A review by bluejayreads
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

I haven't read much hard scifi at all, but from what I know, this book is the definition of it. It's nominally about the threat of an alien invasion, but it's mostly about astrophysics and particle physics. The whole story is told fairly passionlessly, which I gather is par for the course with Cixin Liu's writing. It's the first book in a trilogy, and while it introduces some characters and the overarching plot, it's mostly about setup. It builds the cultural context (mainly how China's Cultural Revolution led to the events of the story) and sets up a thorough and robust scientific foundation for why this is even plausible. And it was well-written enough that it was comprehensible to someone like me, who barely understood physics even back when I was taking a physics class in high school. It's one of those books where either the author was a theoretical physicist who became an author or just adores physics, because why else would they do so much research? I don't plan to continue the series. The story was okay, but hard scifi is just not my thing. When I'm reading science fiction, I prefer more fiction than science.