Fair enough. Perhaps you should read Twilight next I've now finished 3 chapters of the Three-Body Problem. I can't say I'm hooked... It's got elements of stuff I do enjoy - I'm not solely a romance reader. In fact I read mostly crime, some drama and some fantasy, and used to read lots of YA. I do love me some romance though. Anyway, Three-Body Problem is just so... clinical. There're moments of depth and emotion that I love to see, and then it's just all plain description of action. Some of the descriptions are things I would have totally panned had it been in an unpublished piece - there's just no getting me to compare anything with working or non-working CPUs... I barely know what the heck a CPU is. (I only know if some application is taking up 90% CPU that that's a bad sign, and that Firefox should not do that) Listing out of mundane technical details (when they were activating the antenna in chapter 3) is mundane - a flurry of speech saying "blah-de-blah ready!" does not build tension. It bores. The times when the description has been interesting in a good way are times when I suspect it's to do with the way language comes across when translated and unusual pairing of words because it is a translated work. In this sense, I don't know how much of the writing style is due to the fact that it is originally Chinese, and how much of it is typical of sci-fi as a genre even in the West. Perhaps you'd have more insight into this
But I've seen the Twilight movie...know how it ends. Honestly Jacob was the better choice but he deserved better than creepy Bella so I'm kinda glad she ran off with vampire boy As for Three-Body....yeah it's a bit tedious in the early going. It's HARD, HARD Sci-Fi. I actually picked it for my dare because it's a challenging read without being too long overall. It takes a while to heat up, and when the science babble gets going it's a bit dense. I figured if I was reading something like Jennifer Crusie (which trust me I find challenging), I would make sure there was a degree of difficulty in my own suggestion. The formal dialogue is something I've seen flagged in other reviews as a potential artifact of translation, but it's definitely there. The pace will start picking up a little, and you'll get a few interesting characters (Da Shi being my favorite). And there are some really fun set pieces that come up as part of the puzzle. It's a hard read but I found it rewarding as it started barreling forward. Sci-fi as a genre has a pretty broad range in terms of things like dialogue - John Scalzi is one of the bigger names in the genre currently, and his trademarks are his sense of humor an snappy dialogue. But Cixin Liu definitely comes from the old school "Hard SF" tradition, which can be more dense.
Could my dare be to read Scalzi instead? I was actually intending on reading his Locked In (I think that's the title anyway) It sounds like speculative-dystopian-crime - which sounds awesome. I only suggested Twilight for a joke. If I had been 14, I might have enjoyed it. I don't think it's as crap as people say it is. But it's certainly not excellent. It is kinda crappy but then I don't think I am Twilight's targetted age group - I think its target is teenagers, and I can totally imagine myself enjoying it if I had been younger I doubt I'd be diligent enough to reread the whole thing in Chinese at this rate. If there's a particular passage you want me to check out in Chinese, I can do so and give you an opinion But I'm not sure I can finish the book even in English so... So the slightly mechanical metaphors and lack of all emotional detail - that's a sci-fi trait then I gather?
Ok, I was laughing and feeling sorry for you up to around the 12 minute mark for you. Had to cut it at the wooden blocks - unnecessary. But what I did hear, pretty much goes in line with things I don't like about romance novels with boring sex scenes. I think it takes very good writing for an author to bring across the earthiness and also the connection between the characters. What is being said, even just a few words makes all the difference. I haven't read this novel and I never will since you've both UNSOLD me with the idea it is worst than what I imagined. But I am gathering the sex is all centered around the woman feeling good which is always a big negative for me. Also, listening to you mention the icing on the donut, it reminded me that I've never liked sex and food mixed together. Then I wondered if it is the romance authors who write novels I don't enjoy that might be more likely to use it and why would they like to use food? And then I thought, maybe because they need to make it interesting and in the absence of the ability/fear/discomfort of writing an arousing, emotional and CREATIVE love scene, let's use food. Every body loves food! Yuk... It could be me that finds that kinda gross. Am I turned on by someone smearing food product all over another person or licking stuff of their body parts? No. I guess I'm just not into that kind of 'dirty'. The same goes for having sex at the dining table, where there are plates of food all around them. I get distracted. I think about food stuff tipping over, a mess that needs to be cleaned up later. And if the hero swipes off all the plates to clear it for the very urgent sex act, I can't help but think...hey someone has to clean that up later! Again, a distracting unsexy thought. Anyway, I just had a pondering moment and had to share my dislike of Cruise and food mixed with sexy times when it came up.
