Netflix’s 3 Body Problem Is a Grandiose, Compelling Sci-Fi Yarn You Don’t Want to Miss
Netflix’s 3 Body Problem Is a Grandiose, Compelling Sci-Fi Yarn You Don’t Want to Miss
I tried to read the books this is based on and felt like I was being punked.
The writing in the first chapter, specifically around the dialogue of the man on the stage who is telling the story about his wife's father was so incredibly stilted that I couldn't get through it. It was unfathomably badly written dialogue that I can only imagine it's something lost in translation that triggers every pet peeve I have about dialogue.
And most people rave about the books. So this is probably a me problem more than anything. I just don't understand it.
So as long as they hired some writers to do a better job at the dialogue I might be one of those people who likes the show and not the books.
edit: dialogue
It's a common problem with lots of classic sci-fi authors. Heinlein, Asimov, Philip K Dick, Larry Niven etc. are all terrible at writing believable dialogue and compelling characters. There are some exceptions, but most of their characters are cardboard cutouts so they have a way to move along a story or give exposition about the ideas.
The Expanse did a pretty good job with characterization (in the books), and Kim Stanley Robinson is decent (but is still pretty "hit or miss," IMHO), but in general, the weakest part of sci-fi writing is almost universally characterization and dialogue.
I always figured the dialogue was a lost in translation/ cultural disconnect thing. What I had a problem with was the way Liu writes women. The way Zhuang Yen comes into the story into the second book made me want to puke.
That's because the book was not written in English. The translation preserves a lot of the cadence of the original Chinese writing. You may not be used to it, but that's not uncommon for translated works in general.
I'm half way through The Dark Forest and while I'm really enjoying it, it's certainly not because of the character writing. Could just be a translation issue but a native speaker would have to chime in on that. I'm still enjoying going through the trilogy though just for the concepts alone.
I've stopped reading this series so many times, only at Part 1 of The Dark Forest. Glad to know it gets better.
You're not alone. I tried reading them and the premise was something I could get behind but the way it was written drove me crazy. I agree that if they had a better translator to make it sound more native English, I probably would have been fine with it. Bit as it stands it sounded very Chinese still. I'm hoping the show will solve that problem for us.
I'm glad I'm not alone on this.
I may be able to retry them knowing that they aren't translated in a way that feels more western, but I had just come off of some cozy-fantasy and sci-fi books and it was shockingly jarring to even try to get through.
I often feel like when most people love something and I don't, I owe it to myself to figure out why.
I agree. I got to the third act of the first book and just gave up. It had moments but I could just not stick with it.
Yeah, the character development and dialogue is pretty bad. I rave about it for all the cool ideas it exposed me to. I value that more highly than pretty much anything else. To each their own :)
Not only you. The writing style is very tedious. It's even worse in the second book as it treats most characters as just plot devices.
At least the climax felt awesome. These books are bloated and could've been thin down to like 30% and wouldn't lose much.
It gets better after a very dry start.
Not really... At least not for me. None of it was all that compelling and none of the actions taken by anyone really make any logical sense. The whole video game / MMO thing was horribly contrived and went on way too long.
I got about one third of the way through. I told some friends who'd finished it that the writing was driving me crazy and was hoping it would get better. Thry said it didn't. I was deflated. Three months later, I got the audiobook version and I'm happy I did. Still not finished, but some of it inspired me to pick up the book again and review select passages.
My mom is in two book clubs and basically owns a library. I got us each a copy and neither of us could read it.
Oh man, you are missing out by not getting to the last book. This is one of those Sci Fi series that start slow, and then increase in scope at an incredible pace. I had a rough time getting into the first book, but then suddenly it got SO GOOD so fast.
I've been reading SF since I could pretty much read, and I couldn't stand the character development. And frankly, there was nothing revolutionary in the ideas in that book. And don't get me started about the deus ex machina plot device later in the series that completely invalidates nearly everything else.
I wished I had my money back at the end.
