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Glad to see this, but then I have to wonder why the organization decided to have the event in China in the first place?
by hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Glad to see this, but then I have to wonder why the organization decided to have the event in China in the first place?
- rmrf100 3y agoBecause the world should NOT be splited more and more.
- ngcc_hk 3y agoLet us do it in Russia or here communist china. It is not you or split it up guys or ladies. It is one side attack the basic and foundation values of you. How about North Korea, Iran or even Hong Kong … just happen all on USA adversity list …
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoThree Body Problem isn't good enough to legitimately win a Hugo. There's clearly money lining pockets to promote their culture and political cant.
- e12e 3y agoWhile not my favorite book, I think it's certainly Hugo quality. What would you pick for 2015? Besides, winning would seem fair, nominations possibly not? The list was: https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2015-hugo-awards/ https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2015-hugo-awards/ The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books) The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books) Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK) Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books) The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
- vertoc 3y agoPersonally, I enjoyed Goblin Emperor much more
- ciberado 3y agoI read "The Three Body Problem" due to all the promotion it received at the time. In fact, I proposed it as the first book for our small reading club. We all agreed that I should have simply bought some beers and read whatever book another member had proposed. While the book presented two very good ideas (the nature of the history loop and the "computer architecture"), it was marred by excessive repetition, flat characters, and poor writing (at least, in the Spanish version). Some characters' reactions to certain events were utterly ridiculous, and the deus ex machina resolution was disappointing. The structure was so repetitious that it seemed as if half of the book was the same chapter repeated over and over. I found it quite boring. I would appreciate any suggestions for works by other Chinese science fiction authors, as I understand that it's not fair to judge such a vast culture based on a single data point.
- int_19h 3y agoI concur on all your points. The writing was so bad - basically middle of the line fanfic level - that at first I thought that it was a low-quality English translation; but I was assured that it was faithful to the original. When it was announced as Hugo winner, I was speechless. I should also add that as reasonably hard sci-fi goes, the very notion of "sophons" (and their mechanics) as presented are not even wrong. In general, when it comes to most sci-fi elements of the book aside from the titular concept, it felt like someone just clipped whatever sounded cool from a popular science magazine and then tried to write a segment of the story around it - i.e. some things, like nanowires/sheets, are introduced not because they make sense in context, but solely for the cool factor.
- the_why_of_y 3y ago2015 was the first year of the Rabid Puppies, as can be seen from "No Award" actually winning the Best Novella and Best Short Story categories, among others. We'll never know who would have won in the absence of all that ballot stuffing.
- NotSammyHagar 3y agoI disagree. I thought it was great, had creative ideas and concepts, enjoyed it reading the English translation.
- pitaj 3y agoYeah I really enjoyed the whole trilogy.
- stubish 3y agoYour opinion on the novel aside, the Hugo's are awarded by popular vote and winners do not have to be 'good'.
- justinclift 3y ago> the Hugo's are awarded by popular vote Except this time around, of course. :(
- QuesnayJr 3y agoThis is ultimately subjective, but I thought the Three Body Problem trilogy was the best sci-fi novels in 20 years.
- Larrikin 3y ago3 Body problem is the novel that made me go from reading one sci Fi novel every couple years to ferociously reading multiple per year for a while trying to recapture the feeling I had reading it. Have read some good ones after but nothing so far that captured me in the same way.
- ethbr1 3y agoThe 3 Body Problem love reminded me of someone who's never read Lovecraft, reading Lovecraft for the first time. I.e.: mind blown, best book ever. Instead of: interesting in some ways, weak in a lot of others, and ultimately on par with similar other books. I'd put any of the Culture series up against 3BP any day.
- QuesnayJr 3y agoAgain this is subjective. I think 3BP is better than the Culture novels, and I like the Culture novels and have read 6 of them.
- arnavpraneet 3y agosame, and I have read far more Culture novels than I have read Cixin Liu. 3BP was refreshing in a way very few books are.
- baq 3y agoRefreshing is perhaps the best word to describe the book. Excellent out of not, it’s barely good, but quite different from western sf, which earns it extra credit.
- arathis 3y agoNonsense.
- dcminter 3y ago> Three Body Problem isn't good enough Look, I personally hate it, but it comes up here as a top recommendation constantly.
- notahacker 3y agoYeah. I didn't exactly find it memorable[1], but I was recommended it by relatives whose literary tastes don't usually include scifi [1]pretty much the only bit I really remember is how the oppressive Cultural Revolution era backdrop made the idea of alien overlords seem worth considering, so I'm particularly struggling to see it as a promotion of Chinese values...
