great video... im a big fan of honkoku as well and detective conan haha... subscribed!

Thank you for providing context on the book in its original context and language!

At 2:37 I thought what was said is " jacks too long", which would not be wrong, but maybe it was "tracks"?

If one says "male gaze", the one is woke beyond repair. That "woked" quickly.

I tried to read Three Body after all the noise, and while these points definitely smacked me... what *I* don't get is the arguments that it's held up by its science. Its science is awful! Character is a genius because he correctly predicted GM crops cause birth defects and environmental calamity? Right sure and I guess moonlight gives you cancer and air makes your foot fall off. And Alpha Centauri isn't a chaotic system; it's a little binary pair with a boring third meandering in a stable orbit on the fringes! Microwaves don't work like that, videogames *definitely* don't work like that... and even if they did the entire narrative purpose served by said game is thrown away when it's abruptly summarised with 'oop we have to turn the game off now we're not going to finish the story or say why, but the aliens were totally awesome just look at all these high flyers who agree because we said so'. ... Oh right and the whole 'scientists commit suicide because of contradictory experimental data' thing. Set aside for a minute the fact the author apparently got bored and didn't bother exploring that idea, introduce me to a researcher who'd be depressed in the face of *new science.* *Augh.* ... Thank you for posting this >.> Ugh I wish I could let this go, the whole way this is spreading its tendrils into the public consciousness is making me ill. I had to go looking to see if I was going mad with all the praise it was getting after given up at the 2/3s mark, but really, you can't mistranslate factual statements. What made me laugh though was it got nuclear weapons *right.* It was actually fun to see someone point out nukes are actually quite delicate at their core, and you can stop a nuclear explosion by damaging the device.

It's so nice to see your reading taste in-the-making on those shelves 😊that was a great idea for a video

what is the best novels set in ancient china? other than the three kingdoms, water margin, etc

This is such an amazingly bad take on the story its like you read it to look for a scifi story to be feminist instead or scifi. Im a girl and i loved this story and felt nothing wrong at all. I cringe to see such things said and expected everything will be bad as star wars acolyte if people focus on that instead of a good story.

I've only read the English version 9f the first book, but from what you're saying, it seems like there were liberal changes to not just the prose but also the actual story. I don't remember feeling the 15 year old who was killed was subject to the male gaze. It seemed more about an innocent 15 year old who deeply believes the cause, running into the true consequences of war. I also feel like the main female character (I can't remember her name now, but the woman scientist) is considered extremely smart by her peers. One thing I liked about her character was she continues to follow her convictions even in the face of getting old, and even when it involves being extremely ruthless. I still wasn't a huge fan of the book, as I overall found it boring and meandering. I don't feel like they explained people's motivations well, or developed the characters mich. But I do think some of the flaws you mention were edited out, for the better.

@TheBookishLand I agree. Can you recommend any good works of contemporary Chinese literature? I’m studying Chinese and would like to be able to get into a good book. So far, I haven’t been able to find one. What I’ve been able to find is full of misogyny, gross descriptions of bodily fluids, and exaggerated depictions of desperation, suffering and agony.

Thank you so much! I added some of these recd to my hold list at the library

Awesome channel. Thank you ❤

Can you tell your appinion about the secound story? Why you said in video you didn't like it? Actually i didn't undrstand the ending

Hi, have you read this new one titled Myths and blind spots in the fighting arts’ world / After the Bible, it’s the next gοοd bοοk for you! It doesn't have anything to do with history, but it clarifies so much stuff and exposes so many lies, that it blew me away, I mean WHAT A BOOK THAT IS!! he tires to make martial arts realistic again and useful for self-defense and speaking of kung fu he exposes many false concepts of wing chun. Although the writer is raw in many places in his writing, he sounds very sincere and responsible wanting to protect practitioners that go to learn to defend themselves and usually never do... Wish I new these things when I started training long ago and there is so much wisdom in it, at least for me. His style of writing was unexpected for me and refreshing when compared to other books. It's a must have for all instructors and I am sure they will be checked on if they are really doing what they are paid to do. Trust me, I said nothing here, I feel that describing it, will do it injustice. If you ever review it, please let me know here thanks. I know you will will definitely agree that it was worth buying. Anyway, have a good day.

