The Three-Body Problem

This book is exactly what I look for in a sci-fi novel. Big ideas, backed up by just enough hard science to suspend disbelief and dive into some really engaging philosophical questions. Once the pieces started falling into place I couldn't put it down. Can't wait to read the rest of this series!

Would a large but secretive conspiracy use Email to let the conspirators know the address of the location that its next meeting is at? This is an important question. No they would not, not even when this was written 25 odd years back.

Would an alien civilisation know what a bull's eye is? Did they have Walnuts? Just two less than profound and meaningless questions, I suppose. This was the reason I moved away from Sci Fi in my early 20's to rarely come back. That feeling that it dated rapidly. When aliens were involved my then youthful imagination was fast dissipating into a demand for some historical form of what was reality and history became the normal read.

As to Sci Fi, interestingly I have just recently finished a couple of Kurt Vonnegut's very dated Sci Fi's, the difference between him and books such as this was (and not noted in my youth) he was actually making a comment about the human condition using Sci Fi as a trope. The Three Body Problem is purer in the scientific approach and that is where they can fall down rapidly with time I suppose. Things get dated, Email for example.

As to the writing and/or translation, considering how conceptually very good this piece of Sci Fi is, there is an at times clumsiness in the telling of what is essentially a first contact story. The characters can be a dull or even clichéd. Policeman Shi Qiang is one of the most clichéd characters I have read in any form of literature. I also note that this is going to be a TV series soon, and adapted for an English-speaking audience. It almost felt like a film script at times.

Anyway onwards and upwards and as the blurb says “Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilisation on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.” I suppose it the clever mix of Cultural Revolution revenge politics and the consequences make this conceptually very interesting.

Being the first of a trilogy I naturally want to know ‘what happened next' so with that thought in mind I will listen via my Audiobook allowance via Spotify in a couple of months' time.

Overall, the experience of reading this entire book vs the actual payout of the plot developments & twists was not quite worth it for me. The various ideas in The Three Body Problem are super intriguing, and the level of integration of abstract physics concepts is straight up cool. I enjoyed the twists and turns throughout.

However, the whole thing has a bizarre issue with pacing—the first third of the book felt painfully slow, while other moments that I believe were meant to be suspenseful ended up rushed. Many interesting moments are written in past tense format that makes them feel way less story-like and way more history-textbook-like. Most of the time, I just didn't know why anything was happening, and the moments that grabbed my attention were fleeting.

2.9 stars

This book ain't great. There will be spoilers.

The writing is bad. And yes, I appreciate there's a cultural gap but the only thing worse than me completely ignoring cultural differences would be me saying “oh maybe stale dialogue, shallow characters, and messy structure are how all Chinese people write”.

And to be honest I can forgive the writing, some sci fi authors are better at coming up with cool concepts than writing well (cough Phillip K Dick) so it's not necessarily the end of the world.

My number one issue with this book is that, for a book apparently all about hard science, it has such a profound disrespect for both science and scientists.

The entire crux of the plot - the sophons (which lets be honest, is straight up magic and raises more questions than it answers) stopping particle accelerators from working will cause scientists to just give up on researching things - is completely insulting. History is full of nothing but scientists working around handicaps, and often relishing the challenge. Instead this book treats scientists as close minded and lazy who give up as soon as there's a hurdle.

Don't get me wrong, I really loved reading a story by a Chinese author that is so informed by Chinese history and culture, but I can't forgive that mistreatment of an entire discipline.

I might still read book two though, the series is so popular I feel like I should give it a try.

