Snapshot · Modern Wisdom
Tim Urban argues that despite the Three Body Problem trilogy's slow opening 500 pages — one-third of the total — the remaining 900 pages is the greatest fiction he has ever read.
Where this was said
At 2:27:10 · chapter starts 2:18:27
Tim Ferriss, who collected comic books as his first childhood business and paid his college bills as an illustrator, has returned to graphic novels as a way to occupy the visual movie that runs constantly in his hypervisual mind. He showcases Something Is Killing the Children (monsters are real, only children can see them, Netflix series incoming), Lazarus (cartel-like families in a post-apocalyptic US), Day Tripper (a Brazilian meditation on mortality and a father's shadow, no sci-fi), and Ama (deeply philosophical and psychedelic, from France). He recommends the Kindle/Comixology panel-by-panel zoom function for digital reading. Chris Williamson evangelises for Dungeon Crawler Carl — a LitRPG series with 82,000 Amazon reviews at 4.7 stars since 2020 — and for Red Rising. Tim Urban pleads the case for the Three Body Problem trilogy: the first book is a B+, the second book's first third is slow, but once you're 200 pages in, the remaining 900 pages is 'the greatest thing I've ever read.' He wishes readers could be told this in advance so they don't bail at the slow part. The actual series title — Remembrance of Earth's Past — was effectively vetoed by readers in favour of the first book's title, a parallel to Game of Thrones overriding A Song of Ice and Fire.
Three Body Problem's real title is Remembrance of Earth's Past — readers ignored it. The first 500 pages of 1,400 are slow. None of that matters: Tim Urban says the remaining 900 pages is the greatest thing he has ever read, a game-theory epic with concepts as mind-bending as Interstellar but deployed in service of an unstoppable plot.
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman has accumulated 82,000 Amazon reviews at 4.7 stars since its 2020 release, making it one of the most reviewed self-published fiction series in recent memory.
A novel called 'Call Me, I'll Hide the Body' triggered a 14-publisher bidding war and sold for $2.4 million before critics alleged it was predominantly written by AI.
John Mulaney cold-texted Robby Hoffman out of nowhere to offer to produce her Netflix special, which became Wake Up.
Robby Hoffman posed as a courier to hand-deliver her spec script directly to the president of HBO Canada early in her career.
Robby and Mulaney filmed two shows in one night for the Netflix special; after the first they knew they had it, so the second was a victory lap.
Jimmy Carr performs up to 300 shows a year, often doing two shows per night, which he says reduces nerves rather than increasing them.
Jimmy Carr says that speaking at roughly 92 beats per minute is the optimal cadence for comedy and public speaking, including political speeches like Obama's.
The oldest recorded joke appears in a Roman book called 'The Lover of Laughter' and is still funny — a barber asking how a man wants his haircut, who replies 'in silence'.
Jimmy Carr argues that comedians like George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Dave Chappelle have permanently expanded the conversational Overton window on sex, politics, and taboo topics.
The Lion King musical has grossed over $11 billion in its 30-year run, making it the single highest-grossing piece of entertainment in history across any medium.
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