So the first 100+ pages was an excruciating slog but after that he finally gets to the real story. Which was cool and fascinating but he completely effed it up in book 2 and I didn’t even make it 100 pages into book 3 before seeing it was more bogusness. Still, I would kinda recommend Book 1 if you can make it through the freaking Chinese revolution part at the start.
Anyone who has read the books want to chime in? I read the books and they had a "painting in a museum" type quality to them, where each chapter was a well described static scene. Fun concepts (in particular, the Dark Forest concept), but really dry prose...
They’re pretty good. The quality of the writing, for me as an English speaker, was in the translation work by Ken Liu who did a phenomenal job.
I can’t imagine it’s easy to convey idioms/ideas that native speakers take for granted in a concise way.
I think he didn’t do the second book or third and it shows. Still good but more stilted.
All that is to say that the incongruity and style may be a side effect of the translation process itself.
I think there are some editions of the second book done by Ken Liu, aren't there? I haven't read it yet, but I got a copy from a used book shop, and remember thinking that it was the same translator. At least, I thought I thought it was...now I've gotta go home and check
I am personally wondering how they will pull it off. My guess is that the story/plot/pacing will be based on the book, but I'm sure they'll add in more characters and drama. Probably heavily rearrange the order too.
Oh I hope they don't rearrange the order. That first book's timeline-hopping narration was fantastic.
I haven't read the other two, tbf
The ideas were mostly neat but I just couldn't abide the plot being driven by absurdly stupid actions over and over.
I had the exact same impression. Excellent ideas but need more fleshing out
It's just a massive time scale that it happens on, but yes that gives way to feeling like that. Read the first 2, put the last one down halfway through after it started shitting all over the first 2 books with a certain character's actions.
The second book has a really cool few pages that helped visualize what experiencing the 4th dimension could be like.
The series is more interesting for its concepts than it is for plot or any one character imo
I put the third one down as well, it just got too far into horror. I didn't really have a problem with any of the dialogue or character development and really liked the first two. I do tend to be very uncritical of novels in that respect though. I was just not at a time in my life where I wanted to read horror in my leisure time. I went from that to Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and was ever so delighted.
I read a lot of SF and I really enjoyed it because of the ideas and scope of the story. The ending of the third book is really lovely and unique, but getting there can be a little rough. I think the format of a TV series is the perfect way to retell this story.
On one hand, it's the freaking 3 body problem. On the other, it's Netflix🤮🤮
I'm going to watch it but if those two assholes ruin something else I love I'm going to take a shit on their doorsteps.
It's not like Martin is ever going to finish the story. At least we got an ending.
We already have "Three-Body", a recent chinese production series from 2023. 30 episodes, tedious to watch, but ok quality. So no thanks, Netflix.
I don't understand this sentiment. I read and enjoyed the books and also watched the Chinese series on YouTube, and while I think the Chinese production was decent I'm definitely interested to see what Netflix can do with [what I assume to be] a bigger budget as there is definitely room for improvement.
I found the pacing for the Chinese version to be so God damn excruciating I had to stop like 8 episodes in. I keep meaning to try again.
Such a damn perfect casting for Big Shi!
No thank you.
I've heard great things about this story, but I'm not watching something run by these loons.
If it's a one and done season, I'll watch it once it's done. If it's going to take multiple seasons, I'll watch it when it's done. It's Netflix, so they won't finish it.
lmao is this post advertising something made by Dave and Dave? hard pass......... especially if the motherfuckers are getting high praise in the press for an unfinished story. call me when you release the final finale and the general public receives it well
I knew they were involved, but I was surprised to see their name dropped in the article. I assumed they would try to downplay their involvement so I checked the article to be sure.
I appreciate the honesty, but no thank you.
Unfortunately there’s no way to actually predict the Three Body Problem.
To be fair, the dramatic nosedive in quality of GoT happened when they ran out of source material and had to wing it.
