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marker_yippee's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Death of parent
Minor: Alcohol and Pregnancy
kouran94's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Grief
goodthingsread's review against another edition
challenging
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
3.5 stars rounded down because there are a lot of issues, I feel, that one has to overlook to truly enjoy the story.
My main issue with this book is how the science part of the science fiction was disseminated. While there were some clever tricks to explain some processes -- the human computer devised by von Neumann was great, for example -- I found other concepts to be explained like a character reading from a Wikipedia article. Even with the human computer, when von Neumann explains its working to the emperor, it felt like certain passages were simply copy and pasted from another website with a few "Ah!" and "Hm!" added in to make it read like regular human speech. All it did was make the awkwardness stand out to me more.
And there is a lot of science in this book. I don't mind necessarily. I feel like, generally speaking, scifi has trended more towards the fi than the sci in recent decades. But that means the average reader isn't prepared for this level of intricacy. My husband is in computer programming and engineering, so some terminology caught my attention; even if I didn't fully understand what was meant, I remember him using a term so I paid more attention in the novel. I feel like for others, the wall of words would make their eyes glaze over. Sometimes that's fine; this book just has too many walls of words that matter to get away with that.
(I just remembered, this also happened but with character backstory and thought in the very beginning of the book. Just a wall of internal monologue by Ye Zhetai mixed with exposition for a character that doesn't really factor into the story beyond that moment. It left me with a sour taste in my mouth in the very first chapter; even though I got over it, in remembering it, I still can't believe how clunky and awkward it felt as the introduction to a book so renown.)
I found enough twists to keep me interested, but the twists themselves were almost too twisty while not being novel enough. At a certain point, the pacing of the novel takes a turn where it feels very much like you've hit the edge of the ski slope and it's a nonstop, ramping up of speed until you've hit the cliffhanger at the end of the book. Some of those twists you encounter on that wild ride to the end hit you in a sort of, "Oh, we're doing <i>this</i>, are we? Okay, why not?!" sort of way. You always feel like you're dangerously close to jumping the shark.
That said, I did enjoy the book. The characters were somewhat flat, due to the number of them, but I enjoyed the ones that did have personality, Ye Wenjie especially, for all her flaws. I do think this is ramping up into something special, so I'm excited to eventually read the rest of the series and see if that pans out. But this is a hard book to recommend generally and requires a bit of warning to those that you think could enjoy it.
My main issue with this book is how the science part of the science fiction was disseminated. While there were some clever tricks to explain some processes -- the human computer devised by von Neumann was great, for example -- I found other concepts to be explained like a character reading from a Wikipedia article. Even with the human computer, when von Neumann explains its working to the emperor, it felt like certain passages were simply copy and pasted from another website with a few "Ah!" and "Hm!" added in to make it read like regular human speech. All it did was make the awkwardness stand out to me more.
And there is a lot of science in this book. I don't mind necessarily. I feel like, generally speaking, scifi has trended more towards the fi than the sci in recent decades. But that means the average reader isn't prepared for this level of intricacy. My husband is in computer programming and engineering, so some terminology caught my attention; even if I didn't fully understand what was meant, I remember him using a term so I paid more attention in the novel. I feel like for others, the wall of words would make their eyes glaze over. Sometimes that's fine; this book just has too many walls of words that matter to get away with that.
(I just remembered, this also happened but with character backstory and thought in the very beginning of the book. Just a wall of internal monologue by Ye Zhetai mixed with exposition for a character that doesn't really factor into the story beyond that moment. It left me with a sour taste in my mouth in the very first chapter; even though I got over it, in remembering it, I still can't believe how clunky and awkward it felt as the introduction to a book so renown.)
I found enough twists to keep me interested, but the twists themselves were almost too twisty while not being novel enough. At a certain point, the pacing of the novel takes a turn where it feels very much like you've hit the edge of the ski slope and it's a nonstop, ramping up of speed until you've hit the cliffhanger at the end of the book. Some of those twists you encounter on that wild ride to the end hit you in a sort of, "Oh, we're doing <i>this</i>, are we? Okay, why not?!" sort of way. You always feel like you're dangerously close to jumping the shark.
That said, I did enjoy the book. The characters were somewhat flat, due to the number of them, but I enjoyed the ones that did have personality, Ye Wenjie especially, for all her flaws. I do think this is ramping up into something special, so I'm excited to eventually read the rest of the series and see if that pans out. But this is a hard book to recommend generally and requires a bit of warning to those that you think could enjoy it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Body horror
Minor: Murder
katdotniche's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
I had been eyeing this book in the library for a few months now, and I finally got round to reading it. It was definitely a fascinating concept and a new twist on science fiction, although for me, with a humanities background there was a lot of science in here that I found a little difficult to grasp. It might be faster paced for someone who understood everything, I found myself slowing down and re-reading sections.
The characters were amazing, I really found myself caring about them and their stories, and I didn't see the plot twist coming. Looking back, I could see the foreshadowing was in place for it, I just hadn't picked up on them because I was so invested in the characters.
The characters were amazing, I really found myself caring about them and their stories, and I didn't see the plot twist coming. Looking back, I could see the foreshadowing was in place for it, I just hadn't picked up on them because I was so invested in the characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Alcohol and Suicide
Minor: Pregnancy
dawntin's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
This is science fiction that goes really hard on the science. The explanations were long-winded and a slog to read through. I thought the majority of the characters were flat, with Ye Wenjie being the most interesting one.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Death, Death of parent, Suicide, and Violence
nerdkitten's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Confinement, Murder, Blood, Death, Grief, Gore, and Death of parent
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Alcohol, and Gun violence
Minor: Animal death, Classism, Sexism, War, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Police brutality, and Pregnancy
puifaii's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, War, Murder, and Colonisation
Moderate: Physical abuse, Confinement, Death, Pregnancy, and Police brutality
Minor: Medical trauma
petiteqamar's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Death
Minor: Suicide
diazona's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
When I first started considering this review, I thought how ironic it'd be if the book wound up getting three stars, in light of the obvious pun. Fortunately it turned out to be better than that... but actually not by that much. While I definitely liked the book, it fell far short of the expectations I'd built up based on how often it had been recommended to me and how much recognition it's gotten.
