Tag: ThreeBodyProblem

Dark Forest spoilers (3/4 through)

Fascinating as the Year 200 setting has been up to this point, the naivete & overconfidence has been maddening.

You *know* the enemy has vastly superior technology & knows way more about physics than you do. You don’t send your entire fleet to intercept one ship that you’ve decided is harmless based on the fact that *your tech* couldn’t be destructive enough based on *your* knowledge of physics.

#books #DarkForest #amReading

On Wandering.shop

Awakened hibernators seem to be more…paranoid? Cautious? Perceptive?

I guess the idea is that those who grew up in this era figure humanity has already faced the Great Ravine, we can face *anything*, while those who lived earlier don’t have that overconfidence.

Or maybe the Imprinted tech is out there, the polarity fixed, and in wider use than anyone thought.

But it’s still been frustrating pages & pages of “when will the big dummies figure it out?”

On Wandering.shop

@naga Some of the catastrophes, I can go with. But one big enough to create …

@naga Some of the catastrophes, I can go with. But one big enough to create a new moon? The planet would have basically been sterilized.

I also wondered about the secrecy of incoming communication with Red Coast 2. Surely other SETI projects would have picked up the signals, whether they could decode them or not.

On BookToot.Club

Three-Body Problem, final chapters

I’m seriously impressed by the concept of the sophon. It’s one of the most overpowered pieces of impossible tech and yet it’s a simple extrapolation from string theory – and making use of known quantum effects gives it a lot of other abilities that handily explain the mysterious happenings early in the book.

#ThreeBodyProblem #SFFBookClub #amReading

On BookToot.Club

I’m still reading through #ThreeBodyProblem, up to the 1980s, and another new book on my …

I’m still reading through #ThreeBodyProblem, up to the 1980s, and another new book on my must-read list has come out. I think I’m going to skip September for #SFFBookClub, catch up on the pile a bit, then depending on what the October pick ends up being, either come back to the club selections at that point or pick up Dark Forest.

On BookToot.Club

Three-Body Problem ch 22

I don’t quite buy the game as a recruiting tool.

They’re supposedly all about replacing human society with the aliens’ (one way or another), but the game doesn’t tell you much about that society except that it’s persistent, can hibernate for eons, and coming for us.

It conveys key facts about their environment and biology, but doesn’t present a culture to emulate. Unless it’s in the chapters Wang misses?

#SFFBookClub #ThreeBodyProblem #AmReading #books

On BookToot.Club

Or is the vagueness itself part of the appeal? Anyone dissatisfied with the world as it is can project their own ideals onto the aliens?

On BookToot.Club

I love the idea of using NPCs to simulate a computer in-game. It reminds me …

I love the idea of using NPCs to simulate a computer in-game. It reminds me of the working CPU models made in Minecraft with redstone, except more creative because NPCs aren’t designed for circuitry.

I also like the way the author mixes up the narrative structure, with documents, a personal statement, and of course the game interspersed with the regular narration.

#sffbookclub #books #amreading

On BookToot.Club

Now that I’ve gotten through another cycle of the VR game story, it’s become more …

Now that I’ve gotten through another cycle of the VR game story, it’s become more intriguing. Presumably we’re going to work through a bunch of cosmological models as it goes on.

I’m also really curious as to how the trick with the cosmic background radiation is supposed to have been managed.

And of course, is the countdown really leading to something, or is it, as Shi suggests, just a way to mess with Wang’s head?

#amreading #sffbookclub #books #scifi

On BookToot.Club

Interesting that he started with the game idea. That explains why it’s so …

@naga @rixx Interesting that he started with the game idea. That explains why it’s so narrative rather than interactive, though.

I’m reminded of Eifelheim (Michael Flynn), which is split between modern-day historians and the aftermath of an alien spaceship crashing near a tiny village in the midst of the Black Death. In that case, it started out only as the historians’ search, and was later expanded to include the direct narrative of the village.

On BookToot.Club

Three-Body Problem ch5-7

Three-Body Problem ch5-7:

The mystery, the questions about the nature of fundamental laws of physics (i.e. are they actually fundamental?), and the countdown have all been fascinating.

I’m up to the introduction of the VR game that lends its name to the title, and for the first time I feel like the story is getting bogged down.

I know it’s symbolic. I figure it’s a way to get ideas across to the players without discussing them openly. But it’s still dragging.

#sffbookclub #amreading #books

On BookToot.Club

It’s a weird mindset to imagine, and it’s interesting to compare to the more familiar present-day culture in the next few chapters.

@vector It’s a weird mindset to imagine, and it’s interesting to compare to the more familiar present-day culture in the next few chapters.

I did a double take on the idea of banning teaching relativity for ideology…but then I remembered we’ve got the same problem with people trying to block teaching evolution here in the US.

On BookToot.Club

I find it bizarre that a book that criticized excesses of capitalism would have been …

Three-Body problem ch1-2, Silent Spring:

I find it bizarre that a book that criticized excesses of capitalism would have been characterized as counter-revolutionary, capitalist propaganda.

But of course both capitalism and communism are quite capable of environmental destruction. Rapacious state, corporation, or individual, it’s a universal human failing, like the image of an iceberg in the ocean that Wenjie imagines, independent of ideology.

#sffbookclub #environment #amreading #books

On BookToot.Club

To clarify: I don’t disbelieve it. I would not at all be surprised if it had actually been portrayed this way, particularly knowing China’s environmental record.

I’m just saying it’s a weird contradiction. One more thing I have to wrap my mind around to read a story set during the cultural revolution.

On BookToot.Club

I don’t remember where I saw the link (might have been here, but I thought …

I don’t remember where I saw the link (might have been here, but I thought I’d share it in case it was somewhere else), but this is an interesting article on China’s SETI efforts and historical clash of civilizations through the lens of Liu Cixin’s The Three Body Problem and its sequels.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/what-happens-if-china-makes-first-contact/544131/

#sffbookclub #seti #astronomy #china #books #scifi

On BookToot.Club

@zephasaurus_hex I’ve only been following the #sffbookclub, but I’m beginning to think I may not …

@zephasaurus_hex I’ve only been following the #sffbookclub, but I’m beginning to think I may not get to The Three-Body Problem until everyone else is finished. Sparrow Hill Road is taking longer than I expected, and I want to go straight into the sequel when I’m done.

On BookToot.Club