video! I'm sick of people looking past and excusing all the problematic parts of this series just bc they liked the sci-fi aspects. I admit, despite its many problems I enjoyed the first book (probably bc of Ken Liu's translation) but after that it gets worse and worse. If this series was a classic and written in 1900s I'd be more tolerant but as a modern author he has zero excuse to be this disgusting. The second book Dark Forest is honestly one of the most disgustingly misogynistic books I've ever read. I only was able to finish this series bc of the audiobook narrator lol. Also great point about other probably much better written chinese books not getting translated.

I really feel lucky that there is a german audio play of the book, which is about a fourth of the actual audiobooks in length. I tried listening to the actual audiobook but it seemed to be so protracted with endless boring descriptions of the society and their "typical" people, which didn't add to the story for me. I agree with you in the point that most characters are pretty flat, but I wasn't sure if that was just because I listened to a shortened version. I really liked the story as a whole and in the short form I heared, it seemed pretty well represented, just without all the boring padding. Still a good part of the exaggerated use of decorative adjectives came through. It reminded me a bit of H.P. Lovecraft and his contemporaries. As of the misogyny you described, most of that seem to have been lost in the version I heared. About your examples, I wouldn't necessarily see them as misogynistic but rather as just plain distasteful and unnecessary in this story. If I compare that to one of the most distasteful (but still very good) books I ever read, American Psycho, they aren't needed for anything, while in American Psycho all the pedantic little details strengthened the picture of the twisted mind of the main protagonist.

I don't get so called "male gaze". Imp, The scripts from that book seem to describe the brutal of the that event, and you can also change that girl to a kid or boy. And Cixin Liu always take this kind of style to tell story probably because it could express clearer how cold the universe is even given the warm humanity.

Great review. Very interesting to hear from someone who read the original Chinese version. I read the English version. It was far and away the WORST written SF book I have ever read.

What is the alternative? I've only recently started trying to find Chinese literature, and all I find are tragedies about poverty and oppression, or just ordinary living type stuff, or inevitably male historical stuff. Where do i go to find epic plots and big fun ideas?

Damn this is a roast lol (I have no opinion since I never read them, but I enjoyed your video)

Im the last person to be irritated by sexism in books but this was just incredible. Nevermind the writing and the characters and the absolute nonsensical plot 🤣🤣🤣

I'm only partially familiar with the series, but so much of its concepts and themes seem rooted in a very juvenile view of the universe. For all of its smart ideas, its just stating a hypothesis that xenophobia is law. The problem is, we already see the hypothesis fail in action. If we view the world as a microcosm of the universe, why do we have international trade? Why haven't we nuked ourselves out of existence? Why did we stop killing each other and start trading, intermarrying, drinking together? There's a reason to be afraid of the unknown. Stranger danger and all that. But to state that the ENTIRE UNIVERSE is full of dangerous boogiemen that will embark on a 300 year road trip to kill you simply because they learned you exist, without any prior knowledge or personal stake... Maybe somebody needs to get out of the house more often. Carl Sagan was probably more on point with Contact. It's underwhelming but also the most likely scenario. We're just all just waving at each other's lonely little stars from thousands of years away...

Have you finished the series? Curious as to what your, isolated, opinion is on Cheng Xin.

The English translation of the first book is on my shelf and I'm still quite interested in it. I'm curious to see how much of the male gaze-y writing remains. Describing chests with 柔嫩 is just ewwwwwww.. 🤮🤮🤮 Also agreed on the limited selection of foreign books being translated - I'd love to be in the ideal world where every writer gets translated properly. Do you have any recommendation on Chinese sci fi?

I've been trying out Audible as a way to catch up on books sometimes when I code or want to lay my head on a pillow and drift into it. There was a lot of hype for the book so I got the first 3 books in the series. I have finished the first which was translated and read in English so I can't speak to the original written material. I would say I was not as engaged as I have been with say Azimov series books. A couple of months later I had to look up the characters that were in book 2. I did that because I didn't connect with all the characters in the first book. In book 2 I am looking for a little more. I do like some of the math the idea of trying to stop science and looking for a clear message that I can either agree or disagree with. I'd say I'm still a fence sitter 1/3 into the second book.