First things first though: the plot of The Three-Body Problem is legitimately really interesting. It takes a while to develop, but when it does, the book's take on first contact with an alien society, and humanity's reaction to it, is pretty unique among stories I've read. Kind of bleak in a way, but the uniqueness makes it fascinating regardless. (If I read another book that handles first contact the same way I will be much less into it.) And I like the way the Three-Body game was originally introduced in the story as a mysterious element that eventually ties in to the alien contact plot line in a way that you can kind of see coming but is still a powerful experience when it finally gets revealed.
On the other hand, the way that this fantastic story is presented leaves a lot to be desired, in my opinion. For instance, there's a whole introductory section that I really don't understand the purpose of. I guess it provides some interesting background information about the characters, and maybe tying the story back to the Chinese cultural revolution is more meaningful for readers whose cultural background focuses on those events, but it doesn't really do anything for me. A lot of it could have been skipped over without taking anything important away from the story. Plus, large parts of the book read like dry technical reports - and I'm not even talking about the parts that are dry technical reports, I mean there are long stretches of dialogue that feel like the characters are just reciting an amateurish script to convey information to the reader.
Even when the characters are acting like characters, they're not always particularly distinguishable or memorable. This is something I've noticed across a bunch of the books I've been reading recently: the best ones seem to have characters whose speech patterns and behavior are distinctive and blatantly obvious. It's as if the characters' personalities jump off the page and embed themselves in your brain. In this story, they do not. I kept losing track of who was talking, except for Da Shi because he's rude and swears a lot, which is distinctive enough I guess but not exactly the most interesting character profile.
And last but not least: the science. We have to talk about the science. It was clear that Liu Cixin has experience in this area (or, I guess, could have been working extremely closely with someone who does): the book reflects knowledge of physics down to a pretty deep level of technical detail, as well as of the process of academic research. But many of the passages that reference science felt kind of... insincere, maybe even mocking. It's as if - not that I think this is what really happened, but this is how it felt - as if I was reading text written by someone who had studied science in great depth without actually believing in it, someone who could never quite shake the belief that science is a bunch of complex arbitrary rituals, and you could wake up tomorrow to find that those rituals are different and that would just be that, no big deal, enjoy your new reality from this point forward. As someone who appreciates realism in the science of a story, this just felt a bit too outlandish.
All of this adds up to a story that I liked, but not as much as I was hoping to. It was a bit of a struggle, honestly. I'll still probably read the sequels, though, since I'm kind of interested to see what happens to the people of this alternate-universe Earth, but I expect to have to build up my mental energy before I keep going down that path.
First things first though: the plot of The Three-Body Problem is legitimately really interesting. It takes a while to develop, but when it does, the book's take on first contact with an alien society, and humanity's reaction to it, is pretty unique among stories I've read. Kind of bleak in a way, but the uniqueness makes it fascinating regardless. (If I read another book that handles first contact the same way I will be much less into it.) And I like the way the Three-Body game was originally introduced in the story as a mysterious element that eventually ties in to the alien contact plot line in a way that you can kind of see coming but is still a powerful experience when it finally gets revealed.
On the other hand, the way that this fantastic story is presented leaves a lot to be desired, in my opinion. For instance, there's a whole introductory section that I really don't understand the purpose of. I guess it provides some interesting background information about the characters, and maybe tying the story back to the Chinese cultural revolution is more meaningful for readers whose cultural background focuses on those events, but it doesn't really do anything for me. A lot of it could have been skipped over without taking anything important away from the story. Plus, large parts of the book read like dry technical reports - and I'm not even talking about the parts that are dry technical reports, I mean there are long stretches of dialogue that feel like the characters are just reciting an amateurish script to convey information to the reader.
Even when the characters are acting like characters, they're not always particularly distinguishable or memorable. This is something I've noticed across a bunch of the books I've been reading recently: the best ones seem to have characters whose speech patterns and behavior are distinctive and blatantly obvious. It's as if the characters' personalities jump off the page and embed themselves in your brain. In this story, they do not. I kept losing track of who was talking, except for Da Shi because he's rude and swears a lot, which is distinctive enough I guess but not exactly the most interesting character profile.
And last but not least: the science. We have to talk about the science. It was clear that Liu Cixin has experience in this area (or, I guess, could have been working extremely closely with someone who does): the book reflects knowledge of physics down to a pretty deep level of technical detail, as well as of the process of academic research. But many of the passages that reference science felt kind of... insincere, maybe even mocking. It's as if - not that I think this is what really happened, but this is how it felt - as if I was reading text written by someone who had studied science in great depth without actually believing in it, someone who could never quite shake the belief that science is a bunch of complex arbitrary rituals, and you could wake up tomorrow to find that those rituals are different and that would just be that, no big deal, enjoy your new reality from this point forward. As someone who appreciates realism in the science of a story, this just felt a bit too outlandish.
All of this adds up to a story that I liked, but not as much as I was hoping to. It was a bit of a struggle, honestly. I'll still probably read the sequels, though, since I'm kind of interested to see what happens to the people of this alternate-universe Earth, but I expect to have to build up my mental energy before I keep going down that path.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Alcohol
Minor: War, Cancer, Xenophobia, Death, Murder, Death of parent, Drug use, and Gun violence
whimsical_dragon's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Violence, Murder, Torture, and Grief
Moderate: War