/lit/ - Literature

I just read this series, and it’s damn good sci-fi in the vein of Asimov. I want to read more sci-fi from other cultures, as clearly Chinese culture influenced a lot of what Liu was doing with his ideas. I’m curious as to what other countries and cultures write about when they write about the future.

>>15829401
this has been on my bookshelf for about a year, I dunno why I haven't started it yet, everything I heard about it was good

Book idea in one picture (seriously).

>>15829401
I liked the part where they sliced the ship.

the other parts of the trilogy are even better imo

>>15829431
I'm skeptical about this happening. There's no calories in human meat it doesn't sustain you at all like chicken or pork would.

I know this from reading about a bunch of escaped convicts in Tasmania that ended up eating each because there was nothing to eat in the wilderness. They very quickly deteriorated in health despite having the meals and the convicts couldn't understand why, but it was because of the lack of calories in human meat. You can't sustain an army on human meat

>>15829401
This sold me on Sino-futurism. Now that their cultural output is actually reaching us as an audience I firmly believe they're going to outlast us. Not just in the Us which is obvious but in the idea of a "West" itself.

Comparatively our image and creation is deliberately bad and subjugated to the interests of harmful technologies. We wag the dog and this comes out in the form of making things deliberately ugly, injecting weird, masochistic psychological stuff into our narratives to make ourselves feel clever and special when really we're more Archonically enslaved to these malicious systems and authorities of our decrepit society than the Chinese are to any power relation wholly within and for their own society. They have it over on us and we'll realize this by century's end.

>>15829844
wut

>>15830000
Yeah I don't really get how that's possible either. The only negative calorie food I know of is celery. Certainly there's disease you open yourself up to but there's stories of sailors surviving off drinking the blood of their dead crewmates and so on.

>>15830012
Human's are made of celery. I know this from a story about some French prisoners who escaped from a research centre where they have all had celery injected into their thymus to induce celery allergies. They started licking each other to keep warm and became ill. They couldn't work out why but they realised they were allergic to each other. That shows humans are made of celery.

>>15829982
Nope, they won't.
you don't understand the Chinese at all. They are materialist as fuck, all those family values bullshit are for the purpose of creating more material wealth.

>good book is also hugely popular
How'd he do it

>>15829401
Does this novel have subliminal Chinese propaganda?

>>15829486
This and the meeting with the heads of defense as how to intercept this ship are so good, only good parts of that book

>>15829401
I was skeptical at first because the author was a Chinese guy I never heard of, but
I was blown the fuck away and couldn't put it down for a whole 3 weeks. The first two books were my favorites, and Death's End also had a lot of good shit but got dragged down by the grossly incompetent, goody-two-shoes protagonist, way too many time skips and the sophon robot going full sasuke on the crowd out of nowhere
Also both the author and the translator are exceedingly based

>As a science fiction writer who began as a fan, I do not use my fiction as a disguised way to criticize the reality of the present. I feel that the greatest appeal of science fiction is the creation of numerous imaginary worlds outside of reality. I’ve always felt that the greatest and most beautiful stories in the history of humanity were not sung by wandering bards or written by playwrights and novelists, but told by science. The stories of science are far more magnificent, grand, involved, profound, thrilling, strange, terrifying, mysterious, and even emotional, compared to the stories told by literature. Only, these wonderful stories are locked in cold equations that most do not know how to read.

>Overly literal translations, far from being faithful, actually distort meaning by obscuring sense. But translations can also pay so little attention to the integrity of the source that almost nothing of the original’s flavor or voice survives. Neither of these approaches is a responsible fulfillment of the translator’s duty.

>>15829401
best sci fi series i've read in years. this is the chinese century

>>15830072
>Human's are
It's humen you retard

what's the best edition for this book? I've read somewhere what the US edition is censored or some stuff like that

>>15829401
based. i just finished this and I'm starting the wandering earth next. Any good recommendations in the same vein? for some reason I felt like there was a lot of tonal overlap with roadside picnic.

>>15832210
maybe I'm just 0 IQ but I bought the standard copy OP showed off amazon, haven't heard anything about censorship.

it was pretty mediocre as far as scifi goes. not sure what the people itt are raving about

Wew lad the shills are out in force today. Book fucking sucks and fuck Chinese people and China, they eat dogs and shit in the street. Fuck you

>>15831161
Sjruru.

>>15829401
>It's in chinese on zlibrary

>15832795
>shilling an obscure book
kek found the canine

>>15830012
huh?

>>15829415
>Good sci fi
>Asimov
...

I've had 3 attempted posts denied for being spam ITT, feels like I'm behind some weird ChiCom firewall.

>>15829401
Read the first one, have Deaths End, but I need to get The Dark Forest before I can continue. Read it right, y'know?