3.5 stars

Characters: ★★★ Atmosphere: ★★★★ Writing Style: ★★★ Plot: ★★★★ Intrigue: ★★★ Relationships: ★★ Enjoyment: ★★★The Three-Body Problem brings forth some interesting scientific theories to a classic alien invasion story that overall left me apathetic.Three-Body really shines in an academic sense, with well-researched historical fiction elements and scientific theory dumbed down for layman understanding. The plot is engaging, the mystery is compelling and the ending leaves you wanting more.However, there are a few problems I have in this book.It's incredibly bleak. Don't get me wrong, some of my favourite books torture the characters through seemingly unwinnable scenarios, but Three-Body takes this to another level. Earth is a cesspool of corruption, deceit and disregard for life, and every character you meet proves this through victimhood, betrayal, or both.There are two characters you hold any stake in—Ye Wenjie and Shi Qiang (Da Shi)—and the rest are expendable characters lacking personality or growth, that just serve to drive the plot forward. Some characters, like Mike Evans, seem to come into the plot as a convenient tool to drive the ETO forward. It's a glaring problem for me in a book where I am (maybe) supposed to root for humanity and I don't care about, let alone like, almost every single character.Building on convenient plots and overall lazy writing, I found the Sophons to be a strange plot convenience. I'll admit, I'm just a dumb regular sci-fi reader with no science background, but I find it hard to suspend my disbelief of tiny proton-sized computers programmed not only to disrupt particle colliders (I could work with that), but also project communication at faster-than-light speeds to target humans?Not only that, but the Three-Body VR game seemed like a strange vehicle to spread awareness of the Trisolarin problem. The ETO may want to recruit the top minds based on their ability to solve the Three-Body game, but the actual solution is an existing theory called the Three-Body Problem. Could a layman not Google the name of the game and figure out the answer to the mystery fairly easily? Are there no game guides in this universe where one nerd completes the game and shares the solve for everyone else? Why would the ETO only want to recruit people who can truly understand the science behind the Trisolarins' planetary problem if they would benefit from the masses being empathetic to the aliens? The VR game felt like a convoluted approach to express the same information in a more ‘sci-fi' way.In conclusion, the best takeaway from this novel is that I can find so many circumstances to exclaim, “Dehydrate!” in everyday life now.

I have to be honest in saying the first half took a bit to get through. It felt like a lot of smaller stories kind of loosely based on each other. It had plenty of interesting things to keep me going. But once the last half of the book hit, and boy did it hit, I couldn't stop moving through it. This book brilliantly fuels the imagination, prompting daydreams about endless possibilities. Now on to book 2!

This is a really hard book to rate. On one hand it's good, and yet on another its unbelievably boring. I knew halfway through that I'd finish the first part but not bother with the last two, and that stayed through until the end.

If there had been more to the characters I might've been more interested, but as they were the characters were simply the means to move the plot forward, and the plot felt like it was simply a device with which to explore different ideas in physics. 

And the aliens.... Classic bad guys.

I liked the story, but just couldn't get into the writing/storytelling.

We are all bugs.

Fascinating world-building that maybe doesn't 100% come together for me.

I felt somewhat lost in the overall plot for a large portion of the book not able to see why others lauded it so. Once the big picture snapped into place somewhere past the middle it was hard to put down. The breadth and depth of the world building always left me wanting more as it never felt implausible that this universe is far from what would actually happen given the events actually took place.

The characters were very stiff and mechanically written. Their choices do not always make sense and do not feel well considered and even strange at times. Furthermore, I find it hard to connect with the characters.
The scientific concepts are interesting but even they seem to be a little over the top near the end.
It was also kind of strange that the messages earth had received are then described as a third character observant instead of a message, but that's more of a style complaint.
I hear a lot of awesome things about the second book so maybe somewhere in the future.

This book, out of all the sci-fi I've read, earns the title of being the most science fiction. At times, the strict adherence to scientific mock “accuracy” was cumbersome to get through, but I appreciated how it all tied together in the end.

My copy of the book was translated by Ken Liu, who did a phenomenal job adding footnotes with cultural and historical context. Without that, I'm not sure if I would've enjoyed the book as much as I had, since it's certainly aimed and intended for a Chinese audience.

Holy shit.

This book was recommended to me by my friend who is a physics teacher and it was such a challenge but so so so impressive and fun. Imagine a 400 page novel just covers only the inciting incident of a larger story. Couple that with so much technical science talk that will definitely go over the head of your average reader. Sounds like a slog, doesn't it? This is exactly why I'm so impressed and delighted by The Three Body Project. It's absolutely fantastic despite all of that and I cannot wait to pick up the second book.

I can only imagine how much more I would've enjoyed this book if I were a person of science lmao.

