This is Part 2 of the episode transcript. Read Part 1 here.
Mon: Shifting away from anything Christmas, we are going to be talking about some books that we've been listening to. Yes, listening to, because we love audiobooks. And listening to audiobooks frees up time to do other stuff. Because in today's day and age, you need time.
One of the books that has been on my list for a really, really long time is the Three-Body Problem, written by Liu Cixin and translated by his brother, Ken Liu. This book series is a sci-fi and it's apparently being adapted for a TV series. I've been meaning to read this series for quite some time and I finally got it from my library. I read the first part, which is called Remembrance of Earth’s Past.
I like to think of myself as a sci-fi fan. I love sci fi films. I have very little patience with many sci fi books because they don’t try too hard. With this book, I came away really confused. The science fiction elements of it, they're all grounded in real science. Whether it’s actually real, don't ask me. I don't have a scientific background. But it's very much about formulae and stuff like that. They don't just say ‘quantum’ in front of everything.
But I don't know if it's the translation or if it is the intent of the author to make this book about characters who almost always come across as caricatures. It feels like he wrote this book with his tongue firmly in his cheek. But at the same time, not. I just don't know how I feel about this book. I am invested in this story but not in the characters. The characters are so flat, they just don't have any dimension to them.
The funniest thing is, the one character who's pretty much dead inside because she's seen stuff. She, to me, came across as the most multi-dimensional. And she's surrounded by all these male characters who just keep talking. But there's just nothing about them that brings them to life. I think the writer was more invested in creating these labs, this world, rather than creating his characters.
The biggest problem for me with this book was that it starts off with this rather grueling, brutal scene of this almost realistic occurrence. You can imagine a world where there is civil war or unrest, it could lead to an event like this, and is witnessed by this young person, and it affects her.
But then it goes bonkers. Then it becomes all this science stuff. And then there are aliens involved. And I am just like, do I like this book? Or am I just confused? And this book is award-winning; people love it. You definitely know how much they love it because now it's becoming a TV series. How are they going to convert any part of this particular book? I don't know about the two sequels. But this book is so much more about the machines that are working, the information that the machines are giving you. There’s so little of the characters that unless this TV show is going to be all spectacle, and no people, I don't know what they're planning to do.
And I kept feeling like there was supposed to be a political undercurrent. And there is, but it sort of got drowned out, especially in the last act by this weird, insane war that is coming or has come or will come. What even is this? Suffice to say that the concepts of this book worked in small doses. And then not so much. Like the main title of this book is actually a game, but the game has ramifications that go beyond just being a game. Again, there are these little bits which are so much more fascinating. But every time you get invested in it, that's it, the author pulls out.
I just don't know. I think that if you're interested in science and scientific, science-y language, and people doing science. This may scratch that itch, but at the same time it's so convoluted and confused, that you may come across as not being 100% invested in this world. I do wonder if the two sequels do draw you in more but before I can get to that I need a huge break.
Ron: Well, unlike you, the book series that I was listening to, I have no doubts how I feel about it. And that is: I absolutely despise it.
Mon: Oh, wow.
Ron: So, I had no idea of what Chaos Walking is. But they're making a movie out of it. And Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley from Spider-Man and Star Wars are going to be in it, so I thought, I'm gonna go check out the books. The first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go, I quite liked the concepts. The main character Todd Hewitt is an idiot. I have no interest in this character. He is bland. He is uninteresting. He is very monotone and one-dimensional. He literally just gets to the end on the strengths of other characters. There is one female character in this book who has a fairly large role, but yeah, she's nothing more than damsel in distress and she does not speak for most of the book.
But the world that it's set in and some of the reactions that people have to being there, those I didn’t mind. I like the world-building. It’s just the character brought it down quite a bit. I also found the religious elements really jarring. I get that human beings need some religion and stuff. Why do we automatically have to assume that they're going to be Christians? I'm not sure how that works? It didn't feel like an universal experience was being captured in this book.
But then I got to the next two books and wow did it fall away. The second book was nothing short of a disaster. The Ask and the Answer tries to expand what we know of the world and actually ends up making it so much worse. The female character that we met in the first book, Viola, finally gets her own point of view. But her entire inner life surrounds Todd. Which makes absolutely no sense, because in the prequel to the first book, she lost her parents when she crash-landed on this planet. But somehow, all her inner thoughts are about this boy she just met and who is a loser. I'm so confused.
