(Major spoilers to 3 body problem in intro) I slogged through to episode 3 of 3 Body Problem before getting truly tired of hitting the fast forward button. I went and found a article that summarized the story line. Apparently “The Aliens” have an inhospitable home planet, and as soon as they hear from us, they are making a bee line to invade us and settle on our planet. The silvery VR game thing is part of some elaborate plot to kill off our smartest people.

I’m always a bit surprised that Science Fiction authors, who should know enough science, and have a cosmopolitan enough mind, do not expand beyond the simple lebensraum motive for extra-terrestial contact.

I suppose a story about a universe where Earth is just some backwater village that no one really cares about wouldn’t sit well with our egos or titillate our sense of survival. E.T. worked out well, though, didn’t it? As did close encounters, though close encounters had a creepy aspect to it. Contact is (if I recall correctly) another first contact story without the aliens invading.

I think stories where the aliens are not invading us turn out to me more cerebral and rich, whereas the aliens are invading us stories almost always turn out to be action stories/movies. I wonder if we could switch this around: an action movie where the aliens are not invading, and a drama/romance movie where the aliens are invading.

Anyhow, I don’t know if I was going anywhere with this, other than to say I’m bailing on 3 Body. Like I said, if I’m having to continuously fast forward to keep myself awake, it’s not a good fit.

PS. First time I used WordPress’ A.I. art generator. It came up with a topical image without prompting, probably by looking at the title or the text.