The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

[[deleted user]]

Ben wrote: "Some more questions to throw at people - Has this inspired you to check out more (or less) books in translation? If so which ones?..."

I noticed SF Signal has an article up today, 2015 SFF In Translation, which lists some upcoming translations of non-English SF&F.

[[deleted user]]

Experts Gather To Discuss Whether We Should Send Messages To Aliens. As you might expect, SF auther David Brin gets quoted a lot on the "don't" side.

[[deleted user]]

NPR has a piece up this week on Liu Cixin:
Cultural Revolution-Meets-Aliens: Chinese Writer Takes On Sci-Fi
(text or audio available)

[Nikolai]

Well, I've just started reading Three Body. So there's some numerical analysis of the 3 body problem using a Monte Carlo Simulation? Interesting. Of course, the Monte Carlo is simply a method to generate simulated data given current data and some analysis of the histories of that data. Instead of predicting the future, the Monte Carlo simply gives you some sense of how uncertain the future is when reasonably viewed from the present. However, in my experience the future has always been far more whacked out than expected. It's like a big circle, this Monte Carlo thing. You look at the present, spin a few stories about the future, then look at the present again, except suddenly the picture looks more multivariate and thus fuzzy.

I'm thinking of trying remote viewing in lieu of the Monte Carlo. That might be more reliable. Now, I just need a good prayer rug and some kind of mantra to hum. Some beads would be nice, too.

[[deleted user]]

Okie-dokie, i just finished 3 Body, loved it. Its the pure stuff. China may save SF.

I noticed something weird in the translation tho. Page 65 you will find this "Chang gave him an inscrutable smile."

SAY WHAT???

That sounds like something out of a "Yellow Peril" pulp from the 1920s or 30s. (Yellow Peril stories are stuff like Fu Manchu or Wu Fang, scareing all the white folks into thinking the yellow folks were going to take over). The word "inscrutable" was used as a racist term at the time.

So I call my brother. He reads Chiniese (sp, sorry) and has a copy from China. He says that in the Chinese version, it doesn't say 'inscrutable", its more like "unfamthable" (agan, sp, sorry). His wife, who is from China, confirms this. If you get deep in the weeds (easy to do with Chinese, particularly the writen form, you can interpert it as "inscrutable" but it would be far from the first thing to come to mind.

So how come Ken Lui used "inscrutable", with all its baggage, insted of "unfamthable", the word actualy used in the orginal????

[[deleted user]]

Spooky1947 wrote: "That sounds like something out of a "Yellow Peril" pulp from the 1920s or 30s..."

Hmmm. Nope, not buying it. I think you've been reading too many 20s pulp magazines.

My dictionary defines inscrutable as enigmatic, unreadable, unfathomable. (As it happens, I used "inscrutable" in this message just yesterday, because I got tired of typing "mysterious".) I'm not convinced one synonym is a better translation choice than another synonym.

There is a cultural stereotype associated with several asian nationalities of a stoic politeness that makes it hard for westerners to read (inscrutable, unfathomable, enigmatic,...) I don't think the word "inscrutable" in itself carries a special baggage the other synonyms lack in that context.

[[deleted user]]

Okie dokie...maybe i have been readin' too much of the old stuff...

[Book Nerd]

Thread back from the dead because I just finished this.

I really loved this. Some of the science near the end, made me wonder if the whole crazy notion of quantum uncertainty is just higher dimensional aliens fraking with us.

Also, if the trisolarans have that level of technology why can't they just build an artificial world around a stable star? Or just knock the other two stars out of their system?

I really think the physics of that who tri-stellar system were all wrong.

G33z3r wrote: "Wang Miao seems to be confronted with a very creepy mystery, but he never seems to react with goosebumps; we don't really know anything about him other than he is a researcher in nanomaterial (a task which we never actually see him performing) and doesn't have a family or girlfriend or really any social ties that might interfere with his role in the plot."
Maybe you wrote this before you were far into the book but he had a wife and son. They were barely in the story but there was a scene with them.
And he liked amateur photography.

I thought Da Shi was a much more stereotypical character but the kind I can't help but love. An uncomplicated working class schmoe who tells all the scientists and experts what's really going on and what they need to do.

As for translated books, especially asian, well hell, I can't read EVERYTHING even though I want to. When something becomes popular I hear about it and read it.

[Jaelle]

I just finished The Three Body problem as well. Really enjoyed it.
I thought that the author and the translator did a wonderful job with the imagery when describing scenes in the book (the human-powered computer being one example). I experienced this book via audiobook, but find myself wanting to go back and read the book so that I can have more time to digest and imagine some of the descriptions myself.

[Cat]

This was my fave sci-fi read last year. I just thought it was incredible. I loved it so much.

[Book Nerd]

Anybody know if that idea of (view spoiler)["unfolding" electrons into lower dimensions is based on real theories? (hide spoiler)]