this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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Me, too! I'm about 80% the way through the audio book. There are no real spoilers below.
I don't think any of them are mind blowing. I have very mixed reviews of the books. I know too much about physics and such, and the author gets basic stuff wrong all the time. But I do really like the philosophical and ethical discussions, especially in The Dark Forest. There's just too much meandering plot surrounding these discussions. The books are twice as long as they should be.
For instance, the author talks about the tidal forces of black holes and the top scientists in the book say "maybe the tidal forces were small because the black hole was so small". In reality, it's specifically small black holes that have the highest tidal forces. You would only fall cleanly into a supermassive black hole.
There were like 4 major physics "WTF?" moments in the first book, and a few in the second, too. I'm not talking about the totally off the wall things like the sophons. I mean the normal physics stuff. I just try to ignore them and enjoy the story, but the author writes a lot of self indulgent stuff. Like the whole Luo Ji thing of him being this perfect author who really understands characters and literally hallucinates their lives. It's like the author is trying to write himself into the book. And in Death's End with the fairy tale stories that just went on and on! Same kind of thing.
There's a book 4 of the series, I found out, but written by another author. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad. π
The philosophical and ethical questions are what I really like about the series. I'm halfway through book 3 and yeah his writing can be a bit slow sometimes, but I feel like it pays off later, because he'll recall a detail from like a hundred pages ago or the previous book in a compelling way. And yeah, you can definitely tell Luo Ji is the "author's voice" characterπ
I've heard Supernova Era described as being kinda "Lord Of The Flies" -ish, so maybe I'll put that on hold (I've been the dark forest for a while), and I'm absolutely not interested in the 4th book by some random author.π
I'm about to finish the book, and oh boy, have I had to suspend disbelief at the end. Again, not at the more exotic physics and cosmology. Just the basic stuff.
Still, it's a thought provoking book, and I'm glad I finished the trilogy. I wasn't sure I was going to. I have a friend who keeps asking me if he should finish the trilogy, and I still don't know what I should tell him. π
"He closes the book and the pages align like a flock of two dimensional birds coming together in unison to roost on the edge of the universe. He sits and ponders his life choices like a tree at the shore of a rapidly eroding river bank, wondering when it's going to fall in and die. He thinks to himself that if has has to read one more drawn out simile written by Cixin Liu he's going to burn the book and warm himself by the flames like a lizard basking in the dying sunlight of the day, yearning for enough energy to find a place to sleep for the night."
lol, that last part was interesting to read. I am to take this is inspired by reading the series?
Yeah, the author really likes his similes. Might be a Chinese cultural thing. They're not as drawn out as I made mine, but I was having fun. π