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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
sarebertram's review against another edition
challenging
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
My introduction into the sci-fi genre and wow. Not surprising anyone, I did prefer the book over the recent Netflix series. As a newer reader of the genre, I think seeing the show first helped me digest the mass amount of information easier than going in blind.
There were times that reading this did feel like homework, however I devoured the last half. Excited to read the rest of this series.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Sexism
djbobthegirl's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation and Classism
Minor: Violence, Ableism, Murder, Death, Sexism, War, and Police brutality
hanweny's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexism
meganpbell's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Ambitious, mysterious, challenging, and unsettling describe this landmark sci-fi soon to be adapted by Netflix. This unique take on first contact explores science & technology, the development of civilizations, and, most of all, what happens when people give up on humanity. Character is kind of sacrificed to the high concepts here, and I found myself thinking of Sophie’s World but with video games and physics instead of postcards and philosophy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Child death, and Murder
Moderate: Alcohol, Body horror, and Sexism
Minor: Genocide and War
uranaishi's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Violence, Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, War, Alcohol, Classism, Abandonment, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexism, Toxic relationship, and Blood
Minor: Colonisation, Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Police brutality, and Suicide
ilikewords's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-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
5.0
Engaging and provocative start to one of my favorite sci-fi trilogies. The Three Body Problem takes a simple and common premise from much of western sci-fi- how does humanity respond to discovering alien life and then engages with that simple premise through a staggering, spiraling hard sci fi plot that jumps from space to society to biology to computer science and a thousand topics in-between, all while feeling cohesive. Uniquely, this story is written from a Chinese cultural context, which provides a wonderfully engaging antidote to a genre often dominated by white western ideology. I have two critiques of the story that readers should consider. The first is that characters feel more like tools or lenses for engaging with the plot rather than actualized people who are a part of the story. The second critique is critical- and surprisingly mitigated by the relative unimportance of characters in the story to some extent- but the book builds an inherent sexism into its characterization of women's capacities throughout the story. This is not too pronounced in the first book, but becomes absurdly blatant further into the series.
All in all, an excellent book and series for readers who are interested in engaging with genuinely creative hard sci fi topics and a fascinating plot, but not a great fit for readers who need to feel engaged with well actualized characters to stick to a plot.
All in all, an excellent book and series for readers who are interested in engaging with genuinely creative hard sci fi topics and a fascinating plot, but not a great fit for readers who need to feel engaged with well actualized characters to stick to a plot.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexism
beebidon's review against another edition
challenging
informative
sad
slow-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? No
3.25
I very nearly marked this book DNF many times. In truth, it took me most of 2022 to trudge through it.
I want to call it interesting, but in truth only parts of it were. It had the potential to be interesting. It had interesting sections. The concept is certainly interesting.
I’ve seen people say their complaint was that the characters were too static or bland, and people who adored the book rebutting those complaints with “that’s just the translation” or “that’s just the culture of how they tell stories” and perhaps that’s true. I don’t think the characters were the issue with the story, however. They just certainly didn’t add to it or try to save the experience.
My main complaint is with pacing; the exciting stuff was crammed into the last 100 pages or so, and not in an exciting denouement way so much as “great, we got through 250 pages of backstory, now I guess the actual story happens.” I found myself frustrated even as I was engrossed at that point, because I could see the small sliver of pages remaining, stressing me out as if I needed to tell the author “yes, yes, that’s nice and all but HURRY, we are running out of time!”
In the end, we didn’t even get answers to all the questions, and not in a fun cliffhanger or philosophical statement deliberate sort of way. There WAS a cliffhanger of sorts, but I do not feel like my lingering questions were intentional there. I more fell like the author had a really cool concept he wanted to pitch and didn’t know what to do with it so he fluffed hundreds of pages of history and scientific geeking out, dropped a novella or even short story’s worth of plot, then closed the book.
Finally, I’llsay before my spoiler talk that there are different levels of sci-fi you can find, from low/soft to high/hard, where high/hard is heavily based in science, or heavily based in fantastical, “out there” concepts. 3BP drags you through DENSE quantum, theoretical, astro, micro, macro, and every other kind of -physics, but in a way that walking away I’m not sure how much I can say “well, at least I learned a lot from it” because I’m not sure how much was true or embellished to lay the groundwork for the plot points. I don’t think Cixin (or Ken as translator) did a bad job of breaking down the concepts to understand (aided by the scientists often explaining the concepts to non-scientists, or at least scientists not in that specific field). But I did struggle a lot with dense passages where I couldn’t be sure if this was a concept I would need to know later or if it was a character waxing on for their own interest. I was often torn between “do I skip this passage or do I just put the book down for now” as my eyes glazed over. And every time I put the book down, I felt no obligation to pick it back up besides a faint curiosity and a sunken cost fallacy of “well, I’m already this far, maybe eventually it will get better.”
There were some cool concepts that Cixin was trying to get at that I feel were left half-presented or dropped n on the table with an “is this anything?” look, like if we wanted to feel some way about the content, that was up to us to go through the mental work on. Was it ethical to keep “less educated” people in the dark? Did Cixin mean to present a view that was so anti-religion? (Was he trying to say anything about religion at all?)
