[lsadam0]

> Not really, I ignored most of that 3rd book technobabble because it was unphysical

I think this is the basis of our debate. I can totally understand why many people did not like the series. The author at times drags the reader through multiple chapters of details that feel as though they have nothing to do with the story. They don't even feel like world building. Honestly, I had a really hard time with some of those myself. Especially the first few chapters of books 2 and 3. However, in the end all those asides really matter to wrapping up the story. Is that good storytelling? I don't know. I rather enjoyed it though :)

But yeah, the last 25% of the final book is full of technobabble, but that babble is pretty important to wrapping up the story and understanding the motivation of each civilization.

Which Sci-Fi book or series of books would you say are the best?

[ajuc]

From serious ones I liked "Permutation City" by Greg Egan. It was also very abstract at times, but it focused on one kind of abstraction, and one that I liked.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson was nice, too, I loved the worldbuilding with construction of whole independent history of science and philosophy on a fantasy world, and how people used it in their lives.

Algebraist by Ian Banks is interesting (not in the Culture series, Culture books are ok too, but there's no tension in these books whatsoever).

I love Lem, especially the robot stories, but also Futorological Congress, Solaris, His Masters' Voice. IMHO Lem has the best aliens in all sci-fi. Maybe Blindsight by Peter Watts comes close.

I also like Jacek Dukaj who I belive wasn't translated to English. But now that I think he tends to do the same thing as in 3rd book of 3 body problem - a book starts with regular people and easily relatable stuff, and by the end it's all so abstract and weird you don't know what's going on. It kinda puts me off, I prefer constant level of abstraction all the way through.