- bawolff 3y agoI personally didn't super like it, but lots of people do. It definitely has the fan base to win a hugo, and a lot worse books have won in the past.
- A_D_E_P_T 3y agoN.K. Jemisin won three years in a row, which is far worse. (Three Body Problem was actually okay, though it seemed to me that books 2 & 3 were far better than the first.) At this point, I'd say just about anything is legitimately good enough to win a Hugo.
- int_19h 3y agoJemisin gets a lot of flak for her politics and the way she weaves it into narratives, but as far as quality of writing itself goes, I'd say she's vastly better. Characters behave like, well, people, not like cardboard cutouts that are there to say the line that author needs to be said.
- watwut 3y agoBroken Earth is absolutely awesome. I don't like everything Jemisin wrote, but her hugo win was 100% deserved.
- baq 3y agoIt was ok, but not earth shattering.
- MattPalmer1086 3y agoI personally enjoyed it a lot, although the later books were better. The writing style wasn't brilliant, but it was a translation. I don't necessarily expect great literature from sci fi. The ideas were cool though and that's my main thing.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoThe translation had zero impact on one character who is a sociopathic murderess and faces zero consequences after confessing to the authorities.
- MattPalmer1086 3y agoIt didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story. Each to their own.
- Vecr 3y agoThe author probably put that in there to make a point.
- zhdc1 3y agoThere was a good discussion on Reddit about it. I don’t have the link but it should be easy to find. Annual meetings are apparently organized by local groups who lobby/compete with one another. China has a very large SciFi readership and the group from Chengdu was very active when it came to lobbying and gathering votes. It wasn’t until later that people started to realize this may not have been the best decision, e.g. with visa applications and so on. As far as the actual scandal, there’s also discussion about whether there was any actual government intervention or if this was mainly the result of self-sensorship.
- themacguffinman 3y agoThe risk of government intervention (read: penalties for everyone involved) is what drives self-censorship. There's no meaningful distinction between the two.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago> read: penalties for everyone involved Read: being denied an exit visa, arbitrary detention, torture, being disappeared, being executed. These are all things that the Chinese government does as a matter of course. For instance, this Australian woman spent 3 years in detention and was tortured for releasing a government report a few minutes early: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/17/like-being-buried-alive-australian-journalist-cheng-lei-on-life-in-a-chinese-prison https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/17/like-...
- TheCoelacanth 3y agoThere is no actual organization that makes decisions. It's a fan convention with no governance structure other than that whoever shows up at the convention gets to vote on things. At each convention, fan groups that want to host the convention after the next one submit proposals and then attendees vote to choose one. Whichever wins the vote gets to run the convention.
- DinoCoder99 3y agoWhy not?
- DinoCoder99 3y ago[dead]
- euroderf 3y agoConsidering that China is the most populous country on the planet, and that some of its sci-fi has recently attracted worldwide attention, it makes sense that China gets a shot at hosting. And then... they screwed it up.
- adastra22 3y agoWell to be fair, it looks like the non-Chinese organizers screwed it up.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThere probably was no way to hold this in china without not screwing it up.
- svl 3y agoAs others have said, between competing bids for who'd host Worldcon in 2023, China got the most votes (from registered fans at an earlier Worldcon). However, there was also controversy about this, as a very large number of those votes lacked an address (a minimal safety feature to give some indication that votes belong to distinct people). The responsible committee decided not to count them, but was overruled. If it wasn't for that, Chengdu wouldn't have won the bid.
- saiya-jin 3y agoThat's an obvious scam that any trained eye spots in 5 seconds, and very typical for more primitive undemocratic societies like Russia and China. I am curious why nobody reacted since at least few must have realized this. Once you clarify you deal with scam no voting can overrule anything, you can easily go public and expose people if they would keep pushing for it. This is 2024, we have (at least some) tools to deal with such things in such situations.
- pavel_lishin 3y agoAccording to Charles Stross's explanation of how Worldcons work, you don't really need to fake votes - you can just buy them at $50/pop: > My understanding is that a bunch of Chinese fans who ran a successful regional convention in Chengdu (population 21 million; slightly more than the New York metropolitan area, about 30% more than London and suburbs) heard about the worldcon and thought "wouldn't it be great if we could call ourselves the world science fiction convention?" > They put together a bid, then got a bunch of their regulars to cough up $50 each to buy a supporting membership in the 2021 worldcon and vote in site selection. It doesn't take that many people to "buy" a worldcon—I seem to recall it's on the order of 500-700 votes—so they bought themselves the right to run the worldcon in 2023. And that's when the fun and games started. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/01/worldcon-in-the-news.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/01/worldco... No scam involved at all, to be honest - just regular voting-with-money.