~Another great video!

After watching the Chinese adaptation and listening to the audiobook, it really felt like the adaptation was the final draft. Still had a lot of problems with characters speaking in exposition dumps, but enough was added to the secondary characters that I enjoyed my time with them. The two main characters were the exception with the better written Ye only being slightly better than her book version, while Wang was the most boring protagonist I think I ever encountered in both. He's a little better fleshed out in the adaptation, but to externalize his thinking, he ends up being led by his nose to every solution and comes across as clueless. The Netflix version is my favorite, but I did enjoy the Chinese adaptation quite a bit, while I don't think much of the novel beyond its concepts.

Yep, the writing sucks obviously. He sound like he found teared bodies sexy, lovely and romantic. But, what is thing with misogyny that you so stuck with. Did you find it misogynic that girl body is described too weak and fragile and hence writer is trying to deliberately downplay the physical strength of women with his description of the scene and convince the audience that women are weak or something... I mean what? How did we get to the point that some sadistic militants turning the body someone they killed into sponge suddenly gain a misogynic viewpoint just because body is a woman body. Does any writer have to describe such a scene with a male body to escape that? I do not get what you mean? Sorry. His descriptions makes no sense to that, to that I agree, it is unnecessarily obscene which means writer is after shitty intense drama for the sell. But misogyny, that simply escapes me. I just started to watch you because you stated that a science fiction should have scientific bases supported by existing literature which I very agree to, but all I hear was misogyny and sexists. Wow! Not even one single example of bad and unfounded science presented here which is matters a lot since it is supposed to be a science fiction. Bravo!

Glad to see I'm not the only one feeling iffy about the book! I wanted to read it after watching the netflix series and hearing about how the immensely better the book was... so far I'm not convinced. I'm also struggling with the flat characters and the weird pacing. It abruptly alternates between slow scenes with vivid details, and fast-paced matter-of-fact description. And I was disappointed when I realized that all the main characters were men. I'm only halfway in the first book, but so far, I prefer the netflix version: more fleshed out characters that you can root for, including female characters, smoother pacing. But don't tell anybody, I might get strangled for saying that 😅

i just bought doppler and hotel silence on your recommendation

I've been trying out Audible as a way to catch up on books sometimes when I code or want to lay my head on a pillow and drift into it. There was a lot of hype for the book so I got the first 3 books in the series. I have finished the first which was translated and read in English so I can't speak to the original written material. I would say I was not as engaged as I have been with say Azimov series books. A couple of months later I had to look up the characters that were in book 2. I did that because I didn't connect with all the characters in the first book. In book 2 I am looking for a little more. I do like some of the math the idea of trying to stop science and looking for a clear message that I can either agree or disagree with. I'd say I'm still a fence sitter 1/3 into the second book.

Hi, May is AAPI month. Do you have any recommendations? Looking forward to the next video!❤

4:14 - Um, in the first example you gave about the girl with one eye... I didn't get anything "sexual" or "objectifying" from that. It was a scene describing a tragedy, and seemed to subvert the severity of the situation by adding a poetic description of those final moments. "Despite her injuries and that death was imminent, her final moments were filled with beautiful memories of that old 1967 sky." A rather harmless and delicately written scene, describing a character's final thoughts, letting the reader know that their final moments were filled with beauty, and not pain or suffering.

I am the book fan and I read the mandarin version. I love those science ideas and imaginations, especially the descriptions on the future society and the dark forest theory, which is really inspiring and quite different from other science fictions I've read before. I still remember how excited I was when I first read about the dart forest theory and I almost stay up all night to finish that book. But I need to admit that the author Liu is an engineer more than a writer, and the writing is not good. So the literature value of this series is definitely not that high. And Liu admitted that he tried to include his thoughts on China's modern history from 1840s into this book series. So there is no wonder that those guys, who are not familiar with Chinese modern history after 1840s, will find this book series kind of difficult to read and hard to chew over. But I still recommend those readers that you can try to focus on the science fiction part and just neglect those society part, the dark forest theory is really wonderful.

