I don’t understand this sentiment. I read and enjoyed the books and also watched the Chinese series on YouTube, and while I think the Chinese production was decent I’m definitely interested to see what Netflix can do with [what I assume to be] a bigger budget as there is definitely room for improvement.
I tried to read the books this is based on and felt like I was being punked.
The writing in the first chapter, specifically around the dialogue of the man on the stage who is telling the story about his wife’s father was so incredibly stilted that I couldn’t get through it. It was unfathomably badly written dialogue that I can only imagine it’s something lost in translation that triggers every pet peeve I have about dialogue.
And most people rave about the books. So this is probably a me problem more than anything. I just don’t understand it.
So as long as they hired some writers to do a better job at the dialogue I might be one of those people who likes the show and not the books.
I’m half way through The Dark Forest and while I’m really enjoying it, it’s certainly not because of the character writing. Could just be a translation issue but a native speaker would have to chime in on that. I’m still enjoying going through the trilogy though just for the concepts alone.
I always figured the dialogue was a lost in translation/ cultural disconnect thing. What I had a problem with was the way Liu writes women. The way Zhuang Yen comes into the story into the second book made me want to puke.
Yeah, the character development and dialogue is pretty bad. I rave about it for all the cool ideas it exposed me to. I value that more highly than pretty much anything else. To each their own :)
That’s because the book was not written in English. The translation preserves a lot of the cadence of the original Chinese writing. You may not be used to it, but that’s not uncommon for translated works in general.
You're not alone. I tried reading them and the premise was something I could get behind but the way it was written drove me crazy. I agree that if they had a better translator to make it sound more native English, I probably would have been fine with it. Bit as it stands it sounded very Chinese still. I'm hoping the show will solve that problem for us.
I may be able to retry them knowing that they aren’t translated in a way that feels more western, but I had just come off of some cozy-fantasy and sci-fi books and it was shockingly jarring to even try to get through.
I often feel like when most people love something and I don’t, I owe it to myself to figure out why.
I got about one third of the way through. I told some friends who’d finished it that the writing was driving me crazy and was hoping it would get better. Thry said it didn’t. I was deflated. Three months later, I got the audiobook version and I’m happy I did. Still not finished, but some of it inspired me to pick up the book again and review select passages.
It’s a common problem with lots of classic sci-fi authors. Heinlein, Asimov, Philip K Dick, Larry Niven etc. are all terrible at writing believable dialogue and compelling characters. There are some exceptions, but most of their characters are cardboard cutouts so they have a way to move along a story or give exposition about the ideas.
The Expanse did a pretty good job with characterization (in the books), and Kim Stanley Robinson is decent (but is still pretty “hit or miss,” IMHO), but in general, the weakest part of sci-fi writing is almost universally characterization and dialogue.
acting as a strong comeback for Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss.
No thank you.
I’ve heard great things about this story, but I’m not watching something run by these loons.
If it’s a one and done season, I’ll watch it once it’s done. If it’s going to take multiple seasons, I’ll watch it when it’s done. It’s Netflix, so they won’t finish it.
Well, if they just stick to adapting the books (and to my knowledge the story is finished) I’m OK with it. With GoT the problem was mostly when the source material was over, till then they did a good job adapting the story.
GRRM has probably written and rewritten The Winds of Winter a dozen times at this point. I bet the word count is higher than everything he wrote for the rest of the series combined, if you count everything written and deleted.
Honestly, with his process we’re lucky we saw A Dance of Dragons at all.
The problem with GoT is the same as with all productions where they constantly escalate with very little character building. There's nowhere to go, so inevitably when they do try and tie all things together there's nothing of substance and it's just a huge letdown.
Eh, even when pirating, you don’t want to get invested into a story for them to completely ruin it in a few seasons. For how good the early seasons of game of thrones are, I can’t rewatch them because of season 8.
they do perfectly fine when they are adapting existing material. it’s when you ask them to write their own story that they can’t handle it. the first four seasons of Game of Thrones were fucking exceptional. I have no idea how you turn this book into a movie though
I do agree they did a solid job adapting things, and I would hope the collective slap from the failure that was the final seasons of Game of Thrones would humble them.