Oh and I should also mention too @Commandante Lemming that I did have a quick look at the "Three-Body Problem". Regardless if it is a "HARD, HARD Sci-Fi" it shouldn't be that laborious a read. Then I found out it is a translation as well from @Mckk 's comment above. I won't be giving it a go because I'd like to read something that doesn't have a go-to reason for why I may not understand or like it for the writing as-is. So I'm thinking, is "Dune" an acceptable example of a good Sci Fi? Wikipedia seems to think so. I ask because I bought it as a teenager but it wasn't my thing back then. But maybe it'll be a different experience over a decade later.
Well, that's why I was curious to see whether the traits that bothered me were genre-specific - eg. readers of sci-fi prefer or like that kinda writing - or if it was just bad writing, or perhaps a downfall in translation. But I think good writing should transcend genre, don't you? I just can't see half a page (or a whole Kindle page) of line after line of speech saying "Blah blah ready!" as "good" writing even by the specifications of genre. Having said that, there were a few pieces of description that were rather lovely - they were odd in a fresh, vivid way - the kind of metaphors I sometimes come up with, actually, which makes me wonder how much of my own Chinese or cultural associations get mixed up in my writing without me knowing. I don't translate, but there would be words and images I'd naturally group together that perhaps a monocultural or non-Chinese person might not.
@LinnyV I think a lot of my problem is the lack of intimacy between them too. Kinda ruined Krispy Kreme doughnuts too. Cruise does have a problem using the word 'hot', to describe kissing many times and then the sex. You might be right that she is uncomfortable writing sex. Either that or she really lacks the ability to write it. IDK. On the other hand I agree that she tried to be cutesy using the doughnuts to make the whole ordeal more interesting.
Krispie Kremes are far too sweet anyway. Don't really enjoy them, except for the peanut butter cream one. Loooove me some peanut butter!!
They were Krispy Kreme Donuts?! I love the originals... hehe. @Cave Troll I'm having more of a think about what makes for a good love scene and before we even get to the dirty bits, the sexual tension and attraction has to be there. The intimacy had to be established well before they get to the act. So by the time you get to the penetration, it's a big deal. So even if a writer goes into graphic details when it comes time to get naked, it will come across as mechanical and flat to me if I'm not convinced these characters are really driven to this point. It's all the looks, the glares, the thoughts, the gestures, the uncontrollable bodily reactions and telling statements that might slip out, all these things that reaffirms the message, "I really want to have sex with you." So it's not unusual for me to get little disappointed when climatic moment arrives and it boils down to some bog standard not so creative sexy times. But I can forgive that as long as I was convinced the parties involved actually wanted to have sex to begin with and the writer gave it an honest go. So it's all about the chase and the foreplay which is not one sided and does not all happen in the one monumental session! Anyway, I've always thought that Crusie catered to a specific audience that is more 'chick lit', not that I ever took the time to really figure out what chick lit was. I just assumed that was the stuff I didn't like to read. @Mckk I honestly wouldn't know if good writing should transcend language differences but I do think good ideas will. But that doesn't mean the reading experience is enjoyable so that equates to a bad novel with good ideas to me. Since you're Chinese who sounds like you actually speak Chinese regularly you'd be in a better position than me to decide. I'm actually Chinese myself, but I came to Australia when I was two and I would say Cantonese is very much a second language, one that I rarely use these days since I'm married to a Caucasian man. But I was always aware of the difference in how Chinese people expressed themselves compared to 'Aussies'. I wouldn't be able to put my finger on it, but I'd always thought Chinese humour and sarcasm was so much more funny to me. Maybe because there's an honesty in how it is expressed. So a part of me can't help but think that if they translated this novel, then it may not be a true representation of the original work. If I could read in Chinese I would prefer to go with that version to be honest.
@LinnyV I think it was partly due to how she made the whole 'dating' thing so over the top. As well as making Cal "Mr.Perfect', for Minerva with all the ex machina going on. It started to come off as plot demands, which in turn gave the whole story more cheese than a cheese factory. It felt like a try hard attempt by being over the top cutesy, and instead came off as forced and juvenile. Not going to lie, a lot of Cal's thoughts are coming from a 30+ year old man going on 13. It is like Cruise went out of her way to PG the crap out of the story in general. I guess I thought it would be more 'adult' because of the genre, and expected a level of maturity to it. Instead I got a cheesy over the top middle-school romance in book form, but with adults and not teenagers. Suppose all in all it was a hot mess for me up to our current point, making me wonder how, why, and a whole host of other questions buzzing in my skull. That is probably why the highlights for me are when something actually happens to the characters, and not the sex.
