The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! đ
uranaishi's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Gore, Violence, Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, War, Alcohol, Classism, Abandonment, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexism, Toxic relationship, and Blood
Minor: Colonisation, Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Police brutality, and Suicide
zone_a3's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Classism, Xenophobia, and Death of parent
Minor: Suicide
beebidon's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
I want to call it interesting, but in truth only parts of it were. It had the potential to be interesting. It had interesting sections. The concept is certainly interesting.Â
Iâve seen people say their complaint was that the characters were too static or bland, and people who adored the book rebutting those complaints with âthatâs just the translationâ or âthatâs just the culture of how they tell storiesâ and perhaps thatâs true. I donât think the characters were the issue with the story, however. They just certainly didnât add to it or try to save the experience.
My main complaint is with pacing; the exciting stuff was crammed into the last 100 pages or so, and not in an exciting denouement way so much as âgreat, we got through 250 pages of backstory, now I guess the actual story happens.â I found myself frustrated even as I was engrossed at that point, because I could see the small sliver of pages remaining, stressing me out as if I needed to tell the author âyes, yes, thatâs nice and all but HURRY, we are running out of time!â
In the end, we didnât even get answers to all the questions, and not in a fun cliffhanger or philosophical statement deliberate sort of way. There WAS a cliffhanger of sorts, but I do not feel like my lingering questions were intentional there. I more fell like the author had a really cool concept he wanted to pitch and didnât know what to do with it so he fluffed hundreds of pages of history and scientific geeking out, dropped a novella or even short storyâs worth of plot, then closed the book.
Finally, Iâllsay before my spoiler talk that there are different levels of sci-fi you can find, from low/soft to high/hard, where high/hard is heavily based in science, or heavily based in fantastical, âout thereâ concepts. 3BP drags you through DENSE quantum, theoretical, astro, micro, macro, and every other kind of -physics, but in a way that walking away Iâm not sure how much I can say âwell, at least I learned a lot from itâ because Iâm not sure how much was true or embellished to lay the groundwork for the plot points. I donât think Cixin (or Ken as translator) did a bad job of breaking down the concepts to understand (aided by the scientists often explaining the concepts to non-scientists, or at least scientists not in that specific field). But I did struggle a lot with dense passages where I couldnât be sure if this was a concept I would need to know later or if it was a character waxing on for their own interest. I was often torn between âdo I skip this passage or do I just put the book down for nowâ as my eyes glazed over. And every time I put the book down, I felt no obligation to pick it back up besides a faint curiosity and a sunken cost fallacy of âwell, Iâm already this far, maybe eventually it will get better.â
There were some cool concepts that Cixin was trying to get at that I feel were left half-presented or dropped n on the table with an âis this anything?â look, like if we wanted to feel some way about the content, that was up to us to go through the mental work on. Was it ethical to keep âless educatedâ people in the dark? Did Cixin mean to present a view that was so anti-religion? (Was he trying to say anything about religion at all?)
I feel the strongest points made (and the reason I gave the book as relatively high a rating as I did) were the parallels drawn between Trisolaran and Earth views about who deserves to thrive, the struggle for survival and at what point is it ethical (or not) to give up your own survival for another society that may âdeserveâ it more. This is the question I think Iâll ponder on into this new year, and Cixinâs strongest win.
I was also saddened by how such a cool concept as this alien society was still so clearly limited by the authorâs very traditional views on things. A planet as advanced as this, with such unique bodies and minds, but thereâs only 2 genders/sexes, and theyâre heterosexual and monogamous? With every important person in the world (three body game version or ârealâ At the end) a man? Someone will roll their eyes at me on this for being âtoo wokeâ but Iâm just not sure a cishet patriarchy needs to be reflected in the aliens too. Alas.
Graphic: Classism, Genocide, Violence, Death of parent, Police brutality, Xenophobia, War, and Death
Moderate: Suicide, Gun violence, Drug abuse, Child death, Sexism, and Hate crime
nsn's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Graphic: Classism and Violence
Moderate: Gore and Gaslighting
Minor: Suicide and Murder
geraldinerowe's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Classism
Minor: Domestic abuse
ekcd_'s review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
Where to start?
The characters are utterly forgettable and there is not a single redeemable or meaningful relationship between any of the characters or any facet of the story. They only existed so they could talk to each other as a way to move the plot along. Without the characters the whole book could be reduced to one, drunken rant about âlike what if aliens lived on an unstable planet?â He put characters in so it wouldnât just be a really bizarre lectureÂ
This book reads as 350 pages of history and philosophical waxing and then 50 pages of shitty alien fan fiction that is really just the author patting himself on the back for creating analogies that are complicated enough for readers to think him smart but are ultimately meaningless.Â
By rooting a story in the present and then layering in completely absurd scientific magic over it really removed me from the story. The physics and math were really inaccessible and honesty glossed over that whole chapter.Â
Nothing in this story or itâs writing made me care about any of the individuals, civilizations, communities or social movements that were used.Â
I am gobsmacked that so many people praise this book so highly. I love science fiction and read it almost exclusively. The only thing keeping me from rage quitting half way through was rage reading so I could review this book without people saying âyou didnât finish it so you canât comment on itâÂ
It gets a 1.5 because I was able to finish it quickly (thank god)
Well screw you, fans of this book, I read it and I disliked it!Â
Graphic: War, Xenophobia, Violence, Suicide, Police brutality, Hate crime, Gun violence, Genocide, Death, Confinement, Colonisation, Classism, and Blood
Minor: Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Classism, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Infertility, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Violence, War, and Xenophobia
I donât regret reading this because at least it gives me something concrete to point my unhinged anger at. Going to drink some tea and read something that I know is good and pure