saltypandas's Reviews (53)

The Three-Body Problem

3.5

adventurous dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

At 71%, I'd uncharitably made up my mind and summed the book up as "what if a Dan Brown book feels a lot more factual but far less entertaining." Now that I have actually finished reading it, I don't think that that characterization is entirely accurate. The suspense to the big revelations in the book was well-presented and paced, I wasn't being made aware that I'd reached certain turning points or plot beats. Too bad that by the end of it all, I was left cold and uninterested.

Ken Liu shouldered an immense responsibility of not only translating the Chinese language, but also the cultural context, intentional or not, of the text. That being said, my problem is not necessarily with the translation. There were moments where I felt like "this would be way more evocative if the author decided to 'show' it instead of merely 'tell' it."

The humanity-Trisolaran affair itself is intriguing. The author's assumption about first contact was the major selling point that got me to read 3BP. A certain twist regarding the development of this humanity's tech tree sank me deep in the sea of momentary existentialism. However, as of now, I need a lot more convincing than just proton-based supercomputer and misanthropic elites of science to know that the final fate of this version of humanity is worth learning about.