A Review of an Audible Review

6/20/2024, 10:25:00 PM

Or: What Must It Be Like To Be That Person

I saw a review on Audible of The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (the sequel to Three Body Problem). I was transfixed while skimming this review, and I found myself wondering what it was like to be that person. I will quote it here in its entirely, a blatant violation of that person’s valuable copyright, because it must be preserved for future generations to study, and I could not work out how to find a permalink to the individual review on the page.

The aforementioned review, written by someone called “Master” in 2018, will now be read into the historical record. I did not write this review. I wish there was a way to mark sections of my page as “this isn’t mine Dear Google In The Sky, don’t associate it with me.” But these are the dangers we must face in these uncertain times to bring The Truth to our readers.

Bad Narration and Too Much “Literary Noise”

First of all, the narrator of this book, PJ Ochlan, is much worse than the narrator of the first book, Luke Daniels, in all areas of performance except for a marginally better pronunciation of only some Mandarin names. Note that the keyword there is “marginally”. PJ Ochlan’s voice and tone often don’t change appreciably for different characters, not only making it difficult to distinguish between who’s talking in conversations, but also frequently failing to reflect the individual qualities that the author had clearly ascribed to the different characters in the story. For example, one of the main characters, the police captain “Da She” was clearly described as being “rough”, “rude”, and “burly” by the author. In the previous book, the narrator Luke Daniels had at least tried to bring those qualities out for this character which at least clearly distinguished the character along those lines. But in this book, PJ Ochlan made the character sound completely bland, generic, spiritless, and even emasculated, often being almost no different from the voice of another male main character “Luo Ji”, who engaged in frequent conversations with “Da She” throughout much of the story, all of which made it difficult to enjoy listening to the narration overall. I think the narrator of an audiobook should at least possess talents in bringing the personas of the different characters to life through their distinct voices and speech patterns. Otherwise, why would anyone who’s not blind want to listen to an audiobook instead of just reading the story in print?

Listening to PJ Ochlan’s narration has been such an unpleasant experience that I don’t want to listen any further in this book, and I’m not even halfway through. Seeing that the next book in the trilogy is also narrated by PJ Ochlan, I’m faced with a dilemma. In order to avoid listening to his bad narration, I would have to purchase the ebook from elsewhere to read the story in print, but that also feels like a waste of my Audible subscription. I’m also wondering who was responsible for hiring PJ Ochlan to narrate not one, but two, of the books in this trilogy? What were they smoking? Seeing such blatantly poor decision-making at Audible really drives me more than up the wall, but also causes me to want to side with any potential future alien invasion in the real world to exterminate these dumb humans in real life.

Secondly, the author Liu Cixin, like almost all other authors of any genre, seems to think that fanciful descriptions and detailed analogies of scenery and people necessarily enhance the reader’s experience. Well, to me, they don’t, but cause the opposite effect. Even worse, the author engages in all-too-frequent and overly detailed descriptions of persons and sceneries through what seems like interminably long passages throughout much of the story, where predictable expectations of analogies wrap up every such description, all in the overused formulaic styles of almost every single TV show, movie, and novel that I can remember, where any truly intelligent reader and observer could almost always predict where the romance or drama scenes will play out around the corner, or where prolonged and descriptive “beautiful prose” and analogies will appear. The resulting overall experience, for this reader/listener, at least, feels like eating the same meal, every meal, for an entire lifetime. Yes, this is an indictment of the general storytelling patterns of all authors, and indeed of almost the entire discipline of “literature” as we know it.

My imagination would flow much more freely, and my enjoyment of the story would come much easier, without all of these literary chaff. It would be an understatement to say that I don’t care one iota about descriptions like how the light from a fireplace danced around the body of some person to create a silhouette of some sort in the partial darkness and…blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…(did I mention blah?). For example, I have absolutely no patience or respect for these endlessly protracted scenes involving “Luo Ji” and the young woman “Zhang Yan”, or to incredibly fussy descriptions like a woman’s tears resembling the dew from whatever on whatever. As another example, I really found it to be an enormous waste of time listening to so much about the ants in the beginning of the story. Of course I understood what the author was trying to accomplish by writing about the ants in the beginning, because the purpose was too obvious and thus added nothing to my understanding and appreciation of the overall theme of the story.

