I just finished Liu Cixin’s trilogy of books, Three Body Problem, Dark Forest, and Death’s End. They’ve gotten a lot of praise as perhaps the best classic-style science fiction in the past decade. This praise usually makes sure to mention that Cixin is Chinese, and thus adds to diversity in science fiction. Which I think has shielded him from some criticism he’d get if he were white. To explain, I have to give some spoilers, below the fold. You are warned.
While some of what you say is true, it is also true that every time humanity is doomed in these books, it's because of a woman making a dumb feminine decision, and the masculine manly-men are always proven right in the end. Cheng Xin literally says that she hates Wade for listening to her, when he should have ignored her and done his own manly thing and saved the solar system.
I'm disappointed that Robin's an SJW and a feminazi beta male. This is an amazing body of work yet you concentrated on some kind of perceived sexism. You live in fantasies in which men & women are exactly the same. Sad.
I think Robin misreads what Cixin has done with men and women. (More specifically, it's incorrect to say the heroine choose annihilation while the man would have chosen survival. By the time she had a choice to make it was annihilation either way.)
The heroine is involved in two big decisions that seem to go horribly. But in each there are very good reasons to say that she is not to blame or that the long-term result may have been better, or at least no different, either way.
And you can't understand the story without seeing both the heroine and the masculine ideal as both being necessary. For example, she conceives of the idea of how to send a person at high speed to meet the aliens, and she selects the exact right traveler. When the program is about to be canceled, the strong man saves it by deciding to send only a brain. Without the 2 of them, the most important information for humanity would never have come. And without someone's love for her, it wouldn't have come either.
Without going into it too much, I'd say Cixin may argue that there is a uniquely male aggressiveness that can sometimes be essential. But very few men seem to have that. And it's presented as virtuous but also as incredibly dangerous. For example, the man is willing to risk killing a huge part of humanity as blackmail to keep developing light speed travel. Cixin may also argue that there are female traits like maternal love that can affect decisions, but those warm traits of the heroine played a big role in getting people the information they needed.
Robin thinks that Cixin must intend that the differences between men and women show that men are better. I don't think that's right. He does seem to show overall feminization of men as an indicator of a society that has become weak against outside threats, but I think that's a different thing.
Remember that Cixin very self-consciously has the strong man honor his agreement to submit his plans to the heroine's approval. I think the meaning of that is the even the man recognizes that there may be something more important than his drive.
Hugos are guided by English-language publication, because it wouldn't be "fair" for something to have to compete before it is available to most of the world market.
The lack of AI was at first because they couldn't trust if aliens were interfering with it. So there was an additional reason for never letting the AI out of the box. The book also made up a story that whole brain emulation was much harder than you'd think because the brain is more complicated than we now know.
The book didn't get away with it's masculinity vs femininity merely by being foreign - having men of certain time periods look and act like women presented a progressive future even while critiquing it. The critique might appear weak to those who would prefer their favored future because it relies on the existence of an external existential threat.
The universal dark forest argument was strange, but if offense is really easy and defense is really difficult then it makes a little more sense to not have any power openly declaring themselves. And note that it isn't all great powers who do the housekeeping - most act as you suggest, it just takes a few malevolent ones with enough reach to apply these policies to create this environment. Since the attack is done from outside a star system they aren't putting their civilization at any great risk.
Depends on what "getting away" means? Not being tortured, jailed, fined or killed? Sure. Not being critced? I don't think so. Can the eventual critics "get away" with criticizing? Same thing and so on.
Agreed! I read it in Chinese and didn't read it in English. However, I was able to see a lot of difficulties for the translator to convey concise messages of the story on a language level, let alone the traditional and cultural differences.
The books can be refined and the stories can be told better for sure. However, the story lines are fantastic.
Only some of those edits were due to gender https://www.globaltimes.cn/...
