The Three-Body Problem

Executive Summary: Easy to see why this is up for awards, very enjoyable.

Audio book: Luke Daniels! He's awesome. Maybe not the best fit for this book, but I'd take him over just about anyone for audio books. I hope he'll be narrating the rest of the series.

Full Review
This is a hard one for me to review. I generally don't like Hard Sci-Fi too much. I read for pleasure, and I do enough thinking at work. I don't really need to spend my free time thinking hard.

That said, I didn't find the science too overwhelming, except maybe at the end where there was a huge infodump about folding protons. I think if you are a fan of hard sci-fi, you may love this book, where I just found it pretty enjoyable.

The story pulled me in slowly. I wasn't really sure what the prologue had to do with anything until maybe halfway? Possibly later. I have a hard time with names in general, especially in audio, so this was no different, but it was easy enough to keep the characters straight. There isn't a ton of POVs to deal with at least. I think my favorite is probably the no brain/mouth filter cop. His dialogue always made for some fun parts.

My favorite part is probably the Three Body “game”. This is what finally pulled me completely. I'm fairly confident I would have quit it quite early on, but it's interesting to read about someone obviously far smarter than myself take on the challenge.

I really had no idea what this book was going to be about, and I can't say I really saw where it ended up coming, but it wasn't a total surprise either.

The Chinese setting makes for a breath of fresh air. If there is stuff this good coming out of China, I hope more of it gets translated soon. It seems as though Ken Liu does an excellent job with it.

Overall, I think an enjoyable read, and I'm looking forward to picking up the second one when the audiobook gets released.

For the majority of this book, I had three dominant thoughts:

1. “It's nice to see a science fiction writer who doesn't shy away from hard science.”

2. “This book is how I imagine it'd be if someone took an anime and wrote it in book form.”

3. “WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?”

I felt this way for 90% of the book (or so my Kindle revealed to me). Then, the last 10% happened and it all made sense. I finally understood, and it was amazing.

Enticing enough? Check it out for yourself; this is a treasure not to be missed.

This book was weird. After so many glowing reviews (and an excited endorsement by Gizmodo), I really wanted to like it. But it was so disjointed and all over the place that it was really hard to enjoy. The writing was good, and certain parts of it grabbed attention, but then it would cut away from a scene with no explanation and never mention it again. Then everything was very hastily explained at the end to try and tie the story together.

It wasn't bad, but it certainly didn't live up to the hype for me.

Ik lees niet graag vertaalde boeken. Als een vertaler niet heel, héél goed is, kan die zelfs een uitstekend boek kapotmaken.

Het is hoedanook al moeilijk om een goede vertaling te maken, maar een boek uit een volledig andere cultuur vertalen, brengt nog een resem andere problemen met zich mee. The Three-Body Problem (三體) is deel één in een trilogie van China's wellicht meest bekende sciencefictionschrijver, en we kunnen er korte metten mee maken: ik vind het alvast zeer goed vertaald.

Soms is er in de tekst zelf ingegrepen (met instemming van de auteur), en er zijn soms voetnoten nodig om de specifieke context uit te leggen, en de vertaling balanceert tussen vlot Engels en toch ergens de nodige vervreemding van een niet-Engels origineel. Zeer fijn.

Twee hoofdpersonages in het verhaal: Ye Wenjie, astrofysicus en dochter van een tijdens de Culturele Revoluytie geëxecuteerde wetenschapper, en Wang Miao, een onderzoeker in nanotechnologie.

Ye wordt eind de jaren 1960 verbannen naar een houtkapgebied. Ze raakt er gedegouteerd van de vernietiging van de natuur, leest The Silent Spring, dat haar vriend Bai Mulin naar het Engels aan het vertalen was, en ondersteunt hem als hij een vlammende brief naar Beijing stuurt over de ecologische gevolgen van de ontbossing.

De regering is niet zo opgezet met de brief, en Bai steekt het helemaal op Ye. Die normaal gezien in de gevangenis zou vliegen (of erger), maar met haar wetenschappelijke achtergrond krijgt ze de keuze: gevangenis, of de rest van haar leven in een supergeheime wetenschappelijke basis. Redelijk teleurgesteld in de mensheid, kiest ze redelijk vanzelfsprekend het tweede.

