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Comment by Pica_soO | Hacker News Reader

Let me guess, the hero, by becoming individual has to be punished for his falling astray and breaking the rules of society and die lonely and hopeless. Cant have all those youngsters running wild and destabilize society with new things, no matter how destabilizing society standing for itself is already.

Is there chinese SciFi that brakes out of the cliche that most west exported chinese movies locked themselves into? (Hero as prime Exampel)

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That's a bit cynical I think. I've read the first two of the Three Body problem series, and part of the delight is the way it highlights (by contrast) the various cultural assumptions made by the sci-fi authors I normally read (a weirdly large proportion of whom are Scottish). But comparison aside, it's a really good read.

Empires of the Deep[1] may break out of the cliche you speak of, but I haven't seen it (and it's unlikely any of us ever will). There was a superb story about the not-quite-making of this film on HN a few months ago[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empires_of_the_Deep [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11766319

I assume you are referring to Banks? What other Scottish SF writers would you recommend?

Yup, as notahacker intuited, Charles Stross is another favourite author, whose back catalogue I am eagerly consuming now.

His Singularity Sky / Iron Sunrise are (opinion) great introductions to what the kids may call his 'hard science' fiction -- though I'm disappointed that there won't be a third (and disappointed in myself for misunderstanding a rather large plot construct throughout the entire second book).

Accelerando is superb -- a delightful discovery made via some HN comments ages back.

It's heavy on spoilers around the history / creation / plots of same, so if you're ever going to read the above, wait until then before reading this: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/09/books-i-...

There's always HN's very own Charles Stross

I also immediately thought of Ian MacDonald and Paul McAuley, but neither of them are actually Scottish

I'd be surprized if most (popular) sci fi from China would be like that. Likewise, not all American sci fi is like Heinlein or Ayn Rand.

Zhang Yimou definitely has a type (which Hero conforms to), and his popularity means that he's almost synonymous with "Chinese export film", but I assume others have their own styles.

So... have you read any? Clarkesworld has been putting out a lot recently, it doesn't take that long to check out a Chinese short story.

False guess. I recommend reading the books first. It shouldn't take much time to finish the trilogy and you will have more valid points to make.

Sounds like you need exposure to a wider variety of Chinese literature and film...

amazing how brainwashed you are

Its so easy, waving other opinions to the wind.Completely impossible, that somebody else might be right, in another partial part of the world.

Have you ever tried talked to someone from china? Not about them, but with them? Watched how they educate there children? There may be exceptions for the upper echelon, but for the lower tiers, the good old rules of enforcing conservative views and respect for the elders is still applying and valid.

This authoritarian attitude creeps into a lot of minds and from their into science, military and finally fiction. Not only in china, but in a lot of other places in the world.

There are minds and works who transcend that, i just ordered the three body problem, as it seems one of those. I do not deny the existance of those works.

I also dont claim the mindset that confuciusim propagates, to be superior or inferior, it is a adaption to a very long existing one-state organizing hierarchy, through good times and very bad times. I still think this mindset applied to non-reflective science fiction, will always result in rather boring tracts.

If that logic makes me brainwashed, then be it.

A little off topic, but it would help your writing if you understood the difference between "there", "their", and "they're":

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-There,-Their-and-They're

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