The Axioms of the Sarkeesian Feminist:
1) Everything is sexist2) Everything is racist3) Everything is homophobic
That should be the foundations for the Dark Feminist Theory of Deterrence. Would make for a good trilogy called "Remembrance of Feminism's Past".
The first one was not translated in a very literal way, though. They actually re-ordered it, etc.
Wait, so the moderately sexist English versions are after heavy editing to remove sexism from the Chinese originals? Sheesh.
But Ye Wenjie doomed humanity, too...
While some of what you say is true, it is also true that every time humanity is doomed in these books, it's because of a woman making a dumb feminine decision, and the masculine manly-men are always proven right in the end. Cheng Xin literally says that she hates Wade for listening to her, when he should have ignored her and done his own manly thing and saved the solar system.
What a dumb response.
I'm disappointed that Robin's an SJW and a feminazi beta male. This is an amazing body of work yet you concentrated on some kind of perceived sexism. You live in fantasies in which men & women are exactly the same. Sad.
I read the trilogy after Robin mentioned it here.
I think Robin misreads what Cixin has done with men and women. (More specifically, it's incorrect to say the heroine choose annihilation while the man would have chosen survival. By the time she had a choice to make it was annihilation either way.)
The heroine is involved in two big decisions that seem to go horribly. But in each there are very good reasons to say that she is not to blame or that the long-term result may have been better, or at least no different, either way.
And you can't understand the story without seeing both the heroine and the masculine ideal as both being necessary. For example, she conceives of the idea of how to send a person at high speed to meet the aliens, and she selects the exact right traveler. When the program is about to be canceled, the strong man saves it by deciding to send only a brain. Without the 2 of them, the most important information for humanity would never have come. And without someone's love for her, it wouldn't have come either.
Without going into it too much, I'd say Cixin may argue that there is a uniquely male aggressiveness that can sometimes be essential. But very few men seem to have that. And it's presented as virtuous but also as incredibly dangerous. For example, the man is willing to risk killing a huge part of humanity as blackmail to keep developing light speed travel. Cixin may also argue that there are female traits like maternal love that can affect decisions, but those warm traits of the heroine played a big role in getting people the information they needed.
Robin thinks that Cixin must intend that the differences between men and women show that men are better. I don't think that's right. He does seem to show overall feminization of men as an indicator of a society that has become weak against outside threats, but I think that's a different thing.
Remember that Cixin very self-consciously has the strong man honor his agreement to submit his plans to the heroine's approval. I think the meaning of that is the even the man recognizes that there may be something more important than his drive.
Hugos are guided by English-language publication, because it wouldn't be "fair" for something to have to compete before it is available to most of the world market.
The lack of AI was at first because they couldn't trust if aliens were interfering with it. So there was an additional reason for never letting the AI out of the box. The book also made up a story that whole brain emulation was much harder than you'd think because the brain is more complicated than we now know.
The book didn't get away with it's masculinity vs femininity merely by being foreign - having men of certain time periods look and act like women presented a progressive future even while critiquing it. The critique might appear weak to those who would prefer their favored future because it relies on the existence of an external existential threat.
The universal dark forest argument was strange, but if offense is really easy and defense is really difficult then it makes a little more sense to not have any power openly declaring themselves. And note that it isn't all great powers who do the housekeeping - most act as you suggest, it just takes a few malevolent ones with enough reach to apply these policies to create this environment. Since the attack is done from outside a star system they aren't putting their civilization at any great risk.
* criticized Sorry
Depends on what "getting away" means? Not being tortured, jailed, fined or killed? Sure. Not being critced? I don't think so. Can the eventual critics "get away" with criticizing? Same thing and so on.
Agreed! I read it in Chinese and didn't read it in English. However, I was able to see a lot of difficulties for the translator to convey concise messages of the story on a language level, let alone the traditional and cultural differences.
The books can be refined and the stories can be told better for sure. However, the story lines are fantastic.
Translation. Hugo is award voted by sci-fi fans, mostly American
Was the Hugo based on the translation or the original?