😂I mean, everything you said is pretty similar to what I've heard about it. Maybe some cool sci-fi ideas, but the male gaze & lack of depth of characters made it so I've not been interested in picking it up.

I thought i was the only one who did not care for this series, and I upon trudging the slog thought that perhaps i was missing something culturally in the way the characters especially the women were written and did (wrongly) surmise that it must be the result of my disconnect from Chinese culture.

There are a lot of videos on You Tube about The Three Body Problem and yours is one of the more interesting ones I've come across. I only know the English version and you may be right that the translation is better than the original. One often hears the expression "lost in translation" but I guess it can work the other way too. I didn't pick up on the misogyny you mentioned. I actually thought Ye Wenjie was a well done character. It may be I think that because her portrayal in the Chinese TV series was so well done. (All the characters in the TV series were fleshed out better than in the book). I read the first book before seeing the TV series, then read it again after seeing the TV series. If it had not been for the TV series I probably would not have read the second and third books, but I'm finishing the third book and I'm enthralled by it. I thought the second one was really good too, better than the first one. The third book is largely told from the viewpoint of a woman who goes into hibernation several times and has the opportunity to react to the changes the human race goes through over several centuries. Her character isn't that interesting, but what she witnesses is. Her character arc isn't that great, but if you consider the human race as a character there is a lot going on. Hugo winners are not always great literature. They do generally have big ideas that give you something to think about, and the Three Body Problem series has a bunch of them. It also gets the science right. It imagines what life would be like in a triple star system, what an alien invasion would be like if the aliens took 400 years to arrive, how the aliens could fight us before the fleet arrives, and a bunch of other stuff. Nobody goes faster than light. No hero's journey. No space princesses. For many science fiction readers this is the good stuff. I would include myself in that group.

Seriously that’s one of the most sexiest and misogynistic book I have ever read, I remember there is a quote “ the theoretical physics is not for women, women are not built for abstract and logical thinking.” As a woman studying physics I’m like: WTF are you talking about 😅😅😅😅

I'm suffering through the Dark Forest right now... my god... could it be that the english translation sucks? I don't know, the story itself is dragging, but the style of writing is just killing my soul.

The claim by other reviews is that the books also support fascist viewpoints. The more I learn about the book the less I am inclined to read it or view the shows.

This is very poor criticism, sorry. It would probably be better if more time was spent picking out portions of the books that properly illustrate the alleged problems of "misogyny" and "male gaze" - because the examples used simply don't support your argument at all. Saying that a body is "soft" is not inherently sexist; it merely describes a physical property which one would reasonably expect a fresh corpse or a dying person to exhibit, which is limpness. I also don't see how describing a bullet hitting the chest of a girl is a good example of the "male gaze". That term is used to illustrate how a man's eye is drawn to certain parts of the female anatomy because he is assessing her sexual attractiveness. But in the example you picked it is just a description of a physical interaction between two objects. If anything, the main theme I got from the two pieces of sample text was that of youth being carelessly trampled upon by violence. That seems like a suitable metaphor if a writer wanted to highlight how the Cultural Revolution harmed a whole generation of young people. To instead make the claim that these are examples of misogyny and male gaze is quite ludicrous, and frankly seems like projection rather than fair critique. The other complaint about poorly written females is insufficiently substantiated, and in fact appears to be more an issue of the author's inability to write well-rounded characters altogether ("one personality" , "flat" , etc) and not specifically a problem he has with women only. Furthermore, I think you're throwing the word "misogyny" around too casually; it's supposed to mean mistreatment of women, yet you deemed it appropriate to use this accusation on a writer whose only crime is his (allegedly) clumsy literary skills. This tactic is symptomatic of activism-speak and is difficult to take seriously. I've never read Liu's books so maybe there are other sections of the trilogy (or other works by the same author) that warrant such criticism, but unfortunately this video does a bad job of proving its premise.

Im so glad to find this video. I just finished the first book today..my god it felt like I was reading a rough draft. No I am not an author of any sort, but I've read an awful lot of novels over the years and this was just really difficult to read.

