Reviews with content warning for Death - Trisurya - The Three-Body Problem

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Trisurya - The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

68 reviews

cinnamonandpancakes's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book is a very interesting read but I would honestly describe it more as a political thriller with hard science fiction elements. The aliens are vague and their advanced technologies are more fantasy than based in hard science, though the science on the human side is much more realistic.

Quibbles about genre aside, I found a lot of the conclusions people draw in this book to be very pessimistic and narrow minded. It is a very gloomy book. Many characters make terrible discoveries and then just give up. A terrible doom is coming and we can't do anything about it so we're just going to give up fighting?! Maybe I'm just young but that attitude infuriates me.

That being said, there's some imaginative uses of science in this book and the sequels are set up well. If you like the prospect of doomy political thriller with aliens then this is a very well written example.

Content Warnings

gladiolus17's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional informative mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

As a translator, I can’t help but comment on the translation, and I gotta say, I would’ve died translating this. The amount of technical vocabulary astounded me, and Ken Liu did a great job (or at least sounded great, since I’ve only read the English version) making these terms make sense in the target text. He also handled the Chinese linguistic quirks with light explanations so the reader can understand rather than omitting them.

The beginning was slow, especially since we don’t get to Wong until later, but it was necessary to create the backdrop.

Wong has a flat character arc, so although I was interested in him, I was more interested in Ye, since her character arc dipped. I loved how the Cultural Revolution was the basis to her decision in contact the aliens.

My favorite character was Da Shi. He was an asshole, but he got shit done.

I’d recommend this to readers with a science background, since they’d enjoy it more than me, with all the STEM terminology. But if you’re interested in the nitty-gritty explanations of space travel and planets, this is for you

Content Warnings