Bringing Chinese Science Fiction to the West

Great timing. I literally just 2 hours ago finished reading <i>Three Body Problem</i>, a sci-fi book mentioned in the article. The description of sci-fi books, not as predictions about the future, but as allegories for the present, is dead on. As someone who virtually always reads western books by western authors, Three Body Problem was one of the best books I&#x27;ve read this year. It was gripping, suspenseful, intelligent, and most interestingly, offered a perspective of the world that differs dramatically from that found in western books.<p>I think a truly global literary scene, featuring writers, ideas and perspectives from all over the world, has the potential to usher in the next golden age of literature.

Absolute travesty that the immense amateur translation scene wasn&#x27;t mentioned in the article. Chinese web novels that are 1000+ chapters long, with around 2000 characters per chapter, are being actively translated by a growing translation community.<p>If you like flat characters and lot&#x27;s of humor and adventure, you should check out &#x2F;r&#x2F;noveltranslations

Did anyone else not enjoy the actual writing in <i>Three Body Problem</i>? I enjoyed the book from a speculative science and &quot;well this is different&quot; perspective, but the writing style and plotting were very difficult to parse through.<p>&quot;Show-not-tell&quot; isn&#x27;t much followed. Character development is light, to say the least. Most of the story takes place from the perspective of one of two characters, but then there&#x27;s one incredibly jarring chapter where the author goes, &quot;Oh by the way, I&#x27;m sharing a bunch of classified documents with the reader that neither character has ever seen.&quot; And apart from scenes with a single non-viewpoint character (the cop), most of the dialogue sounds more like a post-modern philosophy lecture than actual conversation between real people.<p>Some of this could just be cultural differences between Western and Chinese writing styles, or maybe things got lost in translation. I haven&#x27;t read enough Chinese literature to say though. For those who have read more, would you say Three Body Problem is typical of modern Chinese writing, or Chinese science fiction?

The City Trilogy ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Trilogy-Modern-Chinese-Literature-Taiwan&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0231128525" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Trilogy-Modern-Chinese-Literature-Tai...</a> ) is my personal favorite Chinese&#x2F;Taiwanese SF story. Some people I&#x27;ve recommended it to pass on it because of some of the translation issues[0], but if you read Romance of the Three Kingdoms and you&#x27;ve read a decent amount of translated work already[1], The City Trilogy is a work on that can be enjoyed on levels like Star Wars or Dune. (and I make that broad comparison intentionally)<p>[0]A couple of key word choices, most prominently galaxies instead of what should really be systems or planets. the translator made can really pop literal minded people out of the story, and I think that you have to have the mindset that the composition of language is better and more evocative in the original than the translation.<p>[1] I&#x27;ve found, totally anecdotally, that a few of my Christian friends who have spent a good chunk of their reading time reading translations are able to enjoy translated works better than those who have not. I&#x27;ve also found, again anecdotally, that few people like the first few translated works they read, and enjoy the later ones better.

I can&#x27;t recommend The Third-Body problem enough. Definitely worth reading.

I really enjoyed The Three-Body Problem&#x2F;The Dark Forest&#x2F;Death&#x27;s End and highly recommend them because of their unusual ideas.<p>It was also refreshing to read a book coming from totally different cultural mindset that goes after familiar sci-fi goals.<p>We all have biases and failures in our perspective, and it was interesting read a novel where the authors biases were so different from my own. Liu seemed bipolar in his treatment of women for example. Half the women presented felt vibrant (Ye Wenjie for example) while others, such as Luo Ji&#x27;s perfect wife were fanfiction quality.<p>Overall, the ideas presented in The Three Body Problem and The Dark Forest are thought-provoking enough to recommend these books. Death&#x27;s End on the other hand, was mediocre but worth a read just to finish the series.

Am I the only one who was wholeheartedly underwhelmed by the Three Body Problem? I did get through it but I consider it a waste of my time. The only good part of the story was the mysterious count down timer.

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The poor Chinese seem to be the protagonists in a lot of recent American Authored SciFi, maybe there will be some pay back :-)<p>I Personally find big corporation baddies more believable and readable.

The characters may seem flat, but that&#x27;s just one perspective. I recently finished all three books and can attest that more nuanced, multi-dimensional characters do appear later in the series, though there are also even flatter ones as well, so perhaps it&#x27;s a wash.<p>Highly recommend the audio book versions on Audible. Great narration.

The collection includes Folding Beijing. It won the Hugo award this year and it&#x27;s available freely online at <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;uncannymagazine.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;folding-beijing-2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;uncannymagazine.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;folding-beijing-2&#x2F;</a>

Chinese wuxia (kung fu mythology) is already a hugely interesting genre that many westerners miss out on.

If you are going to read one sci-fi book this year, read &quot;Ready Player One&quot; or &quot;The Martian&quot;. Don&#x27;t waste your hours on Cixin Liu. :)