Kokipy wrote:

I read the first of the three books some years back, and don’t have a vivid memory of it, so was prompted by this thread to do a reread.  So far  I am more taken by it than I remembered being, but I stand by my observation to Star, that I think there may be a translator issue. I also think it is a book about ideas with much less attention paid to making the characters appealing- they seem flat to me.  With respect to the primarily male membership here, I believe this is more often a problem with male writers- they love their ideas but can fall short in making stories that move the hearts and minds of readers. I don’t have examples to support my theory because I shy away from that kind of book. 

Kokipy, I agree with you about a likely translator issue and I think there's also a wider Chinese internal cultural issue that we as Western readers are not likely t be as attuned or sensitive to and I think that has coloured my reaction to the book.

As to your point about male writers loving their ideas - I think you've put your finger on a problem that has been endemic to the SF field since the days of the Golden Age right up until the time of the Sad Puppies.  I would cite as examples early work from Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, even Poul Anderson. I don't think it started to change until writers like Roger Zelazny, Chip Delany and Harlan Ellison exploded onto the scene in the 1960s.

But that's just my opinion.  I could be wrong.  To quote Fred Dagg, I'll get out of your way now.

 

That's a very good point, Kokipy.  Local context can be hidden, assumed or simply taken for granted. I think that's part of my problem with the Three Body Problem book - I don't have enough Chinese cultural context to understand it fully.

I've just watched a video trailer breakdown and analysis for the upcoming Netflix series based on the book trilogy that's due to drop next month.  The point is made multiple times that the intense Chinese focus of the first book has been deliberately widened and extended to more suit a global audience.  Characters and events from the subsequent volumes have been dragged forward and combined with those from the first book to broaden the appeal of the first season of the tv adaptation.  As a result, I probably won't read the second and third books before I check out the tv series when it drops.

Here is a link for the trailer breakdown video.  It's 20 or so minutes long and be warned there are definite spoilers towards the end regarding the events in the books.

3 Body Problem Netflix Official Trailer Breakdown Everything You Need to Know (youtube.com)

 

 Context: here’s a character who is as excited as if he had just had a son! That attitude is responsible for the very existence of my family, formed by adoption of Chinese baby girls. 

Kokipy wrote:

I finished the third book last night.  I really didn’t like these books much.  I don’t think, after all, that the difficulty for me in engaging with them was the translation, and maybe not even the context.  For me, the problems were the misogyny and sexism  (which became clearer and clearer as the books progressed), the relentless info dumps and the overall direction of the plot. I think that CJC, KSR, Stephenson and MacDonald, just to name a few, are infinitely better writers. I do grasp why they won the Hugo- all that glittery “science”-but I would not have voted for them. 

Yeah, I've pretty well decided that I won't bother with the rest of the trilogy.for a number of reasons.  Despite the nostalgia it evoked from my IT background, I struggled with the other aspects as discussed upthread: the cultural and historical contexts, the intense Chinese internal focus and so on.
Your point about the misogyny and sexism is especially noteworthy, Kokipy.   I was fortunate to spend my entire career in and around a workplace culture where such things were unacceptable and less tolerated as far back as the late 1970s.  Now, they're simply not tolerated in that environment. So my sensitivity to such things may well be higher than other members of the older white male demographic.  So it goes.
 

Been seeing good reviews of the televising of the books.