I’m not writing the series off completely, I’m just not willing to give it a shot until after a thorough review and clear ending.
Yeah I think you hit on the issue with your last sentence- a story that’s so nonlinear, idea focused, and time-spanning, I don’t trust them to adapt it and keep the nuance.
It’s about the frequency of Stormlight Archives releases. Last I checked, he stated he had over a dozen Cosmere novels to release before the next one drops. If he gets hit by a truck, that’s the end of it.
lmao is this post advertising something made by Dave and Dave? hard pass… especially if the motherfuckers are getting high praise in the press for an unfinished story. call me when you release the final finale and the general public receives it well
I knew they were involved, but I was surprised to see their name dropped in the article. I assumed they would try to downplay their involvement so I checked the article to be sure.
The main trailer has “from the creators of Game of Thrones” so yeah they’re doubling down on the D&D.
I meannnn. They had to finish an unfinished story, and they def fucked it up. But they also made some of the best television I’ve seen S1-5 based off GRRMs work. I’m not giving them a pass but holy fuck that gamble of him having an ending by S9 wasn’t like out of the realm of possibilities, I kinda also blame GRRM.
That being said I’m definitely waiting for large scale reviews and friend suggestions on this one. The trailer did look promising though.
It’s fair for GRRM to share some of the blame, but any Internet commenter, who can’t write for shit (see me), could have written a better ending.
To me it seemed like they were bored and wanted to move on. They had Star Wars/Disney lined up. They had Netflix (possibly this thing) lined up. Conceptually I get it. They’d worked on Game of Thrones for years, it was time to move on.
But they fucked up bad. Real bad.
Obviously I hope they’ve learned and are better now, but I’m not betting on it.
I read the trilogy and I’m not really sure that it will translate to the screen very well. The story is absolutely massive and spans from beginning in the Chinese cultural revolution and ends at the literal end of time.
That being said, it is probably my favorite and what I consider the best sci-fi trilogy out there.
Incredibly interesting concepts are explored and it also has a really interesting way of telling the story. It’s not just about one guy saving the whole universe. It catalogs all of civilization’s attempts at coming together and protecting humanity from an alien threat. And it also goes into all of the issues that humanity runs into while trying to work together, while also spanning across thousands of years.
It’s a really fantastic series and I would highly recommend it to just about anyone with an intellectual interest in humanity’s future.
It’s a big statement to say, but this book changed my outlook on humanity and globalism.
Adrian Tchaikovsky. Three books starting with “Children Of Time.” After centuries of collapse after meltdown, Earth’s last gast is an attempt to terraform dozens of exoplanets. The books do a great job of describing non-Human races
The series was a really interesting exercise in not giving the protagonists anything like a fair fight. Like, the level of hopelessness is impressive. It made me realize almost every other story I’ve ever seen is like children’s material compared to this, in terms of hand-holding the audience and making sure they’re safe.
I haven’t heard great things about the story, quite the contrary. Combined with these two dumbos behind it I have no hopes for this to be good. I’ll still watch it, because it’s sci-fi, though.
Anyone who has read the books want to chime in? I read the books and they had a “painting in a museum” type quality to them, where each chapter was a well described static scene. Fun concepts (in particular, the Dark Forest concept), but really dry prose…
I am personally wondering how they will pull it off. My guess is that the story/plot/pacing will be based on the book, but I’m sure they’ll add in more characters and drama. Probably heavily rearrange the order too.
I think there are some editions of the second book done by Ken Liu, aren’t there? I haven’t read it yet, but I got a copy from a used book shop, and remember thinking that it was the same translator. At least, I thought I thought it was…now I’ve gotta go home and check
It’s just a massive time scale that it happens on, but yes that gives way to feeling like that. Read the first 2, put the last one down halfway through after it started shitting all over the first 2 books with a certain character’s actions.
The second book has a really cool few pages that helped visualize what experiencing the 4th dimension could be like.
The series is more interesting for its concepts than it is for plot or any one character imo
I put the third one down as well, it just got too far into horror. I didn’t really have a problem with any of the dialogue or character development and really liked the first two. I do tend to be very uncritical of novels in that respect though. I was just not at a time in my life where I wanted to read horror in my leisure time. I went from that to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and was ever so delighted.
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