I think all books have their purpose, Three Body Problems Trilogy is NOT focused on characters and literature. It's about science and the universe. I know that people got put off because of the poor literature and the uninteresting bit in the beginning. But do you read the bible because you are driven by the characters or by the purposes and the ideas? I think sometime, one needs to look at the bigger picture instead of focusing on the itty bitty, otherwise, we would always be stuck in one place. This feels like an engineer is busy creating a space ship to save the humanity and his wife is complaining about why he didn't put the dishes in the dishwasher.

When a character literally ordered a woman like a delivery pizza (and its treated as romantic) i knew i was in for some serious garbage.

@TheBookishLand I agree. Can you recommend any good works of contemporary Chinese literature? I’m studying Chinese and would like to be able to get into a good book. So far, I haven’t been able to find one. What I’ve been able to find is full of misogyny, gross descriptions of bodily fluids, and exaggerated depictions of desperation, suffering and agony.

Appreciate this review! What other Chinese sci fi books and authors you recommend instead?

😮 Sounds like a person fascinated with GORE like overly gratuitous T & A or Horror Japanese Anime. A person who writes like this is probably a “Basket Case”. Who doesn’t know what is appropriate in social situations. Very awkward writing to include beauty and gore in a serious realistic sci-fi setting. If you look at the movie the “Thing” desolations, paranoia, and unknowable gore fit together. If the camera man focuses on a gory aspect and characters say “Awe that is soo cute” Something is wrong!!! 😮 Like the newer Aliens movie when the guy sees a Tentacle/snake right before it pierces his head. He says something like “Awe come here little guy”.... WTF!!!!😮

Tbf, western science fiction is quite sexist (ironic considering it was invented by a woman) and this only started to change in the 1980s with authors challenging the tropes of the genre. The problem is that with rare exceptions, most SciFi is written by older men that tend to be quite pervy and approach their female characters as voyeurs. The books more often than not revolve around adventuring young man that solve cosmic puzzles while women are in support roles at best. This is the main reason, I read science fiction quite selectively now and with few exceptions (like Ian Banks or Alastair Reynolds) almost always written by women.

I heard of its bad female presentation before, but also so much praise that I keep getting tempted when I see it. But this just sounds so awful. Thanks for taking this off my internal to read list. There are so many better SF books out there, although I admit I couldn't really point to some greeat ones in translation of the top of my head. Great video!

Hard sci fi is rarely well written. And men who write hard sci fi rarely have a healthy perspective of women.

Nice review! It is a high-concept book and characters are not important. This book introduces philosophical ideas, religious beliefs, politics, human minds rather than trying to be a literature book. Perhaps, it requires an open mind to read San-ti.

It’s overrated beyond belief. In every form so far too. The books, the shows. All of them.

Funny, I thought the over all story was ok and there were some nice parts but the characters were incredibly weak. Like the chain smoking grizzled police officer seemed like such a cliche. I thought this was a translation issue. Thanks for clearing that up. Bad writing makes more sense.

The second and third book sucked but not bc misogy but for repetitive nonsense.😂

Thank you.

I agree, the book would likely be better and more progressive if were written by a Western writer, but I"m not shocked the book is misogynistic considering how misogynistic and racist Chinese culture is.

The brilliant ideas contained in the series >>>>>>> sexism (which is not even the core of the books anyways).

I find the entire Dark Forest thesis to be dubious at best and kinda dumb at worst. It lacks imagination. The author projects a selective account of human history (VERY limited) and a completely inadequate view of "human nature' (I prefer "species being") and projects these assumptions and biases onto an unimaginably advanced and alien species. I mean.. it's not that smart. Parts of it remind me of silly conspiracy theories like Project Blue Beam. It's sooo misanthropic as to be irredeemable. It's also too ideological for my taste. I don't know that it's misogynistic. I do know that it's misanthropic. I think if you go looking for something like "male gaze" you will find it everywhere. You will find it even when it isn't there. Seek, and ye shall find. This is the disease that has inflected the Left and turned us away from the struggle for Socialism and Emancipation and locked us in Mark Fisher's "Vampire Castle" where purity tests and cancel culture replace critical theory and the ability to, ya know, *think rationally*

