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A review by huerca_armada
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
4.0
What would you do if your world was a doomed one? This is the question at the heart of Liu Cixin's landmark book that won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and a well-deserved win at that. Originally serialized in Science Fiction World, it has received significant critical and popular praise, regularly cited as a novel which you should read whether you are just getting into science-fiction or you're an old hand at it.
While the central framing of The Three Body Problem is that of the titular problem, a VR simulation, and an impending First Contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, all of this is window dressing. The same goes for all of the associated scientific babble that is omnipresent with hard science-fiction; while its nice if you can understand all of it (and potentially be impressed if it holds up to rigorous scrutiny), it is not necessary to fully take it all in. Like all great science-fiction, The Three-Body Problem excels when it grapples with philosophical and social questions: a reckoning with the history of China's Great Cultural Revolution and enormous upheaval, the alienation and disenchantment with the world by many, and how similar the societal structure of two civilizations can be in spite of their entirely different developments.
While there is a lot to praise in the novel, there are some minor annoyances with it. It's most likely that this is the result of the translation from Chinese to English, but even still, there are several points where conversations and plot elements are significantly stilted and are very mechanical; a facet of much of science-fiction, to be fair, but still painful. In spite of this, however, the tight scope of the novel helps alleviate some of the issues with its writing and overall structure, and comes with several comical moments; the construction of a human computer in the VR sequence stands out particularly as a charming passage.
Cannot recommend enough that you read this.
While the central framing of The Three Body Problem is that of the titular problem, a VR simulation, and an impending First Contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, all of this is window dressing. The same goes for all of the associated scientific babble that is omnipresent with hard science-fiction; while its nice if you can understand all of it (and potentially be impressed if it holds up to rigorous scrutiny), it is not necessary to fully take it all in. Like all great science-fiction, The Three-Body Problem excels when it grapples with philosophical and social questions: a reckoning with the history of China's Great Cultural Revolution and enormous upheaval, the alienation and disenchantment with the world by many, and how similar the societal structure of two civilizations can be in spite of their entirely different developments.
While there is a lot to praise in the novel, there are some minor annoyances with it. It's most likely that this is the result of the translation from Chinese to English, but even still, there are several points where conversations and plot elements are significantly stilted and are very mechanical; a facet of much of science-fiction, to be fair, but still painful. In spite of this, however, the tight scope of the novel helps alleviate some of the issues with its writing and overall structure, and comes with several comical moments; the construction of a human computer in the VR sequence stands out particularly as a charming passage.
Cannot recommend enough that you read this.