benignintervention

I really enjoyed Determined and Sapolsky's other book, Behave!

I was never comfortable with that relationship. She was essentially coerced into it because the global government gave him the power to do anything he wanted as long as he said it would help protect humanity. I'm honestly surprised she stayed that long at all. We also only see her through her husband's perspective, which leaves an awful lot about the relationship unsaid and likely misinterpreted.

I think we're just going to disagree on this point, but I do see your point with the other examples earlier

I can see that. I might have to go through the series again and see how I notice it now.

But in the context of the story the first woman was abused by a draconian regime and hated humanity. And the second woman didn't really have a choice. Humanity was doomed either way, from the trisolarans or any other sufficiently advanced species, and she chose to stop fighting. In the end, it was all the same and the absolution she receives is to address her guilt about a lose-lose situation.

Also how do I tag spoilers? I'll go back and edit

I fundamentally disagree here. Her choices are to stay where she is in whatever kind of life that is and know her species is doomed, or sleep until he secures her child's future. Those are heavy stakes and the world in the story could support either decision. I'm certainly not in the position to guess what a parent would do with that choice.

However, I do agree that the author did not give her enough agency for us to know how this decision happened. It definitely could have been explored more. The greater tragedy is that her husband treats her like a non-person, like she's his imagination incarnate, and that is never explored in any detail.

Interesting take. I read her part as more of a discourse on power disparity. The man had all the power in the world and used it to find his idea of the perfect woman. I don't remember it digging too deeply into her character or even at all into her motivations, but from the power dynamic it wouldn't have mattered to him anyway. I read it more as uncomfortable subservience to male domineering. The plot in this arc was driven by his fantasy, and his fantasy alone.

Also, Haldeman did the same gender changes with The Forever War as an exaggeration of his return from Vietnam. I saw the gender arc as more of a "hard times make soft men, soft men make hard times" thing and an exploration of complacency and opulence. But I see your point, there could be other ways to make a similar point

I worked through both the Sprawl trilogy and the Three Body Problem trilogy and they were both fantastic. Almost ruined the rest of my reading for weeks after that. The Three Body Problem and The Dark Forest might be the most original science fiction since Neuromancer

Loved both of those books, but revelation space was way more cerebral

Yeah this is mostly about drunk Marines and what happens when you create a fighting force designed to be as angry and blood thirsty as possible.

Source: was stationed in Japan and have worked with Marines

Is this the inspiration for Far Cry Blood Dragon

Musk:

Yup, conversational product plugs

So, ads in chat now?