The Three Body Problem trailer for the new Netflix adaptation is out. I must say I am very skeptical of this one. This being one of my favorite books I have my doubts that they will do it justice. I’m sure it will be visually interesting and everything, but that’s not really the point. Especially not for book 1.
I recently watched both the Tencent live adaptation as well as the animated adaptation of The Dark Forest and sometimes I feel like these books were better left on paper. The live show wasn’t bad or anything it just has a different feel to it on screen that’s hard to understand.
Warning: please refrain from posting book spoilers in this thread. General discussion is fine.
I listened to the first two books in the series on audio. The first book was very interesting and it kept me hooked. The second book was… different feeling, it just didn’t feel as good as the first book. The 3rd book, Death’s End, man, it was such a slog even in audio book format that I stopped listening to it a little past half way through in favor of another book.
Like was mention, I wonder if it’s an issue with something being lost in translation, but the first book was so good that doesn’t seem to be an accurate explanation.
Sounds like the enders game series. I wonder why so many things fall off at number 3, and why we can’t be sated with one good story.
I loved the first Ender’s Game, and then I read the follow up book from Bean’s perspective. But outside of those, I didn’t even attempt all the sequels.
Enders shadow (the bean story) is the only one worth a minute of your time. Speaker of the dead had some interesting ideas regarding star travel, but quickly became overly simplified.
That simplification was expanded on (by making more parts of nature simpler and simpler) in the hive queen and the hegemon, and then made incredibly spiritual in xenophobia (might have that name wrong, never finished the book).
As contrarian as forums on the internet are, I’ve yet to see anyone argue the enders game series is worth finishing.
I feel we can also add the Dune series to the same list. I think the first book is the strongest, I couldn’t get into the 2nd, but I’m told the first 3 were good then it goes rapidly downhill from there.
The Dune series actually picked up again down the line. Chapterhouse and Heretics really made sense of the whole arc, but I’m not sure I would have slogged through the middle books if I hadn’t been such an avid reader looking for new content as it came out.
The third book was so bad. I loved the first and actually enjoyed the second (it was the first time i heard about “the dark forest” theory), but the third just annoyed me.
From the moment the MC failed her task because of her motherly instincts or some bs like that to the last 100+ pages that were just the author masturbating over his ideas of how ultra high-tech-civilizations could develop, there was nothing that made sense or was really compelling about it.
You missed nothing stopping midway through book 3.
Good to know I’m not missing anything, I think where I was it was wrapping up those “fairy tales” being told. Some of the conclusions characters draw when presented with information in those stories is insane.
Yeah, the author is really good at coming up with fun ideas but also comes up with a lot of meh ideas that he is equally enamored with, and as the series progressed the editors seem to have grown increasingly ineffective at cutting out the meh ideas which made large swaths of the books a bit of a slog. When I read the third book I skimmed through a lot of the slog so I’d forgotten how much of it there was, but when I tried listening to the audiobook I had to give up because there was so much slog and it a lot harder to skim through in that format.
If I had to speculate on the reason for this, I’d say it was because the author and/or the series became so popular that the editors were to afraid to really push back in the later books; I’ve gotten the impression that this is actually a pretty common phenomenon in the publishing world.
That gives a lot more perspective hearing how you found the 3rd book to be in print vs audio formats. Normally audio books will push me past points I lose focus on in print. My prime example is The Dark Tower series, I tried to start the first book 2 times in print, and petered out ASAP, but the audio book can push me past those boring points. The issue with the 3rd book in The Three Body Problem is, it’s all a slog. At some points it stops even feeling like a real narrative and moves into just droning on about details on things.
I’ve been having increasing issues with audio books with my mind wandering in a way it never did before, but holy shit Death’s End was 95% mind wandering for me. Since you mention it, I think you’re right, comparing book 1 vs book 2 feels like what ever filter kept the author on the straight and narrow to focus down his story is no longer present. This let him just fly with ideas that just don’t really work to construct a compelling cohesive story.
If I knew the 4th and 5th books were amazing, I would probably finish Death’s End, but at this point I don’t know that I will.
I read Three Body recently and while I can see how it has two sequels I didn’t feel the drive to read them.
The mystery has been solved, it must transition to a different style of book to continue. It’s the same thing that stranger things did - once they showed the monster and explained where it came from it went from a monster horror to an action thriller. You can only lift the lid on the mystery once.
That’s a good point, the first book was so compelling due to that mystery. Some new mysterious do pop up in the books as they progress, but none are as compelling as that first mystery. I also feel the books context got more and more ridiculously and weird as they went along, so by the time we’re in book 3, it’s very difficult to get into for me.
I don’t quit books in audio format too frequently, so it isn’t a habit of mine. I’ll probably check out the Netflix series though, expecting nothing good. What a weird Sci-Fi book to try and turn into a live action show for western audiences!