2018 books: The Three-Body Problem, The Barn, Dominion, Custodians of the Cosmos

[thistlechaser]

♪ Dashing through the books,
in a one open-source Kindle~ ♫

The Three-Body Problem by
Cixin Liu (Author), Ken Liu (Translator)
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Translated from Chinese, the writing was off-putting to me. Not bad, just not right. Not radically different than expected, I think if it were I would have had an easier time reading it, but instead it was just slightly off, which was somehow more jarring. Is Uncanny Valley a thing for writing styles?

I read through the first chapter, about 2%, but I was too distracted with the writing style (and the book seemed more political than scifi), so I gave up.

The Barn by Avi
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Not a bad book, but it was either very dated or written as if it were supposed to be. Also, it was written for younger-than-YA audiences. Either way, it was the writing, not the story, that made me drop the book.

The story followed a very smart kid, back in the 1800s or so. His father had a stroke or some kind of fit, and so the kid was pulled out of school to stay with his family. Even though I reached the 15% point, the book was so short that I learned very little of the story.

Dominion by Doug Goodman
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



A post-apocalyptic book. Something happens and all animals on the planet get larger, meaner, and become flesh-eating. All animals now eat meat, from biggest to smallest, and so people are being killed off left and right.

It was an interesting idea, and one I hadn't read about before, but somehow the story was actually boring and the writing was seriously bland... I stopped at the 5% point.

Custodians of the Cosmos by Drayton Alan
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Hated (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



So much about this book annoyed me. It was supposed to be funny, but the jokes actually made me angry instead, because they were (to me) stupid instead of funny. For example: The Klingon knockoff aliens liked to die in battle, because it's the most honorable thing they could do, while the [some other alien race] liked to dye in battle, because if they wore the same color shirts as their enemies, they'd blend in and be less likely to be killed.

A complete miss for me. Stopped at 4% point, but I should have abandoned it sooner.

Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 2% + 15% + 5% + 4% = 26%
Previous abandoned book total: 1,366%
New total: 1,392% (13 books, almost 14!)

Comments

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

That Avi book is from 1994 so, yeah, pretty old by kid's book standards. I've never read an Avi book but they are a staple of the elementary readers that right on a higher level but are not ready for YA kind of books.

Interesting notes on 'three body problem' especially since it won the Hugo, but then again, I find that award winning books don't do it for me either!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I think I read a different Avi book, and hadn't finished it either. Not sure why I picked up this one... It's on the older side (was on page 40-something out of 55 pages on my Kindle main screen), and back then I was more willing to take anything that seemed even sort of interesting. I had actually thought I might run out of books I wanted to read, haha!

I suspect I pay more attention to writing than many readers would, since technical writing is my job and I'm always aware for things that sound off or wrong. I skimmed a few Amazon reviews, and none mentioned the writing, so... probably just me.

I'm almost, almost below 300 books, but I have six new ones to upload, so even with this last flurry of books in the last couple days, I'm sadly not reducing my pile at all.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

The 2015 Hugos were embroiled in a political argument, which may have affected the voting patterns a bit. Even if it didn't, I don't tend to consider the Hugos as necessarily all that indicative of quality, since they're voted by anyone who wants to pay for a membership to WorldCon. (The Nebulas are voted on by a smaller group, the authors of the Science Fiction Writers of America.)

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

oooooooh, was that the year with all the weird groups trying to manipulate the vote and so on? I think I remember Scalzi blogging about that madness. But, yeah, I find books that win awards tend to not be my cup of tea anyway LOL. I mean, I'm a librarian so everyone always wants the award winning books for their children and I have to suppress the eye-roll because they are never as much fun to read as the non-award winners.

My usual line is "pick out a book, give me a minute and I will Google until I find an award it won somehwhere"

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

They were around for a few years, but 2015 was one of the more ridiculous versions of it all, yes. (Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies.)

And yes, quite agreed on the sheer AMOUNT of awards. Once I found there was a Balrog award at one point, I just gave up.

[hamsterwoman]

Is Uncanny Valley a thing for writing styles?

I definitely think it is! -- in the sense that sometimes I come across writing that is not bad but just OFF, and it bothers me throughout the piece. I definitely think translation can create that effect, because even if you're fluent in both languages, translation is really damn hard!

I was underwhelmed by The Three-Body Problem. There is definitely sci-fi later on in the book -- the opening chapter just sets the stage for character motivation, as well as establishing setting -- and it's even the kind of sci-fi that can work for me sometimes, but it didn't really here. I need my SFF to have actual characters in it, and none of the people in this were anyone I felt anything for.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Amazon reviews agreed on the 'characters aren't people', no emotional connection to the characters part. Sometimes I feel bad about giving up on a book so quickly, but in this case I think it was the right decision.

Makes sense about the translation. It would be hard enough to translate nonfiction, but fiction is a whole different animal!

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I haven't gotten around to the Three Body Problem, and this... is a really vivid description of some kinds of translation. So possibly I will take even longer to get around to it.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the Amazon comments are very positive, so it could be some odd thing about my view of it. But for me, yeah, it was a hard pass... Too many other good books out there for me to force myself to continue with one that's not working for me.