Anyway, if you love sci-fi you HAVE TO read this book. It's gonna be adapted into a Netflix series and if they do it right its gonna be huge.

After sitting on this book for a minute after reading, I think this is one of my favorites in the world of science fiction. There are so many interesting facets to this book that they all work towards one harmonious story. Ultimately, I think it deserves a half point extra.

[Mild spoilers below]

Initially, I did struggle to stay focus and interested in the historical portions, especially coming into the book expecting something more along the lines of Foundation or Dune. But then Cixin starts dripping in a bit of science fiction themes here and there which serves as a decent hook to keep reading. But then there is a back and force shifting of modern day and the past, which made me question, “is this book really going to progress to anything related to science fiction?” The answer is yes, but that theme is really just woven throughout this story of history and society, from the point of view of the “Eastern” world.

By then end I understood what Cixin was trying accomplish in weaving these explorations of science, history, society, internationalization, and so many other topics. After that last page, it leaves you questioning what is and isn't science fiction. This book is certainly more of an exploration of something closer to this moment in time than far far in the future. Plus, I am particularly fond of the non-Western viewpoint of what a more science fiction future holds.

But, this book does have its struggles. The first I mentioned above with the heavy reliance on history and other topics for a large portion of the book. The other is the particular granularity of physics and science jargon. With a background in science and math, I found myself able to follow the story, but at times my knowledge lapsed. I have no doubt that others would struggle with the physics-heavy topics, despite Cixin's delicate hand at explaining them.

Enigmático e interessante. As questões e dilemas são todos muito interessantes, mas me incomodou a falta de um protagonista claro e talvez uma forma narrativa clássica (ocidental?). De qualquer forma me interessou o suficiente pra seguir para o próximo volume.

One third of this book was one of the best things I read this year, one third was meandering and boring, one third was not very engaging until the very last bit.

Overall the great stuff in this book brings up the rest to a 3 star, but this would have been a 1 or 2 star of it was all the same quality.

My two biggest issues are that outside of a few key players all the characters sound like they are the same person. No mannerisms, no differences in their way of speaking. Also the science is too much, I don't need to know every micro detail of how unfolding protons works. Look at Hail Mary or Dark Matter for a way to have strong science but still keep the books fun.

See my full review here: https://youtu.be/g4EDbmKkwkQ?si=Pa9ecm0BnFmguPHN

La primera mitad del libro es de lo mejor que he leído en ciencia ficción. Creo que ningún libro me atrapó tanto desde la Fundación de Asimov como Three Body en la primera parte. Luego de que los misterios se van revelando inevitablemente pierde un poco de ritmo y se siente por momentos algo apurada la narrativa. Especialmente (spoiler): La escena donde se hacen del mensaje de los Trisolarianos usando el filamento de nanomaterial en el canal de Panamá. Esas escenas podrían haber sido desarrolladas un poco más o resueltas de una forma no tan expeditiva..

Sin embargo hacia el final vuelve a tomar ritmo y realmente da ganas de seguir la trilogía. Es cierto que una debilidad del libro (y por la cual no le doy 5 estrellas no más) es la poca profundidad de muchos personajes excepto por Ye. Pero la historia a mi parecer compensa bastante.

4.75 ⭐️

Wow what can I say! Im not the worlds biggest sci-fi fan nor do I claim to have good science knowledge but holy crap this book was fantastic! 90-95% of the science went over my head but the characters and the story were so brilliant!

If you think the science would be too much, please try this book!

The struggles of humanity were so real and you really got sucked in to every aspect of the story! This book made me do science homework for the first time in roughly 16 years when I looked up exactly what the three body problem was (still not exactly sure) and looked up other solar systems so I could have a slightly better understanding! Thats impressive as I didn't like doing science homework when I had too!

Overall, fantastic book, everyone should try this and I will be moving on to the sequels very soon.

