Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Three-Body Problem

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The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

63 reviews

bg_oseman_fan's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I’m not usually a fan of hard si-fi but this boon was a notable exception. I loved the way that video games and cultural understandings shaped the narrative. Sometimes the detailed explanations strayed too far into technical details that don’t add to the narrative. It contributed to losing the plot at times. Still I loved how inventive the plot was and plan to read the other books i. the series.

Content Warnings

ceciltheceaselesswatcher's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

3.25

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

I will continue this series but I need to use the audiobook along with the physical book. the beginning was really slow with a lot of world building/setting building/context before it starts really getting into the meat of the story so if I didn't have audio assistance, I don't think I would've finished it. I enjoyed the video game aspect and the extraterrestrial aspect set against the cultural history of China. interesting premise and very science heavy (I know it's sci-fi but it is very heavy on describing/exploring physics).

Content Warnings

chromacharisma's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I found myself relentlessly curious throughout the entirety of my read, even after having already seen the TV series, which pretty faithfully adapts the core content of this novel. I learned so much about the cultural revolution in China! For how fantastical the technology and science was, the plot was believable and immersive.

Content Warnings

koitai108's review

4.0

adventurous challenging inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Very engaging. It pushed the bounds of my imagination in ways I didn’t expect.

Content Warnings

misshoney's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I'm still processing this book. This book is not one you can call something so simple as "good" or "bad". It is more a question of how much existential feelings can you withstand?

"The bugs have never truly been defeated" is one of the most hopeful and chilling lines I have read.

Content Warnings

ggcd1981's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

notroseeverdeen's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Finally, after a long time, I’ve finished reading The Three-Body Problem. The first time I saw this book was in college, and this “best selling Chinese science fiction book” stacked up on my dusty, mental bookshelf of books to read that I always forget. Even the book cover looked mechanical, cold, and slightly daunting. It didn’t help that I heard great things about how accurate the theoretical physics was, and so I wondered if I could really understand or appreciate this story.

Then last year, Netflix made a TV adaptation and the buzz regenerated. I decided I wanted to read the trilogy before watching so I could have the unique experience of imagining the Three-Body world for myself. And what a privilege it was! I actually started reading in the main branch of the San Francisco library when show just came out, and there were no more copies to check out. The librarians gave me a wink, went down the elevator to the library’s enormous basement, and let me read the one reference book (non-circulating book) they had at a round plastic table in front of their desk. Through that, reading on my phone, on Kindle, and on a secondhand paperback copy (on trains, cars, planes, doctor’s offices, and home), I finished!

Here are my thoughts on it (ALL spoilers from now on):

The beginning and end

At first, The Three-Body Problem started with a singular, deeply tragic moment for Ye Wenjie when she witnessed her dad’s brutal death by public beating. Looking back on that first event now, it’s incredible how something so personal violently changed Ye’s life and attitude towards humanity, which caused a chain reaction across the cosmos. Of course, the death wasn’t only a personal tragedy for Ye. It let the reader see the reality of the Cultural Revolution, the impact on academics and how the pursuit of knowledge was perceived in her formative years, and the kind of society she was numbly surviving and resentful of.

This beginning actually ties in very neatly to the end of the story, where micro and macro dimensions are critical to the plot/are the basis of the big reveal for Trisolaris’s plans because their level of science understands 11 dimensions. The Trisolaran princeps manipulates and destroys microdimensions for the sake of their civilization’s survival in the macrodimension. Earth only really understands 3 dimensions, so 1 human relationship (father-daughter) being destroyed “for the sake of the greater food” is almost akin to the microdimensions that Trisolaris destroyed. Of course, while the intended effect of that microdimension being destroyed was the betterment of China, its actual effect was that Ye ended up causing the destruction of her macrodimension, Earth.

I just really wanted to emphasize that I appreciated how a story that occupies billions of lightyears started with a personal trauma rippling through society. Ultimately, all important historical moments/tipping points can be traced back to a singular point like this.

The video game

What was so ironic (and iconic) about the Three-Body video game being used to introduce humans to Trisolaris and eventually recruit them to the ETO was that it was a SUPER effect plot device for teaching the reader about Trisolaris and getting them to understand that civilization’s origins, motivations, and desperation.

I grew up playing video games like “Carmen San Diego’s Great Chase Through Time” which let me play through tons of key moments in history with “some” agency. Like, what would happen if the Book of the Dead was stolen in ancient Egypt right as they were supposed to prepare King Thutmose II’s burial? What would Hatshepsut have done then? My job in that game was to find and return the Book of the Dead after seeing some of the consequences which was that he couldn’t be buried and Hatshepsut wouldn’t have been able to become a woman-pharaoh later.

The childhood joy I had playing that Carmen San Diego game is sort’ve what I felt reading Wang Miao’s playthrough of the Three-Body game as he tried different solutions to help Trisolaris survive with different challenges each time he logged on, talking to different NPCs and actually generating different outcomes depending on what he said and did. Switching between a chapter with his time in the game when he logged on a night and then a chapter of how human life was going the next day really set up the juxtaposition between the two civilizations. Despite the insurmountable challenges on Trisolaris that seemed beyond what humans were capable of helping with, author Liu fed the reader a steady diet of mysterious tragedies with wins in human life that kept me knowing that hope exists for humans to solve problems too.