>>15829401
china has 5000 years of history and at least 3000 years of literary history
of course they're better than most other nations
>>15829431
唐朝万岁

>>15829431
乃括城中婦人;既盡,以男夫老小繼之,所食人口二三萬,人心終不離變。

this is some of the worst writing I've ever seen

I guess all the chinks in this thread got to appreciate it in it's original langauge, but the product of the translation is horrible

>>15833835
why? was the language not flowery enough

>>15833841
I suppose, it just seemed soulless.
Though I only read the Kindle sample, which was the first chapter or so, maybe the language gets better when it actually delves into the sci-fi aspects?
Chinks can you confirm or deny?

>>15830072
Gonna have to disagree here, since I once perused a scholarly tome concerning Uighur slave laborers forced to shitpost in praise of Mother China at the beginning and end of every work day. Well, they finally escaped and just went crazy, licking each other's nipples and rubbing up on everything, god, there was semen everywhere. Turns out their genetic code had decayed into stale memes, and that's how we know that humyns are literally Ebaumsworld.

>>15829401
Eh it´s a 7/10
the good stuff
>the concept of space game theory
>how humanity reacts long term

the bad stuff
>all character are copouts and flat
>he doesnt know shit about sociology but choses to focus on it
>believes in the "strong men create time" fallacit HARD
>tulpa

he feels like an guy visiting r9k and believing engineers could solve philosophy if society would them let try.
Sadly now that he´s famous he will never have to mature as a writer or as a person

>>15829401
Unfortunately for you and everyone else, you will always be Chinese.

>>15829401
For a hardish sci-fi, the science behind it is rubbish. Has some cool ideas but the entire premise is ridiculous.
For example: How a civilization that can build something as stupidly advanced as the sophon can't travel faster than 1% of light?

>>15829401
I dropped this book half way through it was so boring

>>15834277
Yellow males are so cute

>>15833857
i see. well i actually preferred it that way, feels more /sci/ than /lit/ for once
>>15834797
maybe it's the same reason as earth forbidding development of lightspeed ships because of societal questions and the trails they leave behind exposing your location to the universe, which the other civilization figured out long before.

>>15830012
Celery is not really negative calorie. It has a negligible amount of calories, but it's not true that you burn more by eating it than you ingest.

I haven't read it, but I remember the author in some article, he was in new york, basically buying expensive shit, enjoying all his success, basically living like capitalistic. Then was like "oh no, communism is the only way for China. If there was ever a revolution to capitalism, that would be the end of China. I'd instantly move to the United States."

>>15830012
celery is such a based food

>>15836585
I found it
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war-of-the-worlds
"If China were to transform into a democracy, it would be hell on earth,” he said. “I would evacuate tomorrow, to the United States or Europe or—I don’t know.”

>>15829401
Is it better than Reality Dysfunction?

>>15836568
>>15836592
celeryfags on suicide watch, how will they recover??!!?

>it is stated initially that universe is a dark forest where everyone just hides and shoots at others if notices them
>later it is stated that it's just a small local neighborhood, and serious powers in universe are busy with a full-fledged open war

>>15833835
读过中文原版吧

>>15836585
>Capitalism is when you are popular

>>15836608
>"If China were to transform into a democracy, it would be hell on earth,” he said. “I would evacuate tomorrow, to the United States or Europe or—I don’t know.”
Obvious sarcasm is obvious

That guy knows what he has to say if he doesnt want his money and assets seized and have to continue writing in some labor camp on the Mongolian border

>>15833835
I read a fair chunk deeper because the cultural revolution was just interesting, the book remained flat but became stupid.

>>15837100
没有,因为我的水平不那么高。但是我的问题不是我想花哨的风格。他描述的人都太简单,还有他的主题不严重。

Chink politics were the weakest part desu, at least the author stopped bringing it up in the 2nd and 3rd books

>>15836608
Nice

>>15831057
Do also check out the works of Ken Liue (who at least in part translated it). His short stories are very good.

>>15832760
When it comes to short stories Ken Liu and Ted Chiang are up there with Cixin Liu. Ken also translated other Chinese SF-authors.

>>15830807
Virtue brings reward. Meanwhile we are poorer every day and respond by sneering at beauty and enshrining blasphemy against nature.

>>15830950
Yes. It doesn't promote weird sex stuff or depict the humans as bad for not letting the aliens kill them. What do you think all the messaging in literally every modern sci-fi / horror novel out of the West is? Oh no no no no, we're "individuals" here. These are "our" thoughts and we proclaim them "ourselves" because we "want" to.

>>15829415
Yeah, this is why I'm digging China more and more the more the west hates it. You're actually seeing the successful execution of modern economic development without all the depressing butt stuff that usually comes with exposure to international markets.

>>15838926
Like have you read the books at all? In the end humanity was fully destroyed, and the only survivors were a)a small group of people who based their survival on desertion, betrayal of Earth, betrayal and murder of their comrades and literal cannibalism b)two dumb individualistic girls who got rewarded for their individualism.

Everybody has better lit than US.

>>15838953
I just started The Dark Forest. If you're referring to the third book I'll need to read it for the full context.