3-body problem is a finished trilogy, so it could all have the quality of the first seasons of GoT.
they do perfectly fine when they are adapting existing material. it's when you ask them to write their own story that they can't handle it. the first four seasons of Game of Thrones were fucking exceptional. I have no idea how you turn this book into a movie though
It's a series AFAIK.
I do agree they did a solid job adapting things, and I would hope the collective slap from the failure that was the final seasons of Game of Thrones would humble them.
I'm not writing the series off completely, I'm just not willing to give it a shot until after a thorough review and clear ending.
Yeah I think you hit on the issue with your last sentence- a story that's so nonlinear, idea focused, and time-spanning, I don't trust them to adapt it and keep the nuance.
It's based on book one of a trilogy.
Well, if they just stick to adapting the books (and to my knowledge the story is finished) I'm OK with it. With GoT the problem was mostly when the source material was over, till then they did a good job adapting the story.
The problem with GoT is the same as with all productions where they constantly escalate with very little character building. There's nowhere to go, so inevitably when they do try and tie all things together there's nothing of substance and it's just a huge letdown.
Oh those fuck boys are involved? Hard pass
Minor spoilers ahead.
I have no clue what this show will be like.
I read the trilogy and I'm not really sure that it will translate to the screen very well. The story is absolutely massive and spans from beginning in the Chinese cultural revolution and ends at the literal end of time.
That being said, it is probably my favorite and what I consider the best sci-fi trilogy out there.
Incredibly interesting concepts are explored and it also has a really interesting way of telling the story. It's not just about one guy saving the whole universe. It catalogs all of civilization's attempts at coming together and protecting humanity from an alien threat. And it also goes into all of the issues that humanity runs into while trying to work together, while also spanning across thousands of years.
It's a really fantastic series and I would highly recommend it to just about anyone with an intellectual interest in humanity's future.
It's a big statement to say, but this book changed my outlook on humanity and globalism.
Adrian Tchaikovsky. Three books starting with "Children Of Time." After centuries of collapse after meltdown, Earth's last gast is an attempt to terraform dozens of exoplanets. The books do a great job of describing non-Human races
The series was a really interesting exercise in not giving the protagonists anything like a fair fight. Like, the level of hopelessness is impressive. It made me realize almost every other story I’ve ever seen is like children’s material compared to this, in terms of hand-holding the audience and making sure they’re safe.
I think the first book is easy enough.
Just pirate it. And if you are paying for Netflix already it doesn't matter if you watch it or not, you already paid.
Eh, even when pirating, you don't want to get invested into a story for them to completely ruin it in a few seasons. For how good the early seasons of game of thrones are, I can't rewatch them because of season 8.
It's not a matter of pirating or not, it's a matter of quality.
Still have to invest time and emotion into watching it. Money isn't the only metric
I haven't heard great things about the story, quite the contrary. Combined with these two dumbos behind it I have no hopes for this to be good. I'll still watch it, because it's sci-fi, though.
Well I read the book, and I want to say I loved it. But 90 percent of the book is buildup, focusing on the Chinese social revolution. It's equal parts tragic, confusing and horrifying. I mean, it's a human story, but it's not scifi and it's honestly hard to get through. But then the last two chapters have some fantastic scifi, some of the coolest ideas I've seen in fact!
But I'm not sure it's worth it. I kind of want to recommend reading just the last three chapters or something.
In contrast, The Expanse is a fantastic book series (and tv show) and that's a fantastic scifi story all the way through for like 6 books.
But this article is saying great things about the story....
I read all three of the main books by the author. There's definitely some good stuff in there. Really thought provoking stuff. And a lot of crap. Crap physics, crap characters, crap writing style, and way too many plots.
Condensing it down to a TV series might be the best thing that can be done with it.
I had the same reaction. George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, and Brandon Sanderson have me spooked.
Of all those people, Sanderson shouldn’t have you spooked at all. As long as he doesn’t die, he will finish what he starts, I guarantee it.
Brandon Sanderson is a machine. Nothing like the others
Yeah where is thorn of emberlain? What's the story with lynch?