Time for a good, old-fashioned Livejournal poll

[secritcrush]

I'm not sure I'm going to get on with The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixan. I started reading it this morning and I'm already frustrated with it.

Poll Pretend you are a scientist dayIn chapter 5 of TBP, "A game of pool" two scientists (one applied and one theoretical) do some rudimentary experiments where they move a pool table around and sink the eight ball with the cue ball and as

Comments

[jamoche]

Not to mention that those scientists are working at the quantum level. Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, anyone? They'll never be able to know that their starting conditions are exactly the same.

Their response is suicide, though?

[ext_2025386]

That just doesn't seem likely at all.

Even if you think physics is broken, I think your response as a scientists would be to want to find out why physics is broken, not to kill yourself.

(Note: I haven't read this one at all. I picked it up and bounced off the opening.)

Re: Their response is suicide, though?

[secritcrush]

I could believe it on an individual level (and I think Ted Chiang explored this well in Divide by Zero) but a whole bunch of people acting this way, not so much.

Re: Their response is suicide, though?

[sashajwolf]

I also bounced off it long before chapter 5.

[mount_oregano]

It makes sense later. But true, the book is told in more of a Chinese style, a bit more circular rather than linear, and with Chinese rather than American motivations for the characters. Readers who are too used to Western, especially Anglo-Saxon (as they call it outside of the English-speaking world) storytelling styles and culture will not fare well.

[secritcrush]

But true, the book is told in more of a Chinese style, a bit more circular rather than linear, and with Chinese rather than American motivations for the characters. Readers who are too used to Western, especially Anglo-Saxon (as they call it outside of the English-speaking world) storytelling styles and culture will not fare well.

I really have no idea what you are trying to say here with respect to my objection that scientists are acting entirely unbelievably.

[mount_oregano]

I was speaking about the book more in general. Sorry for the confusion.

[rushthatspeaks]

It's not meant to be a mystery, per se; you're meant to figure it out and then the suspense is in seeing how the characters find it out and what they do next. But I did find this aspect frustrating as hell, because that is not how science works. I mostly kept going because I was enjoying the video game. If there's nothing in particular you've latched onto and find interesting, you may as well stop.

[secritcrush]

I enjoyed the first section and I'm not ready to give up yet (heck, I read all the John C Wrights so Liu certainly deserves at least the much consideration.) but I do feel frustrated because as you say, that's not science.

[redheadedfemme]

It does all come together in the end, but the solution was not very satisfactory, at least to me.

Like I said in my review: I admire the author and appreciate what he was trying to do, but I didn't particularly like his book.