"Three Body Problem" character nicknames

[j.p.s]

TL;DR If anyone knows of any character nicknames or aliases in the Three Body Problem series besides the "Shi Qiang" / "Da Shi" pair, please mention them in this thread.

I am preparing to start reading the Three Boy Pdroblem series. Part of that is generating an XRAY file with the WordDumb calibre plugin, which in this case didn't do that great a job with many of the characters, even though the first 2 books start with a list of characters, which I guess have formatting that thwarts WordDumb, which has done a great job for me for other books. Fortunately, WordDumb provides for user supplied names, descriptions, and aliases. I've made such a file from the character list for the first book, which mentions the "Da Shi" nickname for "Shi Qiang".

An internet search only turned up discussions mentioning the presence of nicknames in the books without naming any. So if anyone knows of any such nicknames or aliases, please mention them in this thread. A pointer to any list of such names on the net would also be welcome.

I will be happy to post my worddumb-custom-x-ray.json when it is more complete.

[Karellen]

I just started this yesterday. Read it for almost 4 hours straight as I couldn't drag myself away from it.

The detectives nickname you mention is the only nickname I recall. If I come across any, I'll post.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Karellen

I just started this yesterday. Read it for almost 4 hours straight as I couldn't drag myself away from it.

The detectives nickname you mention is the only nickname I recall. If I come across any, I'll post.

Thanks, I would certainly appreciate it if you do.

In case anyone cares, WordDumb did much better with characters in the second book. (I bought the first 3 books as a single azw3). Still worth adding/modding some by customization.

Also, after my post, while searching for single characters by name I came across the fandom wiki and got reminded that it has spoilers. It also has names that got changed for the netflix series.

[Karellen]

From chapter 8 - Wang Miao also called Xiao Wang (...She had slipped effortlessly into addressing him by an affectionate diminutive...)

[rantanplan]

Didn't the artificial character in The Dark Forest and Death's End also have several names?

[j.p.s]

Thanks to you both. For some reason WordDumb had not detected Xiao Wang as a separate character and did not increase the count for Wang Miao when configured as an alias. But it did work for Da Shi.

I came across this (audio) pronunciation guide which I think very useful, and so far it has also turned up Mozi, which is not in the list of characters and must be assumed to be well known as a Chinese philosopher.

https://rehydrate.space/pronunciations/

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

Didn't the artificial character in The Dark Forest and Death's End also have several names?

Is that the Sophon character?

In my light poking around, I think Sophon is the model or type. Maybe the different names are different instances?

I have attached worddumb-custom-x-ray.json.gz to the first post. It covers the first two books. That is enough for me to start reading and I don't see a path to augmenting what WordDumb does on its own for the third book.

Contributions of names and non-spoiler descriptions for the third book and any that WordDumb or I missed or got wrong for any of the books are welcome and I will make the additions and changes to worddumb-custom-x-ray.json and attach that.

[rantanplan]

Yes, the Sophon character! I finished the trilogy 2019, that’s 6 years ago. Time flies.

[Karellen]

Started on the second book The Dark Forest and just finished the first chapter.

Spoiler:

I have gone from couldn't put the first book down, to struggling to read the second book, so far.

The book is almost 190,000 words. A huge novel.
The first chapter is 1/3 of the book- a whopping 133 pages which contains 24 scene breaks. Seriously, could the author not break it down to a few more chapters. The length of that chapter is close to a standard novel.
But having read that chapter, it could easily be trimmed to a quarter of that size. There is just soooo much back story that is pointless, irrelevant dialogue, musings, dreams. I quickly fell into skip reading the chapter.

Let's see how part 2 goes today.

[rantanplan]

Yeah, I struggled with the first part of the novel, too. Afterwards it gets interesting.

[neil_swann80]

I was initially enthralled; unfortunately the author really doesn't know how to end a story.

I aimed to read all the books before watching the TV show, which I had been anticipating (there's never enough sci-fi TV and movies to satiate my craving). After finishing the books I had lost all desire in experiencing the story again through film.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Karellen

Started on the second book The Dark Forest and just finished the first chapter.

The second book had a different translator (Joel Martinsen) from the first and third (Ken Liu). Liu is a great SF writer in his own right, and is IMO far more skilled at producing a smooth, readable translation.

[Karellen]

Onto the third book. It's even longer than the last one.

The Three-Body Problem - 120,500 words
The Dark Forest - 187,600 words
Death's End - 224,500 words
The Redemption of Time - 83,600 words