Revolusi Kebudayaan Tiongkok memakan banyak korban, termasuk profesor fisika ayah mahasiswi Ye Wenjie. Wenjie kemudian dikirim ke kamp pekerja kasar. Tuduhan tanpa bukti membawa Wenjie terlibat proyek rahasia pemerintah di Pangkalan Pantai Merah, untuk mencari kehidupan di luar bumi.
Lebih daripada empat puluh tahun kemudian, karya Ye Wenjie terhubung dengan sejumlah kasus bunuh diri ahli fisika, dan game rumit yang menantang pemainnya dengan masalah fisika klasik yang belum terjawab, masalah tiga benda. Peneliti nanomaterial Wang Miao membantu aparat dalam penyelidikan kasus-kasus bunuh diri dan kaitannya dengan game itu. Namun Wang mendapati pihak berwenang yang meminta bantuannya sedang sangat ketakutan, seolah menghadapi ancaman terbesar terhadap nasib umat manusia.
Sebuah novel tentang Fisika? Lulusan Fisika seperti aku tentunya tidak akan melewatkannya. Dan benar saja, didalamnya banyak bahasan mengenai hukum-hukum fisika, astrofisika khususnya. Karakter-karakter yang ditampilkan menurut seleraku kurang “digali”, seolah-olah karakternya hanya untuk pendukung atau penjelas plot yang sedang dibahas oleh penulis. Aku menghadapi issue ini setiap kali aku membaca asian lit.
Untuk dua benda, misal seperti Bumi yang bergerak mengelilingi Matahari, orbit bumi akan terus mengikuti lintasan tertentu (elips). Namun, begitu ditambahkan benda ketiga, interaksi ini menimbulkan permasalahan tiga benda (three-body problem). Disebut masalah karena sistem tersebut menjadi kacau dan tidak dapat diprediksi. Siapa pun tidak dapat menentukan evolusi sistem tersebut dalam waktu yang lama. Jadi secara umum, masalah tiga benda adalah bagaimana tiga benda bisa bergerak di bawah pengaruh gravitasi masing-masing.
Secara keseluruhan ide astrofisika dalam novel ini sangat imaginatif, terlebih mengangkat masalah tiga benda, namun sayang aku merasa kurang terhubung dengan karakter-karakternya. Aku tetap merekomendasikan ini untuk penggemar asian lit dan penggemar sci-fi, apalagi akan tayang di netflix.

4.25

Fun read, had me undertaking on the possibility of many of the concepts, which is why I love the Sci fi genre in the first place. Entertaining and thought provoking.

spoilers:

I was very intrigued by the setting in the Chinese cultural revolution. The story doesn't stay there for long unfortunately. I was very intrigued by the mystery that gets set up early where the universe ‘blinks'. I really had no idea how the author was going to pull off a satisfying explanation, but assumed they would bc of the amount of praise the book receives. Well I was wrong. I slogged through the middle 2/3 of the book to just be completely let down. The explanation is that it doesn't, its just a magic computer inside of proton or whatever. Just utterly stupid.

A slow-burn with not the most likeable or interesting characters. But by the end, the book really starts to pick up steam and present some interesting ideas. I'm really excited to get into books 2 and 3, which I've heard are even better.

I had heard alot about this book from booktube and have been wanting to read more scifi.

As the title alludes to this is a book focused on physics as the basis for telling the overall narrative.

I love reading up on physics and what the math tells us and always find that a intersting topic to read up on. That being said however this is for sure a hard scifi with alot of math and physics involved in the book. Virtually and entire chapter is essentially a science paper and I would say about half this book is all about explaining these scienctific concepts and ideas which for me really detract from the narrative progession overall. It almost feels like if you took all the science explanations out of the book what you would be left with is a summary of the narrative

I do however love the overall big ideas behind this story and plot. The books ideas focused around progression of civilization and enviromental ideology are explored in this work and are a focus for much of the narrative.

I did enjoy getting some insight into the chinese communist cultural revolution and how that movement in china impacted or influence science in china

I have heard this book described as influenced by classic scifi, big ideas but not alot of character development, which is certainly true for this book. it was a very narrative driven story, not character but could have spent less time on the science and more time on plot development and story progression would have made this better for me personally.

Plus: big idea scifi that makes for a compelling and good read

Minus: long winded science based explanations and info dumps and flat 2 dimensional characters