In de nabije toekomst plegen een hele reeks vooraanstaande wetenschappers en onderzoekers zelfmoord. Wang Miao raakt in het onderzoek betrokken: blijkt dat een game een belangrijke rol speelt. The Three-Body Problem, een soort simulatie van een beschaving op een planeet die nu eens gewone dagen en seizoenen kent, en dan weer chaotische periodes van onvoorspelbare zonsopgang en -ondergang, met soms volledige verbranding of bevriezing van de planeet tot gevolg.

Terwijl Wang het spel speelt en alsmaar verder raakt – uiteindelijk komt hij er achter dat het om een planeet in een systeem met drie sterren gaat – blijkt dat er iets mis is met een aantal natuurwetten op Aarde. En ziet Wang plots een countdown op foto's die hij neemt. En iets later, ziet hij diezelfde countdown in zijn gezichtsveld. En wordt hem gevraagd om te stoppen met zijn onderzoek in nanotechnologie; door wie precies: niet duidelijk.

Een fijn boek van klassieke harde sciencefiction. Het was al heel lang geleden dat ik er nog zo eentje gelezen had.

Wachten op de vertaling van deel twee en drie, verdorie. Met aliens en al!

I'd rate this one a 1 in character development, but a 5 in some of the later sci-fi themes discussed. Almost any discussion of this book could be a spoiler, but I would say that it unravels in interesting ways I hadn't ever seen before. This one was actually translated from the Chinese version and is the first in a trilogy. I'm looking forward to the others in the series coming out to figure out where they take the story next.

Most of the time, when I pick up a book I know, more or less, what to expect from it. That???s the beauty of genre fiction: if one reads in a genre long enough, one becomes familiar with its conventions and tropes and can anticipate where a particular novel will go, or what it will do given the material and premise at hand. In some genres (like in romance), I find the expected comforting, instead taking pleasure in things like world building and characterisation to make a novel different from all the others in the genre. For science fiction and fantasy, however, I cherish the unexpected, enjoying works that take the familiar and then twist it into something else completely, or that use the familiar to challenge established beliefs and concepts in the everyday world.

Of course, if there is something completely new and fresh, then that???s fantastic as well, though such things tend to be hard to come by. But when I do find them, they tend to be from writers who might not be considered part of the mainstream Western sc-fi/fantasy scene: not just writers who are part of a diaspora, but also writers who write in a language other than English. Unfortunately, those writers who don???t write in English are hard to come by, since the sci-fi/fantasy scene doesn???t exactly have a well-established translation system for works from other languages into English (though there is one for works in English being translated into other languages). This means that many readers aren???t very familiar with what sci-fi/fantasy looks like from the non-Western perspective???and this is truly sad, because such writers could, and often do, provide a different way of looking at the tropes and conventions that many genre readers have come to know, or perhaps create new ones entirely.

However, it became clear that change was in the air when, in 2013, Tor announced that they were publishing a translation of Chinese novelist Cixin Liu???s sci-fi trilogy, titled The Three Body Trilogy, and that the first book, The Three-Body Problem, would be released in November 2014. Liu???s trilogy was wildly popular and highly acclaimed in China, which likely make it the obvious choice for Tor to bring over into the English-reading market.

Since its release, it???s become clear that Tor made the right decision: The Three-Body Problem is an incredible novel, and will hopefully pave the way for more translations of other genre works from non-English writers, not just by Tor, but by other publishers, as well.

The Three-Body Problem begins during the Cultural Revolution, with a young woman, no more than a teenager, being shot down while waving a flag on top of a building. It continues to spiral down from there, shifting from the young woman???her fate held up as an almost archetypal example of the fate that befell so many young people during that especially tumultuous period in China???s history???to the exercise field of Tsinghua University, where a man named Ye Zhetai, one of China???s foremost physicists, is killed in front of his daughter, Ye Wenjie, during a struggle session. This moment is the defining moment for Ye Wenjie, and her future actions???and indeed, the fate of all humanity???are rooted in the moment when Ye Zhetai is murdered by Red Guards.