Yea, I'm definetely read some of these books when I get my hands on them😊

I enjoyed the first book for the sci-fi aspect. I found the overall style to be hard to read (especially in the beginning - I think I got used to it afterwards). And the characters are two-dimensional, I agree. But... Misogyny? Really? Where? Ye is very smart and very intelligent. And that teen's body that "didn't make the bullet to decelerate" - what's here to complain about? Were it a male body, the bullet would have behaved the same way. That's not a reasonable claim to make - that the author is misogynistic for episodes like that. Likewise, someone could say that the author is racist just because there's not a single black person in the novel. But that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? What I didn't like about the women in this novel is that none of them had a good relationship with their spouse. All of them were portrayed cold and apathetic. And even the relationship of Ye with her daughter. It never seemed that Ye actually cared about her. But that's not misogyny, it's simply bad writing, nothing more. No need to make up these unnecessary accusations. It's an interesting sci-fi book, but not a masterpiece and not something that goes deeply into the human emotional experience.

"How fascism works" goes straight to my wishlist. It's a topic I'm trying lo learn more and more about since the unsettling political situation we have here in Italy

I really liked some of the ideas in the show so I decided to read the books and oh boy was it disappointing. I agree with your opinion, the characters felt flat and like they were just tools for authors ideas. I couldn’t relate to any of them, didn’t get their descisions and their relationships. Also, it really touched me when you mentioned about readers misunderstanding the authors misogyny as part of Chinese culture because initially I did that too. Thank you for clarifying and sharing your opinion, it’s great to hear from someone that read the original! If you have any recommendations for Chinese sci-fi that you actually enjoyed please share!

Elena Knows ends straight into my Wish list! I've never heard about it and it sounds so fascinating

This one was on my backlist of things to watch for so long! I'm just laughing out loud al your disclaimer: I recommend you Boba and a bath ! 😂😂😂 I knew that when I saved the video a moment will arrive when I'll be tempted to read this book and I'll have to reference back to the video. Fortunately I remembered to watch it while being tempted to buy a used edition of this book. So money saved! Thank you for this video 💕 I loved that you mentioned the translation, because it sent me on a little mission and I discovered that the Italian translation was made by someone who has not studied Chinese, which means that the translation in Italian comes from an already "tampered" English translation

Thank you for sharing this excellent lesson

You may be in good company disliking the book, but I think if you’re reading science fiction for literary quality, good character development, and/or political sensitivity, you’re bound to be put off not just by 3-BODY PROBLEM but by all but just a few science fiction classics, fromJules Verne to Philip K Dick. You’re dead wrong saying that good science fiction has to be good lit, or even good writing to begin with. Science fiction is first and last about depth and scope of ideas. In which regard, the 3-BODY PROBLEM is not just a success, but one of the great science fiction successes of all time.

Thanks for this video and your opinions. After I read a book, especially a challenging one like this, I like to learn more about it and the author, which includes finding various opinions on it. I found the comparisons you posted of the English and Chinese versions interesting, as well as your comments on the overall writing of the original and what Chinese books tend to get a translation.

As a major of Political Science, I thank you for your efforts in this video... I don't like academic books at all.. I used to study these books just to get first class in master degree! But I love to read about political science outside the academic zone! Thanks again... Gonna read these books you just recommended!! Love you from India... You just got a new subscriber! 😁❤😘

From Death's End: "Of course, these elite experts didn’t expect a mere technical aide to have any brilliant ideas, but they were mostly men, and they thought that by giving her a chance to talk, they would have a perfect excuse to appreciate her physical attributes. Cheng Xin had always made an effort to dress conservatively, but this sort of harassment was something she had to deal with constantly." Then the character, Cheng Xin, goes on and manages to convince the arrogant audience on her idea. Is this scene mysoginistic ? I'm not saying Liu Cixin is a feminist because I realy don't think he is. However, at least, he seems to aware of the issues.

