@matthewp @darnell Also Forward’s book doesn’t try to normalise stalking, grooming, or the infantilising of women, at least as far as I can recall!

@matthewp @darnell It reminded me a little of Dragon’s Egg by Robert Forward, which had wonderful alien passages interspersed with the most wooden, stilted, clenchingly bad passages with human characters. It felt like it had been written by an alien with some knowledge of humans, but not much. The Three-Body Problem isn’t quite that bad in its dialogue, but it’s not far off, and it doesn’t have the benefit of brilliantly conceived alien characters to make up for it.

@matthewp @darnell Well, it’s a little hard to say without spoilers, but in general I found all the characters unbelievable. Everyone either massively under-reacts to astounding news or over-reacts to mundane news. The main character in the second book behaves in a way that in real life would be unimaginably creepy to a pathological degree (and the only psychiatrist who comments on it again massively under-reacts). The central conceit of that book isn’t consistent either!

@matthewp @darnell I read the first two and thought they were not very good, though they have some interesting ideas in them. I imagine that they’ll have had to make some pretty extensive changes, especially with the second book, if the TV series is going to be any good!

@Sonikku Gloriously niche!

@epiceneVivant This is why it amuses me when people speculate about what if dinosaurs had evolved sapience. What do they think corvids are?