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A review by mediaevalmuse
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
4.0
This book messed me up in all the right ways. The summary doesn’t really do justice to all that’s happening in the novel - it’s a blend of hard sci fi with an understated philosophical question of whether humanity truly deserves to endure given all that’s happened on our watch. I had a bit of a hard time following some of the math and science (because my brain isn’t quite oriented that way), but it didn’t prevent me from becoming invested in the kinds of questions this book is asking readers to think about.
Things I Liked
1. Ye Wenjie: Ye was probably the most interesting character of the book, being an accomplished astrophysicist whose father was killed during China’s Cultural Revolution. Her political situation, then, is precarious, which makes her decisions throughout the book even more intriguing. I think I liked reading about her more than following Wang Miao.
2. Questions of Humanity: One of the big questions this book asks is how humanity would respond if it made contact with an alien species. It’s not interested (at least, not yet) in how an actual, physical confrontation would happen - rather, it’s interested in how humans would respond with just the knowledge that another species existed. The fact that some characters embrace aliens as figures who will intervene and put humanity on a more ethical path or destroy the evil of humanity altogether was an interesting choice - most of us, I think, would expect humans to rally together and become heroes in the face of a hostile takeover, but this novel is interested in wholly different questions.
3. Introduction to Aliens: The book introduces readers to the idea of alien civilization in a very interesting way: through a character playing a video game. The ins and outs of the alien world aren’t dumped on us from the omniscient narrator, nor is all the info neatly packaged in a transmission from space that we magically are granted access to. Instead, Wang is pulled into the world of the video game Three Body, which teaches him (and the reader) about what life might be like on a tri-solar planet. I found it to be addictive to read precisely because it was so indirect.
Things I Didn’t Like
1. Characterization: Where this novel excels in big ideas, it lacks in characterization. Most of the characters (aside from Ye and Shi - a policeman) lack strong development and don’t feel fully fleshed-out. As a result, I wasn’t very invested in their stories, and I wish more was done to make the reader care about the future of some of these characters.
Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in hard sci fi (including astrophysics, computers, nanotechnology), alien/human contact, and non-Western sci fi.
Things I Liked
1. Ye Wenjie: Ye was probably the most interesting character of the book, being an accomplished astrophysicist whose father was killed during China’s Cultural Revolution. Her political situation, then, is precarious, which makes her decisions throughout the book even more intriguing. I think I liked reading about her more than following Wang Miao.
2. Questions of Humanity: One of the big questions this book asks is how humanity would respond if it made contact with an alien species. It’s not interested (at least, not yet) in how an actual, physical confrontation would happen - rather, it’s interested in how humans would respond with just the knowledge that another species existed. The fact that some characters embrace aliens as figures who will intervene and put humanity on a more ethical path or destroy the evil of humanity altogether was an interesting choice - most of us, I think, would expect humans to rally together and become heroes in the face of a hostile takeover, but this novel is interested in wholly different questions.
3. Introduction to Aliens: The book introduces readers to the idea of alien civilization in a very interesting way: through a character playing a video game. The ins and outs of the alien world aren’t dumped on us from the omniscient narrator, nor is all the info neatly packaged in a transmission from space that we magically are granted access to. Instead, Wang is pulled into the world of the video game Three Body, which teaches him (and the reader) about what life might be like on a tri-solar planet. I found it to be addictive to read precisely because it was so indirect.
Things I Didn’t Like
1. Characterization: Where this novel excels in big ideas, it lacks in characterization. Most of the characters (aside from Ye and Shi - a policeman) lack strong development and don’t feel fully fleshed-out. As a result, I wasn’t very invested in their stories, and I wish more was done to make the reader care about the future of some of these characters.
Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in hard sci fi (including astrophysics, computers, nanotechnology), alien/human contact, and non-Western sci fi.