My own awe at the creative solutions

Seriously, my jaw physically dropped multiple times while reading this book. The way Liu described how certain things were pulled off with so much detail, like how Ye managed to send a message from Red Coast with only 2 people finding out, or how Operation Guzheng was carried out to get the data off of the Judgement Day ship, or how Trisolaris created 2 sophons and sent them to Earth, really made me think that they must be impossible tasks before swooping in with a plausible solution. Just on sheer entertainment value, I was so excited just to read what crazy problem and solution was going to happen next, and each time they surpassed anything I could think or know about on a daily basis.

I read the author’s note and translator’s note at the end, and I’m also in awe of how these two were able to communicate these crazy difficult ideas effectively. I think Liu had mentioned that he knew he had a gift for really feeling the sheer wild scale of different physics concepts, and somehow he was able to describe them in an uncomplicated way. This is equally due to translator Ken Liu writing some beautiful metaphors that I know he had to create to bridge the cultural divide between American English and Chinese language.

The descriptions of Proejct Sophon’s first attempts at unfolding a 9 dimensional object into a 2 dimensional object were insane — first unfolding to one dimensions, then to three dimensions etc etc

The description of a 9 dimensional object that unfolded into a 1 dimensional object, pg 363: Six Trisolaran hours later, everyone outside noticed the strange lights in the air, gossamer threads that flickered in and out of existence. They soon learned from the news that this was the one-dimensional proteon drifting to the ground under the influence of gravity. Even though the string was infinitely thin, it produced a field that could still reflect visible light. It was the first time people had ever seen matter not made out of atoms — the silky strands were merely small portions of a protein…But the threads that fell from the sky grew more numerous and denser. Closer to the ground, tiny sparkling lights filled the air. The sun and the stars all appeared inside silvery halos. The strings clung to those who went outside, and as they walked, they dragged the lights behind them. When people returned indoors, the lines glimmered under the lamps. As soon as they moved, the reflection from the strings revealed the patterns in the air currents they disturbed.

The description of a 9 dimensional object that unfolded into a 3 dimensional object, pg 364-365: The giant, reflective geometric solids continued to pop into existence in great umbers, and their forms became more various. There were tori, solid crosses, an even something that looked like a Möbius strip. All the geometric solids drifted away from the location of the accelerator. About half an hour later, the solids filled more than half the sky, as though a giant child had emptied a box of building blocks in the firmament…Then, all the geometric solids began to before. They gradually lost their regular shapes, as though they were melting in heat…Now the objects in the sky no longer reminded people of building blocks, but of a giant’s dismembered limbs and disemboweled viscera.

After this^, eventually the shapes merge and turn into a parabolic mirror which starts to reflect sunbeams onto the planet and the city starts sizzling, which is only stopped by their military sending nukes through the mirror to tear it up and stop the reflection. How f#cking metal is that!!!

Overall

Somehow, The Three-Body Problem managed to balance a whole breadth of human issues and emotions, going into the intensely intimate thoughts of Ye when she became a mother and how she finally started enjoying humanity in the community of the poor community around Red Coast who were uneducated like the girls who beat her father, but unlike those girls had a thirst and respect for learning. I appreciate her nuances as a character, as she then killed her husband and a boss with no hesitation to serve her unshakeable beliefs. Then there’s the humor in Shi Qiang’s crass cop shenanigans that also balance with his suave thinking that’s always a step ahead, and the buddy cop dynamic he has with Wang as they deal with seriously depressing stuff, that at the same time has an unwavering light of hope at the end of their tunnel/humanity’s journey. Then there’s the grand science fiction of the world and the very compelling reminder in the reader that this is science fiction set in our present world that could be happening to us right now.

My one note is that sometimes, I think it was clear that author Liu enjoyed writing about his thought experiments quite a lot, and philosophical banter between characters could be very lengthy and arduous. But I suppose the whole point of the story is to make you question your beliefs and how you would react to knowing that intelligent life exists outside of Earth, and the many philosophical discussions you’d have with yourself, others, and even AI NPCs in a video game then. I guess this is the driving force that makes me so excited to read the next book in this trilogy.

Content Warnings

angorarabbit's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Clarketech: One of the few science fiction books that does not have ftl that I’ve read. Sophons and amplifying radio waves with the sun are above my pay grade to evaluate for plausibility in real life.

To misquote someone much funnier than I, “Nobody expects the Cultural Revolution”. Which is why it took me three times before I got as far as the science fiction parts. While I read both historical and science fiction my mind does not change easily as I would like when I’m expecting one and find the other. Fortunately the translator has provided some helpful footnotes and Wikipedia also helped me fill in for my lack of knowledge on the topic.

Mr Liu writes this novel in the third person with a slow but intriguing plot. The world he builds in not too different from historical and current China but there is some info dumping. Particularly in chapters 33 and 34 where my inability to imagine protons unfolding made for soporific reading.

I have seen some comparisons of this novel to Asimov’s works. The plot and the mostly adherence to known science are certain worthy of the comparison. However Mr Liu does give female characters more than bit parts in his book. That being said the characters are flat with little emotion other than a foreboding nihilism. Perhaps this is in part due to the effects of The Cultural Revolution and generational trauma. I am looking forward to The Dark Forest both to see where Mr Liu goes from here and to see if the different translator makes a noticeable difference to me.

Content Warnings

dcdc's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

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