Vielen Dank für die Einschätzung. Ich quäle mich immer durch Bücher, wenn ich die Protagonisten nicht mag. Bei dieser Buchreihe ist das ganz besonders schlimm. Ja, in Teil eins gibt es eine Protagonistin, aber wer verhält sich so irrational, egoistisch und sorry:dämlich, obwohl diese Person Astrophysikerin ist. Natürlich eine Frau. Und dann dieser männliche Blick, ja wirklich … Wie bei Science fiction der 1950er. Danke, dass das mal jemand feststellt. Ganz davon abgesehen, dass Science fiction für mich in der Zukunft spielen sollte. Der zweite Teil mit einem ebenso unsympathischen männlichen Protagonisten war für mich aber leider auch eine Quälerei. Und da werden selbst Frau und Tochter nur war gewordene Phantasien, keine Menschen mit Persönlichkeit. Ich lese die Bücher, da ich seit Jahren nur Science fiction lese und das ja preisgekrönte moderne Klassiker sein sollen. Also darf ich auch Teil drei in Angriff nehmen. Ich freue mich leider nicht darauf, denn ich habe wenig Hoffnung, dass es nun anders wird. Schade. Es gab viel versprechende Ideen. Und im Buch werden Nichtigkeiten jedes Mal auf über 800 Seiten aufgebläht… Danke nochmal für die erste konstruktive Kritik zwischen den ganzen Lobgesängen und sorry, das hier ist auch nur eine persönliche Meinung. Viele Grüße aus Deutschland

I haven't read the book, and I will not read it. I can't articulate why, but it's the kind of unease and dislike that just creeps on me from indirect exposure to it.

Such an interesting review, thank you! I really loved Three Body Problem but I read the English translation so maybe it was smoothed out like you mentioned (although not sure how I feel about the translator doing that…). My only qualm with it was the lowkey/highkey misogyny which is why I never continued the series cause I heard it gets worse…and I guess now you’ve validated that 😂 I would be interested to read the book again, either in English or Chinese, to see how it holds up to my memory, but too many other books to read first! Wondering what Chinese (sci-fi?) books you think should be translated? I would love to read more!

I read the Eng version and misogyny were obvious. The 2nd and 3rd books were the worst offenders. Passage from Dark Forest where Luo Ji met Zhuang Yan was just pure male fantasy. A lot of fans attacked the weak female characters as if these were proof as to why female should not be left in charge.

Great video, I also didn’t like it. I don’t think it was a translation problem lol

This was very entertaining

Half way through this book and I’m enjoying it. I understand what this person is saying with the criticisms but I think you have a serious problem with interpreting everything as misogyny. If you think this book was written from a male perspective then there is nothing wrong with that, the author is a male. I think you might have brainwashed yourself and probably should try to see things from other’s perspective and practice empathic thinking.

I feel like the book had some enticing ideas but between those interesting ideas was the worst writing I have ever read in my life. It just feels like it's only trying to pad out time so that they can rush to talk about the next cool new thing. The characters had absolutely no depth and I had no attachment to any of them. There are parts of the book that I feel like you could genuinely cut out and it would have no effect on the greater story by how uninformative and convoluted they were. My biggest gripe is that the book makes these grand sweeping statements and assumptions of society and humans, it feels like the book is trying so hard to be deep and knowing when it just comes off as an uniformed opinion.

Not a fan of the books, the political metaphors are ham fisted and the prose doesn't translate....as an American from Chicago I probably have a different world view. Great piece for it's audience though.

This is such an amazingly bad take on the story its like you read it to look for a scifi story to be feminist instead or scifi. Im a girl and i loved this story and felt nothing wrong at all. I cringe to see such things said and expected everything will be bad as star wars acolyte if people focus on that instead of a good story.

I read the first book in English and I agree with everything you said. The translation doesn't fix any of the problems you mentioned. I also think the science parts of it are nonsense. I am stunned that this book won a Hugo. I have read many other Hugo winners and none of them were this poorly written.

You may be in good company disliking the book, but I think if you’re reading science fiction for literary quality, good character development, and/or political sensitivity, you’re bound to be put off not just by 3-BODY PROBLEM but by all but just a few science fiction classics, fromJules Verne to Philip K Dick. You’re dead wrong saying that good science fiction has to be good lit, or even good writing to begin with. Science fiction is first and last about depth and scope of ideas. In which regard, the 3-BODY PROBLEM is not just a success, but one of the great science fiction successes of all time.

If one says "male gaze", the one is woke beyond repair. That "woked" quickly.