#andclike... well if u dont like Murakami as a good writer we just aint compatible lol

[mejomonster]

Sometimes reddit will hate on anything... I was looking up Three Body Problem themes to see if anyone had written any good articles on its political themes. Ran into a reddit sci fi thread tearing the books to shreds. Calling them badly written. I just?? Do some people not have proper critical reading skills? The answer is probably yes -.-

Valid critiques I saw (though on reddit they got intensified to super negative cause that's how reddit tends to go): 1. Characters exist primarily to move the plot, correct. The author definitely values using characters to tell his story over creating interesting characters for the sake of characters. So calling them cardboard is a fairly valid critique, especially given the characterization is given much less focus than the external plot. However I'd counter... you don't need character focused inner arcs to be good? Obviously? Ray Bradbury wrote characters like this, I loved his stuff. Twilight Zone did, I love that. Also I personally feel Liu writes close character perspective pov, and that adds an intimacy with these characters to make them feel grounded and unique even though they're more like you or me going through world events - human and realistic but not necessarily internally going through huge internal development specifically because of some world event (although his core characters do actually go through some decent internal arcs in my opinion). And I think he's aware of characterization as important, as in The Dark Forest his whole section about writing a novel and making a character who is alive in their own right? So fascinating and very interesting from the perspective of what it means to write. Both to interpret the author Liu and the character who made the written girl Within that arc. The writer man was going through some internal stuff all right... if a reader can't understand that without being explicitly told the guys emotions and fears and evolution then like... damn get better at reading? Please? They complained about poor writing in TBP but then also can't understand the elements of the story that aren't explicitly stated, such as emotional arcs and internal biases and feelings. A lot of the reddit reviewers could understand Ye Wenjie slightly, no doubt because the narrative has her EXPLICITLY say she hates humanity after hundreds of pages of obviously implying her fear and pain from page 1 (which I am guessing they needed that level of intense hammering to understand her?), and then the explicit sci fi ideas portion of the plot. I feel like... a lot of the humans grappling personally and as a species was not noticed by some readers. Also... as stated explicitly in Lius book notes: the books main characters are humanity and trisolaris! So of course humanity as individual characters feels lacking in the story! It's cause the sum of them depicts the main character of HUMANITY going through some shit. But something tells me the reddit reviewers who flamed TBP intensely just... definitely did not interpret the book as "main character humanity." -.-

Another fair critique they hammered to 11: that the sci fi mentioned in it is basic. That is true, a lot of the ideas in it aren't even science fiction theyre just basic science fact or one layer fiction into "What if." For me? That was enjoyable. A very Person of Interest qpproach where it feels like it could happen now in reality, which gave the story a grounded feeling in real political and social reality. Which the political UN elements and Space Force elements complimented. It also felt a bit like The 100 in that science mind blowing ideas isn't the point, the point is contemplating how humanity acts during problems. Which is relevant now to us due to global warming and always was and will be relevant to humanity and the world wide problems we face. So yeah, TBP is not the book to find uniquely mind blowing new ideas to contemplate in science future. But it does utilize some more common science fact and fiction ideas to explore humanity's nature and capacity for healing and hurting. Which is similar to Star Trek, The 100, and Person of Interests way of handling sci fi concepts. So it's a take it or leave it, because fair enough the topics aren't anything new. The only unique thing (maybe) I think this book does is really keep going with science instead of stopping at 1 single idea. But I think many novels do this, and TBP still only focuses on a few related science ideas so it stays relatively small scale in scope of exploration. It's ideas about human society and political response is more broad I think (again why it slightly reminds me of The 100).

Then of course, beyond cardboard characters and boring basic sci fi ideas... some people complained it was badly written. Goddamn... I must have a wildly different taste in writing. I wonder if these reviewers also hate Haruki Murakamis writing style? They'd definitely hate mine to bits! Mine is all biased close character pov and meaning/emptions implied and needing to be figured out oneself through interpreting the biased narrative and figuring out the truth not being directly said. I personally loved the writing style. I see critiques of his characters being somewhat basic, and overall plot structure being not ideal, as quite valid depending on the reader (if you interpret each character individually instead of as the whole "humanity" character the author intended then yeah the characters aren't much as they weren't intended to be, and the plot structure reminds me of webnovels which do wind and meander to degrees structurally lol). But actual style? What the fuck did some sci fi readers want??? Really thick paragraphs??? I have no idea. I have no idea how anyone read the chapter from the point of view of an ant and didn't think that was amazing and beautiful. I don't know how people read Lius use of nature imagery to depict people's emotions and felt the writing had no art to it and was too terse. I can only guess, again, somecpeople just cannot grasp a thing UNLESS it's EXPLICITLY said to them "he was heartbroken" rather than grasping from an imagery like "he looked at the sky turning red as the sun sank beneath the horizon" that oh I don't know maybe the character emotionally IS GOING DOWN TOO. BASIC SKILLS.... basic skills... I think the issue is partly that some reviewers have lacking critical reading and literary analysis skills tbh. I absolutely love Lius writing style. If it wasn't enjoyable and emotionally driven I wouldn't be able to read it lol.

I just. It's so funny to me how wildly different people can interpret stuff.

I fucking loved reading The Three Body problem, highly recommend if you have similar tastes to me. Friends, I'd love to know what yall thought of its artistic quality. Cause dang ToT