[Elaine-H]

I read the trilogy in Chinese but only the first book in English.

The original Dark Forest is perfectly fine. Many people suggested it has the best storytelling among the three.

1. Ken Liu is generally considered (by people who have read the trilogy in both languages) a better translator

2. the Dark Forest's structure does feel a little "literary" to me, which might make you felt "the chapters were strangely broken up".

3. I heard that they made many changes in the English version to meet "the political correctness of the western world", which might be another contributing factor of your painful read.

(Liu Cixin on Joel Martinsen, 2015-04-19, https://m.newsmth.net/article/SF/370834): --- here comes my blunt translation ---

"Very reliable, Joel Martinsen's Chinese is very good, his Mandarin is better than mine, and he works hard and is very dedicated. There are more than 1000 modifications made in the English version of Dark Forest.

The only problem is: he only goes to vegetarian restaurants.

BTW, the modifications of Dark Forest have been just completed. There are more modifications compared to the first book, deleted everything related to Ball Lightning, one of the Wallfacer's strategy has been completely changed. Besides that, the editor of TOR is a Feminist and is very strict, sexual discriminations are recognized here and there. Example 1, when words such as "purity" and "angelic" used too often it becomes sexual discrimination, so their usage needs to be limited. Example 2, the secretary-general of the United Nations is a beauty is considered as sexual discrimination. Example 3, all Wallfacers are male is considered as sexual discrimination (but this hasn't been changed, I argued that all American presidents are male, though the editor argued that they will have a female president soon). These changes are a huge workload for me and Joel, very exhausting, but finally completed."

--- translation ends ---

Some context: - "Chinese" refers to the Chinese written language, which is universal across China, "Mandarin" refers to the official spoken language of China. Many people, including Liu Cixin, have accent when speaking Mandarin. That's why he said "Joel Martinsen's Chinese is very good, his Mandarin is better than mine".

- the vegetarian part is just kidding

- Ball Lightning is another popular science fiction from Liu Cixin

[logicchains]

Shows the western world has really gone to shit when even an author from mainland China finds its thought policing exhausting. Phillip K. Dick would be rolling in his grave.

[jhanschoo]

Keep in mind that what an editor has in mind, you're trying to sell genre fiction that has certain genre expectations, and noticed deviations from the staple that readers notice ought to have meaning to them.

Depending on the fiction the target audience grew up reading they may be sensitive to different tropes. e.g. it might be quite exhausting to read a novel with an overuse of "pure" and "angelic" in a most Anglophone societies where these words aren't that frequently used to describe friends and family.

[jobigoud]

Isn't that the point of reading foreign SF? I grew up in Western Europe in the 80's and loved reading Cold War era Soviet science fiction precisely because it was different.

[Ruthalas]

That was the express reason I chose to read these specific novels.

Makes the changes more disappointing.

[boulos]

Thanks!

I don't think the political correctness or other changes would have really bothered me, it was much more about structure. IIRC, there were some "chapters" in Dark Forest that were... over an hour?

In Chinese, does the third book also go back to a more ... narrative style? That is, did you consider the first and third books to be "similar in style" but Dark Forest to stand out?

Thanks again!

P.S. I struggled to decide between saying "Chinese" or Mandarin. I had thought there were also "word/regional differences" between Mandarin and Cantonese, not just pronunciation. Good to know that Chinese would have been correct!

[Elaine-H]

Yes, I also think Dark Forest's structure is quite "different", but it didn't bother me: I read the entire book in one day so lengthy chapters didn't matter.

[boulos]

Thanks again! I’ll consider this settled: people prefer Ken Liu, but that’s not why the second book was different :).

[Normal_gaussian]

Do you structure your reading time in terms of chapters? Or perhaps did you feel that single plot points were dragged out?

[boulos]

A bit of both.

I’ll often read a bit before going to bed, so super long chapters (e.g., greater than an hour?) mean I’m just choosing somewhere “less intentional” to stop.

I would also say that I recall (it’s been a while!) a lot of extraneous detail in some passages, that made me think “ugh, I kind of wish I could skip this, but if there’s a hidden plot element in here I shouldn’t”.

The extraneous detail was probably more frustrating than “long chapters”, but I find that the two go together and usually suggest a missed opportunity for editing.