The Three-Body Problem

Utterly outstanding - for those who enjoy cerebral sci-fi mind-games. A really simple premise - what EXACTLY wd the consequences be, if another civilisation close to us, made contact - and from that he spins 2k pages of utterly logically consistent corollaries - with a major twist, revelation, or reversal pretty much every 30 pages. I was breathless. I loved how he set himself the challenge of remaining always within the framework of the laws of physics (no hyperdrive, not faster than light speed 'jumps'). And all from the POV of Chinese characters - a real, and refreshing break from EVERYTHING having to be American. Cannot recommend it enough - all three volumes.

Have been a sci-fi reader since I was a kid, and I am familiar with some, if not most of the 'hard science' in this book as well. Its just not very well written.From the characters, trough the story and all the way to how the plot is being advanced....its just not very good. The setting is quite interesting, and the idea is decent/good as well, but anything after the game sequences in the book is just....awful, lacking, and poorly written. Maybe its the translation, but I doubt it. Way too many instances where characters simply explain their entire personality and motivation directly to you, as if the author is breaking the third wall in the most basic way imaginable. "I always was a lazy boy but was also super intelligent without giving it a second thought but I never could be bothered to apply myself but then I decided to go to the monks where the head monk was super smart too and gave me an epiphany that motivated me to start working on this thing that is super important for the plot and then this woman found my half-burned notes and figured out instantly that I was working on this giga-complex problem and as it turns out this is very important to her as well so she got me out of the buddhist temple and we got marred even though I am practically dead inside and dont care about these things and now she threatened to kill me' Literally wat. It would've been fine if this was just single occurrence, but at least two other characters are done in the same manner and it is just painfully bad and cringe-worthy. Don't bother. Hugo award my arse

Having read the glowing reviews and seen the prizes this book won, I was keen to start it. I read a few pages, waiting for the brilliance to kick in, read some more, waiting for the great book to start...and it never did! To summarise the book, an eminent scientist is asked to join a global task-force fighting an unknown enemy that is making scientists commit suicide. It turns out the enemy is an alien race, invited to Earth by radical environmentalists (amongst others) despairing of humanity's behaviour. Perhaps some of the problems are down to the translation - it was apparently done by a friend of the author rather than a professional - and perhaps some are down to the way Chinese novels are written. But in the end you can only review what you read. The major issues? First, the characters are utterly one-dimensional, interchangeable and without any kind of character development. Second, the dialogue is wooden and non-one has any kind of distinct voice. Third, the plot is simply unbelievable. It is just about credible that some humans, seeing their own species as environmentally destructive - might reach out to aliens without finding out what those aliens are actually like. But it is absurd to suggest that highly intelligent scientists around the world would be committing suicide because of strange results in their experiments. It is surely far more likely that most would be intrigued rather than despairing? Fourth, the computer game that the protagonist is drawn into makes no sense whatsoever. It is not a game in any real sense and the claims about its complexity and depth are not match in any way with the actual game as it is described. finally the action scenes are without any kind of suspense or excitement, devoid of interest and realism. In some ways, this reads like a first draft, something that would then be worked on and revised and edited and worked on some more. Perhaps after that you might end up with something half-decent, that a good editor could knock into some kind of shape. But as it stands it is just strangely bad, in just about every important way.

It's hard to know where to begin talking about The Three-Body Problem trilogy (officially known as the Remembrance of Earth's Past series), a truly staggering piece of science-fiction written by Chinese author Cixin Liu and translated to English by Ken Liu and Joel Martinsen (Liu did books 1 and 3, while Martinsen did 2). A trilogy that spans literally thousands of years, deals with quantum physics, game theory, sociology, religion, space exploration, space colonization, and more, all driven by the nature of first contact with alien intelligence - there's a lot going on in this series, and that's before you start realizing just how much Cixin (reminder: Chinese names are traditionally written with the family name first and the given name second) truly takes on the advanced science of his ideas. And yet, when you finish it, you realize that you've read something truly incredible - a piece of hard science-fiction whose ambition, scope, richness, and ideas are impossible not to find yourself thinking about for days afterward. The series begins with The Three-Body Problem, which opens during the Chinese Revolution, depicting the conflict between science and politics in stark, honest terms -a theme that the series will grapple with often, in wildly different ways. We flash forward, though, to a near future, where scientists are killing themselves for unclear reasons. What this has to do with the characters from that Revolution-era prologue, a government program attempting to reach out to the galaxy in search of alien intelligence, and a complex computer simulation of a civilization subject to bewildering rules of nature, Cixin takes his time to explain. But what becomes clear quickly is that The Three-Body Problem is, in a way, a novel about first contact, and how humanity will react to a race whose purposes for coming here may not be entirely benevolent. If you're thinking that all of this sounds like a basic setup for an alien invasion novel, rest assured, that is definitely not what you're getting with The Three-Body Problem. Instead, Cixin explores the social implications of such an arrival, and deals head-on with the complex questions that it would cause. Would humanity band together in the face of this, or would our already existing divisions fracture even deeper? Would people be terrified of this advanced race, or would they be viewed as gods? And would people truly feel that humanity is worth saving, or would they welcome a race who could bring out peace, even through subjugation? These aren't simple ideas, but Cixin makes them the meat of the book, along with advanced discussions about the alien planet, which is governed by three suns, leaving their homeworld incapable of safe habitation (the source of the novel's title). More than that, Cixin takes no shortcuts in his story, embracin...