The first thing the reader needs to understand about The Three-Body Problem is that, yes, it is indeed science fiction, but it follows some conventions that aren???t quite typical to Western literature of any sort. Specifically, Liu is following some of the stylistic conventions of Chinese literature. Now, I won???t say that I have a very vast experience of Chinese literature, but what I have read (specifically the novels Water Margin/Outlaws of the Marsh, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as well as Lu Xun???s short stories) does point to Liu filtering his science fiction through a very specifically Chinese literary perspective.

Take, for example, the constant digressions from the main storyline, whether it is to explore some tidbit of history; to explain some scientific fact; or to tackle a philosophical point, overtly or otherwise. Quite a few readers have complained that the novel reads slow, and this is true: the novel is rather slow to start, and does slow down from time to time at other points throughout the novel. But those digressions are, in fact, essential to understanding the world in which the novel is set, as well as offering vital clues regarding character motivations and ideologies. One could, perhaps, get away with skimming some parts, but there is always the chance that one might miss something important, and pay for that lack of understanding further down the line. I know I certainly did, when I found myself having to flip back several pages (sometimes several chapters, in some cases) because I found myself scratching my head at something late in the novel that was actually explained in a previous chapter.

Another aspect of this novel that some readers have complained about is the constant hopping back and forth between past and present, and the rather jarring transitions between character perspectives. As with the digressions, these are important, offering an understanding of the characters and/or the situation they are in that would otherwise have to be outright stated, or inferred elsewhere. They offer as three-dimensional an understanding of the events in the novel and of the characters, as best as is possible without actually inhabiting the characters??? minds.

Another interesting thing about this novel is that, while it is indeed sci-fi, it???s very difficult to peg down just what kind of sci-fi it is, at least at first. For the greater part of the novel I thought it was going to be a techno-thriller of some kind: something set during the Cold War, a la John le Carr?????s novels, but set in China with more computer programming. But then certain events happened that made it quite clear that this was not going to be just a techno-thriller. It???s rather difficult to talk about precisely what happens without giving the game away entirely, and so much of this novel relies on the reader not being able to anticipate anything to make it such an enjoyable read. Suffice to say that this novel goes places the reader expects, to a degree, especially if they are fans of sci-fi, but how they get there, and what happens when they do, are completely unexpected.

If there is any one thing that I can use to describe the plot without giving too much away, it is that it???s like a Chinese puzzle ball: an intricately carved toy consisting of three to seven balls nestled within each other, and containing a small trinket???a precious stone, usually???in its heart. The only way to reach the jewel within is to get all the balls to align perfectly, which, depending on the complexity of the ball, can be as tricky, or trickier than, trying to solve a Rubik???s cube. It is also the perfect image to describe the plot of this novel: intricate, layered, and requiring mountains of patience and a delicate (mental) touch to figure out what???s going on. And since a great deal of the pleasure of solving a puzzle is letting the solver figure out the solution on their own, I shall not speak overmuch of the plot of this novel beyond what I have already mentioned.

The characters, fortunately, are somewhat easier to talk about without giving too much away. Ye Wenjie is easy to get attached to, not only because she is the first character the reader encounters and because of that rather traumatic start to her story, but because she???s very well-written, and rather well-developed, considering the things she does and why she does them. At any rate, one cannot accuse her of being uninteresting, because she very much is. I wouldn???t say that she???s quite perfectly developed, but then again, this is just the first book of a trilogy, and there is certainly going to be more to come in the next two books. Another interesting character is Shi Qiang. He acts primarily as a foil for the other main character (Wang Miao), but I liked him because of the role he comes to play in the story. He???s not easy to like, at least not at first, but he does grow on one. I???m also very much looking forward to finding out how he develops and what happens to him further down the line in the next two books.

