We spend a lot of time reading books. Some of them, maybe a disproportionate number, we like. Others, not so much.
Disproportionate because, at least for me, it’s difficult to get through 500 pages of something I dislike.
This is one of those occasions where you are encouraged to be constructive in your criticism. Hopefully, with some wit.
Leave a review for a book you didn’t like and tell us what to read instead.
Three body problem. Oh cool let’s send signals into space. Oh we’ve found these humans and they are so smart. We have to change their laws of physics before they destroy us. Well now we get to destroy them. The end. Shallow premise, completely pessimistic and catastrophizing. And somehow boring. Do not recommend. 0/10
Funny, I enjoyed this series. Though, I admit, not at first. The prospect of an incoming alien species colonizing the Earth by frustrating any ability to continue our advance in technology, then figuring out a way to defeat them anyway was compelling.
Further, it helped me to think of it as my first novel told by a Chinese author. Cixin Liu’s sci-fi voice is very different to what I am used to. All of the motivations and norms are different. So, I tried to keep an open mind.
Finally, I thought that the Dark Forest made the biggest difference in my understanding of the 2hole story. The reveal in that book stopped me in my tracks. It caught me as hard as the one in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. No spoilers.
I think the very different outlook of Chinese writers is a huge barrier to overcome in works translated from China. The very warrants differ between cultures in the west and cultures in China. Translation doesn’t lie just in the words.