But then it gets worse. We learn that there is this native species who have been happily living on this world. And the humans that have arrived are basically colonising it. And they have enslaved the native race. Okay, fine. Are you trying to make a statement about what has really been happening with colonisation? Well, maybe the author wasn't reading the same history books I was. Because, my God, I don't know what he was thinking. There is a scene in this book that is so similar to the Jallianwala Bagh incident. And I was just like, you know what, only somebody who has not read this as part of their history would write this scene into his book and do it entirely from the colonisers’ point of view. And we are supposed to sympathize with Todd, who is so sad that these poor natives have been killed in front of him. Oh god, this book is so bad.
The third book is slightly Better than the second. We get a third point of view along with Todd and Viola’s, we got somebody from the massacre who has survived. But of course, he's angry and vengeful and does not care about anything else but trying to kill people. He still manages to be the most interesting part of the entire book, and also appears to be queer, it's hard to tell with this book. But nothing happens in this third book, Monsters of Men. It's so repetitive that there were times when I was actually wondering to myself if I was listening to the same chapters over and over again. Nothing happens. This book could have been one third the length, because so little happens in it. And it keeps trying to tell us that this connection between Todd and Viola is so strong that they’re ready to wage war for each other. And I'm like, really, for this guy?
What is frustrating was that Viola’s inner life is still, in the third book, concerned primarily with Todd, who still does nothing to deserve it. In fact, the longer you read this series, the more horrendous Todd becomes because not only is he self-absorbed and completely clueless about what is happening around him, even though it's happening right in front of his face. But he's so dumb! Like, my dude, what do you think is happening. People are fighting and you're siding with the person who's strongest because that's keeping you protected? And somehow that's supposed to making a good guy. Please don't ask me what this author was thinking, because I can't understand it.
And what’s frustrating is that from the start of the series to the end of the series. Todd has had no growth, but everybody keeps telling us that he has. He has grown so much, he has learned so much. Look at all the stuff that he's doing. He's not doing anything. He just keeps screaming all the time. It is such a disaster of a series. And I'm so annoyed that books like this that are so othering for anybody who's not a white dude or a white woman is the kind of book that's going to be made into a movie, which would probably be a huge blockbuster.
Mon: Well, one can hope not considering the production delays. I'm hoping it's an absolute disaster. And Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland completely washed their hands off it.
Ron: I have no hope for this. I'm just annoyed that something like this is actually even being optioned for film.
Mon: I agree with you. It sounds terrible.
Ron: The first book, I didn't mind the concepts in it, it was interesting. But the thing is that, the moment you start doing the race stuff, and you don't know what you're doing, it becomes obvious. And the second book, like literally that that scene was so reminiscent of Jallianwala Bagh, I was just like, do you not know what is happening in the world, what has happened in the world before it? How can you write this stuff, do you know the context that you're writing about? And to write it from Todd's point of view is just disgusting. Please refer to the show notes for a link.
Mon: Right. Going on to something a little bit lighter, but not sure if it's any better. Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I heard about this book on NPR’s ‘Pop Culture Happy Hour’. I have a habit of reading books on recommendation which gives me a wide, diverse variety of books to read. But a lot of times I don't like them. I wouldn't say I didn't like this book. What's this book about and why did I pick it up? This book is about the FSOTUS, the first son of the United States, Alex Claremont-Diaz, he’s a go getter and he has his eyes on the prize.
Currently, it is a very, very stressful time for his family. They are in the midst of a re-election campaign. And there is another senator who is champing at the bit to grab the big seat. Alex is very smart. He's very intelligent. He has an equally intelligent and smart sister, and his best friend. Everything's going well when they are invited to the royal wedding. And an incident takes place between Alex and his nemesis, the prince of England.
So, to save this PR scandal, Alex and Prince Henry, yes, that's his name in the book, they are told that they have to hang out together so that nobody thinks that England and the United States are at war, because of these two brats. Anyway, turns out the two of them have more in common than they expected. And then socio-political stuff will get in the way of their new found friendship. Or is it more?
This book was an experience. It is so much high drama, and set in a world that is completely removed from anything that we can imagine. We’re talking about people who literally live in Buckingham Palace and the White House.
Ron: Yeah, you're not gonna meet them on the street.