>>15839022
Yes, sort of spoilered you here. It's easier to discuss with someone who already read everything.
Actually first book is under question too. It has a character who suffers a lot from the society and to revenge it basically dooms Earth to enslavement or destruction. Yet she is treated not as pure evil, but as a sympathetic and tragic character.

I was so disappointed by this book. I fully bought into the hype, and was so excited to read it.

But it's awful. It's truly very bad. The characters are cartoonish, uninteresting & learn nothing. The dialogue is atrocious - like reading the subtitles to a bad Chinese action movie. But I could even put all that aside and just focus on the cool science, if it weren't for the constant plotholes and the author's pathological inability to focus on any single concept for longer than a couple of pages.

Truly one of the worst sci-fi novels I've read, the anon comparing this to Asimov need to take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror.

>>15838926
>>15838953
I don't think the novel leans toward any particular viewpoint, as there are always conflicting factions. Those who want to bend over for the aliens, those who insist on human supremacy, the escapists, etc. In fact, the group that's consistently portrayed as bad are the crabs who want no one else to live if they themselves can't. The deserters were initially demonized then hailed as humanity's hopes and dreams™
The dumb girls' actions aligned with the interests of most of humankind and the law at the time. I don't think they got rewarded for it, but they certainly didn't get a hard enough wrist slap for that shit. In the end blindly pursuing moralfaggotry turned the Solar System into a cartoon, while the humans who deserted and cannibalized (at first?) are living on

>>15829401
I honestly like the Chinese system of government (although I really just want the west to go back to Greece and Rome), but this book really didn't do anything for me.
It was just really dull, and the translation sucked hard. Is it just me getting filtered or what? I thought it was overhyped as fuck.

>>15833784
>china has 5000 years of history and at least 3000 years of literary history
>of course they're better than most other nations
China in the modern sense or Han Chinese culture has more like 3000, and this makes them no older than the European tradition.

I’m about halfway through the third book right now. I’ve really enjoyed looking at this through a comparative literature perspective and seeing how it is both similar to and different from Western sci-fi. Being written from a Chinese perspective certainly adds a great deal to it, I mean, hell, the cultural revolution plays a huge role in the foundation of the events for the series. I’m sure if I dug deeper I could find some more interesting stuff. Like, there’s a lot going on with filial piety within the human race as a whole when you have people hibernating across generations and having people who lived hundreds of years in the past present in society in how they are treated.

>>15839688
Any examples of plotholes or poorly touched on concepts? I think there are a few toward the ending, but not much in the first two books.
>>15839851
Yeah. I liked reading scientific articles more than literature so I felt right at home with the dull, undramatic, matter of fact tone.

>>15829401
Yes but pic not related

>>15839997
>I liked reading scientific articles more than literature so I felt right at home with the dull, undramatic, matter of fact tone.
But I'm literally a scientist irl and I still couldn't get anything out of this book

>>15840096
pyw

>>15840126
hard or soft?

>>15836532
>trails they leave behind exposing your location to the universe, which the other civilization figured out long before.

The biggest plothole is the "Dark Forest" part, about other civs detecting you if you make "noise".
If a random civilization X light years away has the power to destroy you from X distance, it can also detect you from X distance even if you are being quiet. For sure they would have telescopes that can observe nearby exoplanets, or more simply build swarms of self-replicating relativistic planet busters that will eventually visit all systems. No amount of hiding is going to save you.
The whole premise is bollocs once you think a bit about it.
The same about "game theory", it's only good for simplyfing complex issues to the point of making game theory useless. If you have a neighbor in close proxymity, you are likelly in a very bussy hood in the first place, and if you go on a genocidal spree the rest will deal with you as if you were a rabid dog.

>>15839785
>In the end blindly pursuing moralfaggotry turned the Solar System into a cartoon
The fun issue with that is that Solar System got animefied exactly because of the countermeasure the amoralfag was supposed to use. Ask yourself if you like the result. If yes, then no issue with that. If no - then imagine yourself in a place of a girl. Would you start the anime process? If no, then you are like her.

>>15837146
he responded very cleverly. obviously the interviewer (new yorker) was fishing for a certain response that he could not give.

but his response leaves it ambiguous as to whether he is for or against "democratization" in china. people in the west just assume that everybody in china is for western 'democracy' when in reality most chinese people support their system of government. but if you're a chinese author talking to western media you can't say that, because the west only likes to publish or promote dissidents.

so very clever indeed.

>>15840281
Dark forest is a naive theory, in the end the galactic humans told the survivors of Earth that they had no idea how bad things would get. That's why they decided to hide in pocket universes
Also alien mindsets were being kept vague. Maybe they've seen us all along, but we didn't exhibit a technology level high enough to warrant an immediate strike, or they were busy with others in their neighborhood

>>15840281
It's actually explained later that dark forest works only for limited backwater parts of the universe, and larger universe is a constant nuclear-animefying war with more defined sides.

>>15840549
There is also the problem that star-destroyers of flatteners are seemingly cheap enough to fire them a lot even from small ships. If you believe that a number of stars nearby are potentially hostile, it makes sense to fry them all. Especially if they can do the same.