So I'm at a conference right now and have like zero time, but I saw a question about Dune and while I havent read it (on the list), it's one of, if not THE biggest SciFi novel ever written. If you go in, have fun - it's a classic. Note that it's epic and long, and also that it's written in omniscient.
I think we should carry on this theme in a new thread. Like... two chick lit lovers read an extreme horror. But I'm not sure we have enough variety on this forum.
You're originally Chinese too? Haha awesome sometimes I feel like I'm the only one of my kind... I moved to England when I was 8 and English is very much my dominant language. I only get to use Cantonese with my parents and that's only because I make an effort to use it, since they speak English too. My Chinese literacy isn't honestly good enough for Sci-fi and politics but I do understand it if I've read the English first. I'm amazed you still speak Cantonese if you emigrated when you were 2 though.
@Commandante Lemming WHAT?!?!?! You have not read Dune? DUNE?! Oh that is it, you've lost all Sci-Fi credibility in my eyes! Even my non reading hubby has read the darn thing and got annoyingly animated talking about the different houses when I mentioned I might read it the other night - he read a lot of sci fi as a teenager. So adding it to my list because the fact I failed to read it myself it as a teenager still bothers me. This thread just reminded me that it was a Sci-Fi!!! I actually did a brief skim of the Three-Body Parts and Dune in Amazon's Look feature and thought the latter seemed doable and potentially more interesting. Plus I can later watch the movie and then bitch about the differences.
And there you go, the joys of the internet. Up until NOW, I thought I was the only one of my kind too. There, we both now know we're not unique.... Same as you, I only speak Cantonese to my parents. And since I am estranged from them at the moment, I haven't spoken a word of Chinese for close to a year. So it's rusty to say the least. I would love to use more Chinese but unfortunately even the Chinese people don't want to talk to me in anything other than English even though I can understand what they're saying. So I guess it must be me. hehe It's a shame really... I do regret losing touch of my cultural heritage.
Ex Machina? No idea what that means, but no need to explain. As a woman in her late 30s and recently reading a lot of messages going between 'adults' in another hobby/forum I am involved in, I would say it is totally conceivable that a 30+ year old man thinks and defers to the mindset of a 13 year old. Maybe Crusie is onto something there! One thing I have learnt in getting older is that it does not mean I'm getting mentally more mature, more opinionated yes, but never more mature... haha But to me, having a weak hero will kill a Romance novel. By weak, I don't care that he's actually physically weaker than the female or if he has insecurities, but if he is just a lame and unbelievable depiction of a man (within the context of the story) to be maneuvered by the heroine, the story will never recover for me. I also don't like getting the sense that the author is conscious of being PG or PC or scrabbling about looking desperately for plot devices. Because when you scratch beyond the surface of their story, there isn't really much there.
By all means you should start one. 'Chick Lit' is like kryptonite for me but I am trying to re-invigorate my love of horror. So I'm curious as to what exactly do you mean by 'extreme horror'? Because I would think for different people that would mean very different things. Also, I still can't be motivated to figure out what Chick Lit actually means but I always imagine a woman on a train on her phone talking about her oh so interesting social life of which I don't care to know. I'm sure I have it all wrong and maybe I'll learn something...
For Horror, I would recommend Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart, or maybe The Inhuman Condition (collection of short Horror stories).
I can't really start one, since there's no genre that I hate. I do avoid certain types of sci-fi (ones set in space) and fantasy (the dragons type) but I do read other types. By extreme horror, I mean Jack Kilborn / Matt Shaw type of horror. Clive Barker would definitely, definitely not cut it
I wrote a long post that's completely off-topic, so I'm gonna PM you it instead of derailing the thread
Not heard of any of them what do they write that makes it extreme horror rather than just horror? Speaking of horror, I watched the first episode of Jessica Jones - I think a relatively new (or maybe it's old now?) drama series I was recommended. The ending had me going, "Fuck what did I just watch?" I don't intend on carrying on, but it carries enough fascination for me to wish I would continue. Sigh. If only I didn't scare so easily...
