Reddit reviews The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's Past Book 1)

Here you go

It's sci-fi, not fantasy, but Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem seems pretty big and it even made President Obama's reading list.

I'm looking forward to The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, out in November. First in a trilogy, this is reputedly the shit in China, & has spawned an SF trend there.

It's interesting because Chinese fiction has to pass Chinese censorship, which often makes it unpalatable for readers outside the firewall. But this series has a western publisher and some impressive resources, so the hype is on.

Top 3:

• Cixin Lius three body trilogy. Start with the first book. Mind bendingly thought provoking. Also the bleakest take on the universe and the nature of life.
  
• Peter Watts. All his work is thought provoking. If you want controversial, he's got it in droves. Specifically his Rifters series. Peter Watts would look at your list and use it as a valentine days card because it doesn't even have a patch on his twisted mind. Blindsight is also amazing but Rifters is where the darkness shines through like no other scifi book I've read.
  
• Octavia Butler. Her work is like no other.
  
  Runner ups cause they don't quite fit your list but they are mostly there:
  
  
• Hannu Raganiemi.
  
• the Culture Series - lots of big picture thoughts here. Probably not controversial but I found his views on how even utopian societies can lead to very bad things pretty challenging.
  

First contact is a whole subgenre of scifi, and it is one of my favorites!

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In regards to your request. I have, but haven't read Artemis because it doesn't look that interesting. Rendezvous with Rama, is good, albeit kinda boring. If you like it, but wish it had more action, read Ringworld by Larry Niven.

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Here are some of my favorite first contact books (with oversimplified plot summaries):

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The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - Humans discover an alien spaceship and set out to find the source.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu - Chinese centric first book in a trilogy of aliens invading. One of the best I have read in recent years. Don't want to give away too much. Features alien aliens, like in The Gods Themselves!

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A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge - Humans discover an alien race and race to be the first to make contact with them.

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Damocles by S.G. Redling - Humans discover alien life and launch an expedition to make first contact. Follows the story from the point of the humans and the aliens. Very good hard scifi, but easy to read. The language barrier is a major plot piece.

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Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - Humans are looking for a new home and stumble across a planet with alien life. Trouble ensues. No spoilers here. The sequel comes out in only a couple of weeks!

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu-ebook/dp/B00IQO403K/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416202375&sr=1-1

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Scifi and not really about the country and it's people - but the actions of the protagonists are very much an outcome of the culteral revolution.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Remembrance-Earths-Past-ebook/dp/B00IQO403K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493667787&sr=8-1&keywords=rememberance+of+earths+past

there is the first book, it is fantastic. I ended up burning through the whole series in about 3 weeks, I absolutely couldn't put it down! I'll check out that blog if it is still available.

I'm currently reading The Wolf in the Whale by Jordana Max Brodsky. It is an amazing book, I love the fact that she uses Native Inuit myths along with Norse Myths. It's just a good story. I love good stories.

I have a lot of Kindle books on my Kindle wishlist. The book I really want on there is called The Three-Body Problem, it's the first book in a trilogy by a Chinese sci-fi author. I have heard awesome things about this trilogy and I can't wait to read it.

First, I'm a bit agnostic when it comes to characters. You'll often find me on the other side when the argument that Chinese could never go full romanization. I just hate it when people say that using characters is stupid or wrong.

> Show me the article that says there's currently an epidemic of otherwise literate adults forgetting how to write basic words in English.

Mere anecdote but it reminds me of the ongoing blurring between there, they're, and their.

> I mean, there's "effective" and there's "optimal", right?

You mean letting better be the enemy of good? Using optimal in opposition to effective is a bit disingenuous as well, especially when we're using the clearly suboptimal orthography of English to discuss the matter.

At the same time, China had been exposed to an alphabet (or at least an abugida) when they imported Buddhist texts, and they still felt that Chinese characters were a more effective way of recording their thoughts. That might have been cultural inertia, but the choice was made. At the same time, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese all made use of the characters in the past. Part of that may have been because of cultural and prestige factors, but it was seen as an effective as a way of recording information for a number of languages over centuries. Sure, it's not perfect, but few writing systems are (unless you listen to the Korea-philes who claim Hangul is).

> I'm not sure what you mean here.

You're getting caught up on the specific meanings rather than seeing it as an example of a larger trend in English. Many of the specialty words that are in common use come from three main sources : Germanic, Latin and Greek. While related, the links are not always clear in their expression. The example of doctor, medic and physician shows words from different roots that are used in a way to distinguish different roles in a single field where the links are not clear from the words used. A doctor studies medicine. In Chinese, an 医生 studies 医学。 In English the related nature of the two words is not as clear as it is in Chinese. Even the idea of study (学/学习） is more closely linked to medicine.

> Ehhhhh, again, technically true, but so what? It's not even that big of a difference. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in English is 309 pages while in Chinese it's 242. This is not that much value-added.

That's because you're looking at the language through the perspective of the modern language. If you go back and look at the Analects or the Art of War, they are tiny slivers of books. You can easily fit the text of the Art of War on 4 or 5 letter-sized pages. When the language was establishing itself, and was being written on bamboo slips, brevity made a lot of sense.

And it would be better to see how the length looks from Mandarin to English. The Three Bodies Problem is 302 pages in Mandarin, and 400 in English. Ask any publisher or environmentalist if 98 pages (per book) makes a big difference. Even the 67 pages that you're dismissing as "not that much value-added" is a reduction of over 20% of the length of the English novel, which is nothing to sneeze at.

> Arguing that Hanzi has some benefits over romanization

I am not trying to argue that Hanzi is better than romanization; I'm arguing that Hanzi shouldn't be dismissed by learners who are coming at it from a romanized background. They overlook some of the qualities that helped it endure for centuries. I do not consider it perfect. I can't imagine, for instance, trying to write computer code in it. But I am sure going to push back against the people who say that it's dumb.

> It just strikes me as a pride thing.

looks in mirror
laughs

I guess you think I have some sort of cultural connection with China and Chinese characters. That would be wrong.

You referring to this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IQO403K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

I am interested in this.

I have to admit, I'm certainly more left fiscally, but possibly more right socially. I think the opposition to free speech on public campuses is a somewhat uncomfortable shift too far to the left. If you want a really interesting (fictional) look at what moving too far left does to speech, I highly recommend reading the first few chapters of The Three Body Problem, a scifi novel writen by Cixin Liu, a chinese guy, whose focus (before coming to the present day) is on the Chinese communist revolution.