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Comment by atombender | Hacker News Reader

Read Blindsight [1] by Peter Watts. A much better book, in my opinion. It's without doubt the most existentially unnerving novel about alien intelligence that I've read.

I'm not going to spoil anything, suffice to say that the object that is encountered in space is nothing like anything portrayed in science fiction before. The exploration narrative goes far beyond Clarke's Rama, and Watts poses some very interesting philosophical questions along the way.

The book has some minor narrative issues that annoyed me, but still a great read.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640

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Yes, already read it! I like Three Body Problem better, but Blindsight is excellent.

I find it interesting that so many like Three Body that much! I found it an extremely poorly written book. I think that in the hands of a better writer it could have worked as a Kurt Vonnegut-style satire in the vein of The Sirens of Titans. Some interesting ideas here and there, but overall very disappointing. Mind you, I haven't read the sequels, and did not feel compelled to.

The sequels are where it really takes off. The Dark Forest is far more terrifying - one of the darkest SF books I've read.

I think cultural differences play into the read a lot, too. It's an intensely Chinese novel, and I'm pretty sure a lot of Americans find his perspectives on history jarring, and want something more "entertaining" and personal.

I'm not American, and there was nothing wrong to me with the book's historical perspective. What I didn't like was the lack of depth; there's barely any characterization or nuance or world-building, and it's written in this juvenile language that makes Haruki Murakami look like Proust. It's so comically bad that I was unsure at first if maybe it was supposed to be a satire and something was lost on me.

I've read subsequently that this is how a lot of Chinese fiction is written, so maybe that's just how it is.

Sounds like it might be worth reading the rest for the ideas, but there's so much else out there I want to read.

It's just how Chinese fiction is. My spouse has a master's degree in Chinese pedagogy, so I've had more exposure than most to Chinese ideas and fiction.

To be fair, that doesn't make it good! :-)

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