I must also say that I???m very happy with Ken Liu???s translation. While I cannot say with absolute certainty if he did a good job with his translation, I will say that the way the novel reads echoes the translations done of the Chinese novels I mentioned earlier???translations which were recommended to me by my professors in grad school, and whose word I trust regarding such matters. The very fact that the novel does not read like a Western novel is a clear indicator that Ken Liu has taken great care to echo the spirit of Cixin Liu???s original text???something which any proper translator must do, as a way of respecting, not just the author of the original text, but also the reader of the translated work, by showing faith in their ability to enjoy the text as is (or as close to ???as is??? as a translator can get). I hope that Joel Martinsen, who will be translating the second book in the trilogy, titled The Dark Forest, puts out a translation that works seamlessly with Ken Liu???s.

Overall, The Three-Body Problem is not what most readers would expect???and that???s the beauty of it. It takes some getting used to, to be sure, but that???s only because most sci-fi readers will likely be unaccustomed to the conventions of Chinese literature that Liu is applying to his work. Once one becomes accustomed to the non-Western conventions of the novel (and it does to take very long), the reader can appreciate the intricacy of the story, and the direction Liu appears to be taking the story. It???s early days yet to know where this story is going, given that this is the first book of a trilogy, but whatever the case may be, I am sure that it???s going to be fun, and deadly, and heartbreaking, and all things a good story, regardless of genre, needs to be.

reviews.metaphorosis.com

3.5 stars

Wang Miao, researcher on nano-materials, becomes involved in a mysterious group gathering recruits through an enigmatic video game. With the help of crude and irritating policeman Shi Qiang, he gradually discovers more about the group and its ambitious plans.

I'd requested this book on NetGalley before I read a modified excerpt from it in the anthology Carbide Tipped Pens, and was surprised, because the story (about historical China) and the novel's premise seemed quite different. It turns out that the story version was substantially modified from the book version, and the book version takes place within a video game setting that refers to historical figures. That's a bit unfortunate, because story is better than the book.

On the plus side, it's a pleasure to read more SFF that's not grounded in standard Western settings. Action takes place from the Cultural Revolution to the near future, and Liu is forthright in his examination of each period. It's an interesting look at a history I know relatively little about. Liu has also clearly thought about the scientific elements of his story, and the book follows in the tradition of reasonably credible projections of current science. Some of the elements get a bit fuzzy, but there's enough basis to accept a lot of it. The basic plot is interesting and well structured.

Where the book weakens is in fine presentation. Some aspects are so obvious that it's not credible characters wouldn't understand them right away. There's an important website called 3body.net, yet our protagonist takes quite a long time to consider that perhaps there are three bodies involved. (The game itself is also fairly static and generally uninteresting.) More to the point, the writing is simply dry. Characters face dramatic changes in their lives, the world, the universe, all with remarkable equanimity. Some are calm to the point of seeming inhuman. The lead character, Wang Miao, has a wife who plays virtually no role in the story. I think he may have children too, but they're so inconsequential as to not matter. I don't believe we ever learn any of their names - all while Wang is undergoing deep (but very calm) soul searching.

The style of the book is reminiscent of some of Stephen Baxter's drier outings. Liu is not quite as insistent on throwing in esoteric data, but there's plenty of it around. With Baxter, I think of him as pushing little factoids that he genuinely thinks are interesting. With Liu, it feels more like information that he just happens to know, but that seems somewhat extraneous to the story. There are also a number of post-facto explanations that suggest a final edit would have helped.

That this was translated by Ken Liu is both a plus and a minus. Normally, I might put the stylistic weaknesses of the story down to translation. However, I've read enough of Ken Liu's work and his translation that I have a sense of his style. It's frankly just more lively than this. Author and translator each include an interesting afterword, but neither changed my feeling that the dry style is down to the author, and not his translator. Ken Liu also includes endnotes to most chapters that I felt were genuinely helpful in understanding context. There are a few phrases in the text that seemed too obviously aimed at the non-Sinophile audience, and I wish the endnotes had been structured as actual footnotes, but that was a minor issue.

I hope more people read Cixin Liu's work. It's good to see the field broadened, and Stephen Baxter has proven that there's a market for SFF more focused on ideas than people. At the same time, while there are two sequels to this book, I don't plan to search them out. Intellectually, I'm interested to learn what happens, but emotionally, I was so little invested in the characters that I don't really care what happens to them. The story is simply too dry to hold my interest, despite the unusual setting.

NB: Received free copy from Net Galley.