Vielen Dank für die Einschätzung. Ich quäle mich immer durch Bücher, wenn ich die Protagonisten nicht mag. Bei dieser Buchreihe ist das ganz besonders schlimm. Ja, in Teil eins gibt es eine Protagonistin, aber wer verhält sich so irrational, egoistisch und sorry:dämlich, obwohl diese Person Astrophysikerin ist. Natürlich eine Frau. Und dann dieser männliche Blick, ja wirklich … Wie bei Science fiction der 1950er. Danke, dass das mal jemand feststellt. Ganz davon abgesehen, dass Science fiction für mich in der Zukunft spielen sollte. Der zweite Teil mit einem ebenso unsympathischen männlichen Protagonisten war für mich aber leider auch eine Quälerei. Und da werden selbst Frau und Tochter nur war gewordene Phantasien, keine Menschen mit Persönlichkeit. Ich lese die Bücher, da ich seit Jahren nur Science fiction lese und das ja preisgekrönte moderne Klassiker sein sollen. Also darf ich auch Teil drei in Angriff nehmen. Ich freue mich leider nicht darauf, denn ich habe wenig Hoffnung, dass es nun anders wird. Schade. Es gab viel versprechende Ideen. Und im Buch werden Nichtigkeiten jedes Mal auf über 800 Seiten aufgebläht… Danke nochmal für die erste konstruktive Kritik zwischen den ganzen Lobgesängen und sorry, das hier ist auch nur eine persönliche Meinung. Viele Grüße aus Deutschland

Godawful book

Hey, I finished recently Elena Knows from Claudia Piñeros, was hard to read, no only because of the development of Parkinson but also because of the caregivers, heartbreaking

It’s overrated beyond belief. In every form so far too. The books, the shows. All of them.

I love your recommendations! Have you read „Concerning my daughter” by Korean author Kim Hyejin? I read it recently and felt like it was really thought provoking. I also recently read a short story collection by various Taiwanese authors translated to Polish. I don’t know if they have been translated into English, but I just have a deep love for East Asian point of view in literature. I’m also learning Mandarin, so I hope one day I’ll be able to read books that aren’t translated at all… I love all of your videos and can’t wait for more!

Great review. Very interesting to hear from someone who read the original Chinese version. I read the English version. It was far and away the WORST written SF book I have ever read.

Thank you for your point of view. I just finished the first book in french, and thought it was weird because of "chineese culture" as you said ... Although I kind of enjoyed the scientific ideas in the book, I will certainly not read the 2 other books, now that I understand why I was half bored during the reading ... But can you recommend a good chineese science-fiction book (also translated), so I can really see the difference, thank you.

I"ve been listening to the audiobook series and while it was difficult to get into as time goes by I find its philosophical expositions fascinating. The science he touches on is interesting...there are plot issues particularly toward the end but there are real gems of insight throughout the series.

thanks for introducing all of these, i hadn't heard of most of them but they all sound intriguing =)

Hi Meonicorn, "Caliban in the Witch" is in my "10 books to read in 2024" list. Willow from WillowTalks Books has dedicated a video to this book, which she described as life changing, if I remember correctly. But I haven't watched her review because I'd like to read it first. Springora's book really was a punch in the gut for me! I'm currently reading "Triste Tigre" by French author Neige Sinno about incest, with references to Nabokov's "Lolita" for example. It has been widely acclaimed in France, it may be translated someday! I had no idea that Mathilde Larrère's book had been translated into Chinese! I actually listened to a super interesting podcast the other day where she was interviewed (with Florian Besson) about Le Puy du Fou and how it distorts history. It's a French theme park that is, I believe, internationally renowned and exports its shows thoughout the world, including in China (maybe you can look up this park on puydufouasia.com, I can't read it at all!) The aforementioned podcast is only in French though, it's "Passion Médiévistes", a super interesting podcast on Middle Ages with people who study this historical period :) Xxx

We have the Norwegian translation of Eve in the library I work in, and it's such a brick! I am even more interested in reading it after you talking about it. Concent is also translated into Norwegian, and I have been thinking of reading it, but I think I need to be in the right mindset... As usual, a great video from you ❤❤

Wonderful book recommendations! I have added them to my books to be read list.

Great list!! I'm definitely checking out Eve 👀 Thanks so much!

This series is funny . In the first episode , they did funeral in Chinese traditional way and worshiped. And, they said we are scientists, we don’t believe God . 😂Lol. Too smelly Chinese in the whole series.

Whats your major miss

From what I've read the story is simply stupid cuz the aliens are written so overpowered and inconsistent, yet you focus the beginning of the video talking about how you didn't like the way they write about a character's body XD That's like saying "I don't like math cuz my teacher is mean".