To the many earlier reviewers who had gushed about the author’s “beautiful prose”, I say that this is supposed to be a SCIENCE FICTION story, not a girly romance novel! As such, to me, “beautiful prose” is absolutely a waste of time, and can only detract from enjoyment of a sci-fi story, which only needs the freshness of ideas to be exciting. I just want to get to the meat of the story quickly, without being bombarded with all of these sickening literary noise. Yes, I know that the author is a talented writer who’s a master of words and prose, but he doesn’t need to show me how talented he is with weaving flowery descriptions and fluid prose at almost every possible opportunity, because I’m not judging the author for some prose contest or literary beauty pageant, nor have any patience to do so, but just being a reader who wants to enjoy the essence of a science-fiction story.

From that perspective, listening to this story further reinforces my feeling that no writer or artist has yet truly made any groundbreaking advancement in the entire field of storytelling, regardless of genre, for all of modernity.

Was this review helpful for you?

Any potential commentary on this review should be entirely self-evident, right? Surely.

Here we have a review, written in excessively flowery prose, which goes to extended lengths to complain about a book being excessively “full of literary noise,” and, presumably, not enough bullet points. A book that is a translation from an entirely different language, mind you.

Taken as a comedy routine, that review was pretty good. Full of absurdist exaggeration, the basis of most good comedy.

What’s it like to be someone who writes a review like that? For me, that would take a pretty significant investment in time to write and publish. Why would someone write a lengthy review and post it in a forum that is entirely ephemeral, which could be removed with the push of a few buttons?

Why does anyone write those reviews on Amazon? The really long ones, I mean. And especially the ones like this, that meticulously explain what is, in this person’s mind, the universally-understood Way to write science fiction. The All Meat and No Noise Way that they teach in all the fundamental science fiction writing classes.

What is the reward that balances out the time sink of writing a review like that?

Perhaps it was AI-generated. That might explain how long it is. I tried to get ChatGPT to write a similar review.

Please write a review of The Dark Forest audiobook by Cixin Liu, narrated by PJ Ochlan, which describes my displeasure with Ochlan’s narration work as compared to the previous book, and also makes it clear that this work of science fiction contains excessive literary merit for this genre.

Review of The Dark Forest Audiobook by Cixin Liu, Narrated by PJ Ochlan

I recently listened to The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu, eagerly diving back into the rich and intricate world Liu has crafted. However, my excitement was dampened by the narration work of PJ Ochlan. Compared to the previous book in the series, narrated by Luke Daniels, Ochlan’s performance felt lackluster and did not do justice to the complex and intense narrative.

Ochlan’s narration often seemed monotone and lacked the emotional depth that the story demanded. Where Daniels brought the characters to life with distinct voices and palpable energy, Ochlan’s rendition felt flat and uninspired. This was particularly disappointing given the high stakes and the intricate web of political, scientific, and personal dramas that Liu expertly weaves. The varied character personalities and the tension of the unfolding events were not effectively conveyed, which detracted from the overall experience.

Despite this, it is impossible to ignore the excessive literary merit present in The Dark Forest. Liu’s ability to blend hard science fiction with profound philosophical questions and richly developed characters is nothing short of masterful. The narrative explores themes of survival, morality, and the human condition with a depth that is rare in the genre. Liu’s vision of a universe teeming with both wonder and peril is compelling and thought-provoking.

The novel’s exploration of the “Dark Forest” theory, positing that any civilization that reveals its location in the cosmos risks annihilation, is both chilling and intellectually stimulating. Liu’s prose, even through the less-than-ideal narration, shines with its eloquence and precision, making The Dark Forest a standout work in science fiction literature.

In conclusion, while PJ Ochlan’s narration did not meet my expectations and fell short compared to the previous book, the inherent literary brilliance of Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest makes it a must-read (or listen) for any science fiction enthusiast. If you can overlook the narration, you will find a story of immense depth and complexity that pushes the boundaries of the genre.

Not bad, actually, although I should have predicted ChatGPT wouldn’t understand the sarcasm in “excessive literary merit.” (Also it figured out Luke Daniels narrated the first book all by itself.)

But it’s still not long enough, and it keeps trying to be nice. No, Mr. Computer! It definitely did not contain immense depth and complexity, it was sickeningly noisy and kept banging on about Zhang Yan’s– excuse me, “Zhang Yan’s” dewey tears and blah, blah, blah, blah!

Just for the record, I’ve only just begun listening to The Dark Forest audiobook so I can’t really comment on it. One thing I have in common with Meat Reviewer, however, is that I, too, like Luke Daniels a lot. But I didn’t think he was suited to the material in Three Body Problem, and I don’t particularly mind the change. (Luke Daniels sounds very American and Three Body Problem is very Chinese. The new guy also sounds American, but dialed down a little bit.)

Anyway, I just feel bad for that reviewer. Will they make it to the end of the second book? Will they get through the third book? How will they ever feast on the meat of the story unless PJ Ochlan skips all those noisy bits??