I’ve never been the biggest fan of Liu Cixin, even though he’s often heralded as “the best sci-fi author in China”. He does (sometimes) demonstrate interesting ideas by combining scientific concepts and imagination, but in my opinion that’s not quite enough to be a good sci-fi story. In particular, these two elements in his writings always leave me feeling irritated, if not downright angry:

1. Helpless female characters with a “pure” mind (and body)

   I can accept it if the men are always the hero — that’s not uncommon in most fiction, especially from his time. But I cannot accept how women are depicted in his stories: silly, helpless, and they just don’t really do anything apart from waiting and hoping and praying. All his female characters seem to come straight from the damsel in distress trope, with little thoughts or desires of their own.

   Interestingly, in this translated version, the hero in a few of the stories have the opposite gender as compared to the original Chinese stories: e.g. The Time Migration. I guess the translator is tired of this gender stereotype as well!

2. Corruption? What corruption!

   Liu often set his stories against a backdrop that’s somewhat reminiscient of the typical communist China: the people are suffering, the system is not working, and yet there’s still rampant corruption.

   The heros of this stories recognize this corruption and wants to make a difference, but in the end they still go along with the corrupted ways because that’s the only way to move forward for the “greater good”. There is some serious mental gymnastics happening:

   • This is not working, and I want to fix it!
   • But that would mean bringing changes to a lot of people!
   • There’s no way other people can accept changes!
   • So I better stick to how things work now!
   • Now I’ll also be praised by my boss/elder, because accepting the reality shows that I’m being mature!

   I’ve witnessed this in my life under many different circumstances, and I’m still incapable of this mental gymnastics. Guess who’s not mature :-/.

Maybe it was his intention to irritate his readers to make them reflect and confront the reality, but I highly doubt that. For me it’s more likely that this is just him being true to his heart.