Hacker News Reader

Comment by iainmerrick | Hacker News Reader

Totally agreed. It's a strange vibe because it feels like it wants to be hard SF, but it's really not. Maybe it's something about the translation?

It's very Asimov-like, in that the elements where the author puts in the most thought and energy are about human interactions (or human/psychic, human/alien, human/robot, etc) handled in a very rationalist, almost mechanistic way.

And also like Asimov, there's super-science stuff (e.g. warp drives in Foundation, time travel in The End of Eternity) that isn't "explained" in any way, it's just part of the setting.

View on HN

>the author puts in the most thought and energy are about human interactions

During my reading, I thought this was the point. I'm not sure the stories were trying to be in any specific genre, maybe genre-adjacent at best, but the author wanted to focus on what happens to the human and humanity with all this advanced, arguably fantastic tech.

The story has some rather clear political biases that a lot of people don’t like, and I can’t help but think a lot of the criticism of the series comes from that. The most tyrannical human characters in the book impose their tyrannies for the sake of collectivism, and collectivist authoritarianism comes very close to dooming humanity more than once. I can imagine people who have collectivist political outlooks not liking it at all.

I don’t see anybody criticising those aspects, though. When people criticise the science or the plot or the characterisation, why not take them at their word?

Human interaction is terrible. All the characters are flat.

- "All the characters are flat."

Too soon...

Too good

I believe the OP means on a grander scale, not individuals.

Individuals in the series largely act as if their personalities have been hit by the dual vector foil.

But the series is rarely about the individuals. Instead its about exploring how humanity - and aliens - might react to the existence of one another.

In this regard I feel Liu created in the reader a vertigo-inducing sensation of depth.

I actually was thinking about the individuals, but you’re right, he talks about how societies behave too (and that’s more important for the overall themes of the novel).

I wasn’t trying to be dismissive, although it’s not entirely my cup of tea; my comparison to Asimov is meant as a compliment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com