Reviews

The ending connects everything but I still spent 95% of the book confused which made it hard to keep reading at parts. Cool premise though. I’ll likely keep reading the other two books.

newellm90's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative tense medium-paced

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

4.5

joelfaulkner's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense 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

4.25

linn_ingebrigtsen's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

duurdrag's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective fast-paced

3.0

charlesbilby's review against another edition

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challenging fast-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

4.0

I'm really not sure I understood all of this book but I enjoyed it and will be pressing on with the series.

kamharellano's review against another edition

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challenging reflective tense slow-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

It took me a while to get into this, mostly because it's very much hard science fiction. (Unless of course you're the kind of reader who's into that sort of thing, in which case I think you should pick this up asap.) However, once I had a grasp of how to follow the rhythm of scientific thinking and logical processes (and on that note, in this aspect Ken Liu is a fantastic translator), I deeply enjoyed all the scientific theories and experiments that The Three-Body Problem played with. But aside from its portrayal of some very hard science ideas—at times reading like a physics textbook—this is still a deeply conceptual novel that uses its narrative to discuss philosophical ideals and social issues. This book made me think long and hard about my own preconceived notions of authoritarianism, humanity's self-given status as stewards of the planet, and the good of the whole versus an individual's rights and duties.

However, I found that the characters and the narrative fell flat for me, so much so that I had a hard time enjoying The Three-Body Problem as a fiction book. I almost wish it had been some kind of philosophical or scientific treatise instead. (Which, interestingly enough, is the same criticism I had for R.F. Kuang's Yellowface.) I won't comment too much on the writing style, because while I found it quite wooden and stilted, I acknowledge that it may be that way because it wasn't originally written in English. As someone whose first language also isn't English, I understand deeply how translated works might come across that way and it's definitely not Cixin Liu or Ken Liu's fault. However, I struggled to get a picture of any of the characters in my head, and often found myself losing track of whether the narrator in a certain moment was Ye Wenjie, Wang Miao, or anyone else. The plot and characters are incredibly underdeveloped, and it seems to me that this was done so in order to prop up the philosophical ideas that this book wanted to discuss.

Nevertheless, I found this to be an interesting read and I'm definitely going to continue on with the rest of the trilogy. It's definitely a unique perspective on the concept of First Contact (which I appreciated as a die-hard Star Trek fan, wherein First Contact has always been portrayed as a good thing) and if that's the sort of thing you want to explore, definitely pick up this book.

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