The Three-Body Problem (The Three-Body Problem, #1) (Remembrance of Earth's Past, #1)

by Cixin Liu

[nannah]

Wow, okay.
I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but a lot of people have said, “Where’s the science in all the science fiction nowadays?”. Well … if that’s you, then read this book. I felt like I needed a degree in astrophysics to truly understand it.

content warnings
Sexism
Mention of suicide

Physics … isn’t real?
Back in China during the Cultural Revolution (mid 1960s), scientist Ye Wenjie is supposed to be sent to a labour camp to be re-educated, but instead she goes to a highly-classified government site created to find alien life.

Then, in the present, we have Wang Miao (nanotech scientist), who also manages to get wrapped up in a similar government project. Or -- literally, kidnapped by cops to be introduced to it. But instead of seeking alien life, they’re exploring the fact that certain scientists keep committing suicide, and they think there’s something out there devoted to destroying mankind.

Wang Miao’s got a lot on his hands, and it only gets worse when he discovers a strange video game called The Three-Body Problem, clearly made for academics. In it, players must solve the puzzle of the game’s world: it has three suns, and the creatures on the planet keep dying when the suns create Chaotic Eras that destroy civilizations.

I may have described this incorrectly, but it’s because I had a difficult time understanding things. It’s written like an academic paper, and I had to read each page twice to understand where things were going. Maybe I’m stupid? Or maybe this book is catered to certain people. Could be both.

While the plot was massive and sprawling, the prose was stilted and awkward. I hope it’s the translator, but I can’t really know. There were character development cop-outs, like one character saying, “I didn’t do this, because I’m quite a lazy man”; “You see why I didn’t do that, right? Because I’m so lazy”, etc. He said he was lazy to justify everything like ten times in that one scene, and I don’t know if that was supposed to be humor? But it just came off as … well, lazy.

There was also some laugh-out-loud sexism, showing this was clearly written by a stereotypical man. Not only were there very few women (except for one of the villains), Wang’s wife and children seemed to disappear halfway through the book. They were never mentioned again. Then there were three female officers who killed Ye’s father back during the Cultural Revolution. They’re now thirty, right? And when they came back, Ye described them as “very, very old, now thirty, one with a stooped back”, etc. This is where I laughed. Literally laughed. I’m now twenty-nine. I guess I’m “very old” as well. When this protag is probably the same age, and he’s fine, but when you’re a woman and thirty, you’re very old and have a stooped back because you’re thirty, etc. Hilarious.

Anyway, when the aliens actually “showed up” they weren’t exactly as menacing as I thought they’d be. The stakes didn’t rise, and the threat seemed very far away. The climax felt the same. Don’t get me wrong, everything was interesting but not very dramatic. I think for me, all the science got in the way. This may be spoilers, but a big part of what was supposed to bring the suspense was the unfolding of a proton. For me, that means absolutely nothing. Maybe someone who actually knows something about science would feel differently, haha!

So I just have to say I felt very lukewarm about everything. I think this book is one of those science fiction novels written for academics to enjoy.