I feel the strongest points made (and the reason I gave the book as relatively high a rating as I did) were the parallels drawn between Trisolaran and Earth views about who deserves to thrive, the struggle for survival and at what point is it ethical (or not) to give up your own survival for another society that may “deserve” it more. This is the question I think I’ll ponder on into this new year, and Cixin’s strongest win.
I was also saddened by how such a cool concept as this alien society was still so clearly limited by the author’s very traditional views on things. A planet as advanced as this, with such unique bodies and minds, but there’s only 2 genders/sexes, and they’re heterosexual and monogamous? With every important person in the world (three body game version or “real” At the end) a man? Someone will roll their eyes at me on this for being “too woke” but I’m just not sure a cishet patriarchy needs to be reflected in the aliens too. Alas.
I want to call it interesting, but in truth only parts of it were. It had the potential to be interesting. It had interesting sections. The concept is certainly interesting.
I’ve seen people say their complaint was that the characters were too static or bland, and people who adored the book rebutting those complaints with “that’s just the translation” or “that’s just the culture of how they tell stories” and perhaps that’s true. I don’t think the characters were the issue with the story, however. They just certainly didn’t add to it or try to save the experience.
My main complaint is with pacing; the exciting stuff was crammed into the last 100 pages or so, and not in an exciting denouement way so much as “great, we got through 250 pages of backstory, now I guess the actual story happens.” I found myself frustrated even as I was engrossed at that point, because I could see the small sliver of pages remaining, stressing me out as if I needed to tell the author “yes, yes, that’s nice and all but HURRY, we are running out of time!”
In the end, we didn’t even get answers to all the questions, and not in a fun cliffhanger or philosophical statement deliberate sort of way. There WAS a cliffhanger of sorts, but I do not feel like my lingering questions were intentional there. I more fell like the author had a really cool concept he wanted to pitch and didn’t know what to do with it so he fluffed hundreds of pages of history and scientific geeking out, dropped a novella or even short story’s worth of plot, then closed the book.
Finally, I’llsay before my spoiler talk that there are different levels of sci-fi you can find, from low/soft to high/hard, where high/hard is heavily based in science, or heavily based in fantastical, “out there” concepts. 3BP drags you through DENSE quantum, theoretical, astro, micro, macro, and every other kind of -physics, but in a way that walking away I’m not sure how much I can say “well, at least I learned a lot from it” because I’m not sure how much was true or embellished to lay the groundwork for the plot points. I don’t think Cixin (or Ken as translator) did a bad job of breaking down the concepts to understand (aided by the scientists often explaining the concepts to non-scientists, or at least scientists not in that specific field). But I did struggle a lot with dense passages where I couldn’t be sure if this was a concept I would need to know later or if it was a character waxing on for their own interest. I was often torn between “do I skip this passage or do I just put the book down for now” as my eyes glazed over. And every time I put the book down, I felt no obligation to pick it back up besides a faint curiosity and a sunken cost fallacy of “well, I’m already this far, maybe eventually it will get better.”
There were some cool concepts that Cixin was trying to get at that I feel were left half-presented or dropped n on the table with an “is this anything?” look, like if we wanted to feel some way about the content, that was up to us to go through the mental work on. Was it ethical to keep “less educated” people in the dark? Did Cixin mean to present a view that was so anti-religion? (Was he trying to say anything about religion at all?)
I feel the strongest points made (and the reason I gave the book as relatively high a rating as I did) were the parallels drawn between Trisolaran and Earth views about who deserves to thrive, the struggle for survival and at what point is it ethical (or not) to give up your own survival for another society that may “deserve” it more. This is the question I think I’ll ponder on into this new year, and Cixin’s strongest win.
I was also saddened by how such a cool concept as this alien society was still so clearly limited by the author’s very traditional views on things. A planet as advanced as this, with such unique bodies and minds, but there’s only 2 genders/sexes, and they’re heterosexual and monogamous? With every important person in the world (three body game version or “real” At the end) a man? Someone will roll their eyes at me on this for being “too woke” but I’m just not sure a cishet patriarchy needs to be reflected in the aliens too. Alas.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Genocide, Violence, Death of parent, Police brutality, Xenophobia, War, and Death
Moderate: Suicide, Gun violence, Drug abuse, Child death, Sexism, and Hate crime
nannahnannah's review against another edition
3.0
Wow, okay.
I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but a lot of people have said, “Where’s the science in all the science fiction nowadays?”. Well … if that’s you, then read this book. I felt like I needed a degree in astrophysics to truly understand it.
Physics … isn’t real?
Back during the Cultural Revolution (mid 1960s) in China, scientist Ye Wenjie is supposed to be sent to a labour camp to be re-educated, but instead she goes to a highly-classified government site created to find alien life.
Then, in the present, we have Wang Miao (nanotech scientist), who also manages to get wrapped up in a similar government project. Or -- literally, kidnapped by cops to be introduced to it. But instead of seeking alien life, they’re exploring the fact that certain scientists keep committing suicide, and they think there’s something out there devoted to destroying mankind.