Mon: Exactly. And it’s so far fetched that you could either be completely invested in this world, or you're like, this is ridiculous. This book was like reading a Bollywood film. Everything is overdramatic, everything is high stakes, like every single move they make is the end of the world.
Ron: Oh my gosh.
Mon: A lot of it is told in text messages and emails. Which I guess works more when you're reading it, less when you're listening to it. I would say that the rest of it, because it's so dialogue heavy, it does feel like you're listening to a play when you're listening to the audiobook. That’s quite good. But my biggest issue with this book and why I couldn't be invested in it was because it really came across as fanfiction.
Ron: Oh no.
Mon: I don't know if that was the author's intent. But why on earth did the younger prince have to be called Prince Henry. Why did he have to have sandy hair and have gone to the army and this and that? And I'm like, really? This is like complete and utter fanfiction. I just wish that they had chosen anything different about this prince, because that completely ruined the experience for me, and I just cringed every time he comes on the page.
What I did like is that this is very new age. There are people of different sexualities, different genders. So that was really nice. There's a lot of interplay and banter between different kinds of characters. So that was fun. It's very interactive; the world is very different. I just finished the drama had been dialed down. It’s really dramatic. With everything, the world is ending. I get it, you are FSOTUS and he is the prince of England. Maybe you guys should have talked about it a little bit more.
I was surprised at how R-rated this book is. I thought this was just a YA book, but maybe this passes for YA, I don't know.
Ron: Did the NPR people mention that?
Mon: They did not. I feel like they only read the first few chapters and then they recommended it.
Ron: Oh no!
Mon: Yeah, stuff gets really hot and heavy later on. There's going to be a huge audience who actually loves this book. And I wouldn't be surprised if they are vocal about it. I would actually also not be surprised if it was optioned for a film because it is very visual, in the sense that it's so dialogue heavy, the characters really come alive. And considering the political space that we’re all in and how political we all feel this might be the kind of book which lends itself to a movie for varied audiences. I just don't think romance novels are for me.
Ron: But you gave it a shot.
Mon: I know reading different kinds of things, broadening my horizons. I guess romance is one thing that I will constantly find myself dabbling in and be like, not really.
Ron: It's just not the genre that speaks to us.
Mon: Yeah, that's true. If it's fun, I guess it's okay. But this was not fun because of all the drama. I get it, they're high stakes. It's just, tone it down.
Ron: Did you find that there was anything that you could actually resonate with despite the fact that it's about the FSOTUS and the prince of England?
Mon: Absolutely not. Also, they drink too much. I don't understand. Everybody's always drunk. Stop already.
Ron: But then what is the appeal of this kind of story, if you can't see yourself in it at all? Is it just aspirational then?
Mon: I think so. It's a little bit of a magical Prince Charming kind of book. So, I guess you could call it a Disney fairytale, but for a more representative audience. So, this is not all bad. It's just not for me.
Ron: That's interesting.
Mon: I think that there's not been that much queer content, so people will be hungry for more. And we'll get some good stuff. We've got some bad stuff. And we'll get some stuff which is for particular audiences and not for others. So yeah, I think this is gonna be exciting for some groups.
Ron: Well, it's great to see that we have the kind of career content we do. Just, we need to see who's behind the scenes, because it's not coming across as well as it should.
Mon: Yeah, I think it needs to be a bit more fresh. Because we are so inured to the stereotypes that we've already seen, and the tropes that we've already been faced with in so much pop culture, that just placing queer characters in those same tropes and stereotypes doesn't work. We've all grown out of that, we need more. And there's so many stories to tell.
So, like this book, Red, White and Royal Blue is it's a different take on the regular romance novel. But at the same time, it has its own issues. Every property does have issues and I'm not saying that we need to hold queer properties at higher standard. I'm just saying, we need to move beyond being safe. You can't get a pat on the back just because you put queer characters in your movie or in your book. You need to do more, you need to be more realistic or more fun.
Ron: And it needs to be more representative of the real queer experience and not just queer stories transplanted into state stories.
Mon: Agreed.
Ron: What have you been busy with? Let us know.
Ron: You can find us on Twitter @Stereo_Geeks. Or send us an email [email protected]
Ron: We hope you enjoyed this episode. And see you next week!
Mon: The Stereo Geeks logo was created using Canva. The music for our podcast comes courtesy Audionautix.
[Snowflake by GeriArt by Pixabay plays]
Transcription by Otter.ai and Mon and Ron.