Like 3 years ago, it is conceptually a good book, fascinating actually but the writing style is so robotic and don’t get me wrong, but for me at least, it was at first a little disorienting to follow Chinese names.
I had to push through to finish it.
A month and a half ago I started reading again, something light, Murderbot diaries, follow it with Project Hail Mary, then All Tomorrows. The first one very short, fast paced, PHM not that short but very entertaining, it kept me glued to the page, the All Tomorrows, not my cup of tea but short and somewhat bizarre.
People kept telling me The Dark Forest was better than TBP, with my reading slump over, I decided to give it a try.
With the 3 first books I read every second I had free, I finished them in two weeks, started TDF almost a 3 weeks ago and I’m starting to feel like I felt with The Three Body Problem made feel before, a little bored and like I have to push through.
I don’t like books that I don’t feel compelled to read and feel more like a chore. Anyways, rant over.
I find with large scale Sci Fi in general the characters are not really people so much as representatives of aspects of humanity. A person might stand for humanity’s compassion or their laziness or their determination. They embody a collective and that makes their personality as an individual suffer. Three Body Problem has great ideas though its scope is so large it’s difficult to connect to what’s happening in the story. I especially liked what happens in The Dark Forest around the 85% mark but there’s a lot of setup to reach that payoff and it is a slog to reach that point.
I wnet in just knowing the basic premise of TBP. I think is like 95% set up and 5% pay off. The las part of the book was quite enjoyable but I had to push too much to get there. It seems is the same for TDF.