Wang Miao’s got a lot on his hands, and it only gets worse when he discovers a strange video game called The Three-Body Problem, clearly made for academics. In it, players must solve the puzzle of the game’s world: it has three suns, and the creatures on the planet keep dying when the suns create Chaotic Eras that destroy civilizations.
I may have described this incorrectly, but it’s because I had a difficult time understanding things. It’s written like an academic paper, and I had to read each page twice to understand where things were going. Maybe I’m stupid? Or maybe this book is catered to certain people. Could be both.
While the plot was massive and sprawling, the prose was stilted and awkward. I hope it’s the translator, but I can’t really know. There were character development cop-outs, like one character saying, “I didn’t do this, because I’m quite a lazy man”; “You see why I didn’t do that, right? Because I’m so lazy”, etc. He said he was lazy to justify everything like ten times in that one scene, and I don’t know if that was supposed to be humor? But it just came off as … well, lazy.
There was also some laugh-out-loud sexism, showing this was clearly written by a stereotypical man. Not only were there very few women (except for one of the villains), Wang’s wife and children seemed to disappear halfway through the book. They were never mentioned again. Then there were three female officers who killed Ye’s father back during the Cultural Revolution. They’re now thirty, right? And when they came back, Ye described them as “very, very old, now thirty, one with a stooped back”, etc. This is where I laughed. Literally laughed. I’m now twenty-nine. I guess I’m “very old” as well. When this protag is probably the same age, and he’s fine, but when you’re a woman and thirty, you’re very old and have a stooped back because you’re thirty, etc. Hilarious.
Anyway, when the aliens actually “showed up” they weren’t exactly as menacing as I thought they’d be. The stakes didn’t rise, and the threat seemed very far away. The climax felt the same. Don’t get me wrong, everything was interesting but not very dramatic. I think for me, all the science got in the way. This may be spoilers, but a big part of what was supposed to bring the suspense was the unfolding of a proton. For me, that means absolutely nothing. Maybe someone who actually knows something about science would feel differently, haha!
So I just have to say I felt very lukewarm about everything. I think this book is one of those science fiction novels written for academics to enjoy.
I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but a lot of people have said, “Where’s the science in all the science fiction nowadays?”. Well … if that’s you, then read this book. I felt like I needed a degree in astrophysics to truly understand it.
Physics … isn’t real?
Back during the Cultural Revolution (mid 1960s) in China, scientist Ye Wenjie is supposed to be sent to a labour camp to be re-educated, but instead she goes to a highly-classified government site created to find alien life.
Then, in the present, we have Wang Miao (nanotech scientist), who also manages to get wrapped up in a similar government project. Or -- literally, kidnapped by cops to be introduced to it. But instead of seeking alien life, they’re exploring the fact that certain scientists keep committing suicide, and they think there’s something out there devoted to destroying mankind.
Wang Miao’s got a lot on his hands, and it only gets worse when he discovers a strange video game called The Three-Body Problem, clearly made for academics. In it, players must solve the puzzle of the game’s world: it has three suns, and the creatures on the planet keep dying when the suns create Chaotic Eras that destroy civilizations.
I may have described this incorrectly, but it’s because I had a difficult time understanding things. It’s written like an academic paper, and I had to read each page twice to understand where things were going. Maybe I’m stupid? Or maybe this book is catered to certain people. Could be both.
While the plot was massive and sprawling, the prose was stilted and awkward. I hope it’s the translator, but I can’t really know. There were character development cop-outs, like one character saying, “I didn’t do this, because I’m quite a lazy man”; “You see why I didn’t do that, right? Because I’m so lazy”, etc. He said he was lazy to justify everything like ten times in that one scene, and I don’t know if that was supposed to be humor? But it just came off as … well, lazy.
There was also some laugh-out-loud sexism, showing this was clearly written by a stereotypical man. Not only were there very few women (except for one of the villains), Wang’s wife and children seemed to disappear halfway through the book. They were never mentioned again. Then there were three female officers who killed Ye’s father back during the Cultural Revolution. They’re now thirty, right? And when they came back, Ye described them as “very, very old, now thirty, one with a stooped back”, etc. This is where I laughed. Literally laughed. I’m now twenty-nine. I guess I’m “very old” as well. When this protag is probably the same age, and he’s fine, but when you’re a woman and thirty, you’re very old and have a stooped back because you’re thirty, etc. Hilarious.
Anyway, when the aliens actually “showed up” they weren’t exactly as menacing as I thought they’d be. The stakes didn’t rise, and the threat seemed very far away. The climax felt the same. Don’t get me wrong, everything was interesting but not very dramatic. I think for me, all the science got in the way. This may be spoilers, but a big part of what was supposed to bring the suspense was the unfolding of a proton. For me, that means absolutely nothing. Maybe someone who actually knows something about science would feel differently, haha!
So I just have to say I felt very lukewarm about everything. I think this book is one of those science fiction novels written for academics to enjoy.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexism
Minor: Suicide
apersonfromflorida's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Police brutality, Violence, and War
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Murder