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To each their own!
I didn't super care about the characters but the sci fi problems, solutions and ideas of the whole series were a blast.
That being said, I grew up reading a lot of classic/"hard" sci fi so I'm pretty used to characters taking a back seat to fun/cool ideas.
Yeah, I felt it was largely a throwback to 1940s and 1950s western SF. Liu feels a lot like Asimov or early Heinlein. I was thinking it was like the kind of thing that a rapidly industrializing society would write as part of the cultural zeitgeist.
Damn, that's a neat take. Hadn't thought of that, but yeah, the sheer, weird "what would happen if" premise is what kept me reading, so all of the exposition was yummy rather than annoying
Liu's short stories are all like that, if you get the chance. What if the world had to be moved out of solar orbit? What if a small class of Chinese schoolchildren were chosen to be representative of all humanity? He has these bold, brash concepts that feel like they were written in a USA that felt that the moon was a stepping stone to the stars. Like Heinlein writing about a kid boshing up a spaceship in the yard.
Liu kinda represents a China that can dream really big in the same way.
Exactly how I felt! The premise and everything was so much fun. Like, the opening "mystery" of why physics seemed broken was such a wildly cool idea and the answer was so neat but opened up more etc.
Interesting, I really hadn't considered much beyond the political context and hadn't really thought about the societal ones but now that you mention it, yeah absolutely.
Thank you.
I read them all, hated them, and spent a good week finding negative reviews so I could fume at them in company.
I disagree with you on 3 Body, but I love reading reviews that match my opinion just so I can be like, "Exactly! Thank you!"
This is a failure of the reader, not the literature. It's science fiction space opera written from the cultural perspective completely alien to most western sci-fi literature. It's absolutely nothing like H.G. Wells, Asimov, Clarke, Vinge, Herbert, Heinlein, or Niven. The Three Body Problem is almost the antithesis of all of those manifest destiny individual heroes. All of those authors have much more alike amongst themselves than they do with the narrative history we read through The Three Body Problem. Of course a lot of western readers don't like it, it wasn't written for their perspective. I don't even think I could really get into it enough to REALLY enjoy it as much as my "comfort food" sci-fi. But, I could tell their was something there, and it was my own limitation of understanding, not a failure of the literature or the translation.
So here was my experience: finished Project Hail Mary, Google for books similar to it, was recommended 3 Body Problem. Cool. Start listening to it on audible while running errands, a LOT of stuff about the cultural revolution in China, and a very depressed smart young woman and a satellite dish that does weird stuff... a few chapters in and no humor, no science, nothing even remotely like Project Hail Mary or Andy Weir's other writing. So I dropped it.
A year or two later and Netflix adapted the novels into a TV show. Gave it a watch and got pretty bought in. Definitely some cool mystery, intrigue, done if it a bit cheesy, but raised a lot of cool challenges and questions. Also I could see that there was actually some science coming in my science fiction story. So I went back and gave the book a go.
I finished all the books and... it's a bit of a mess narratively. I felt like the author was REALLY good at coming up with creative problems that seemed insurmountable. And many of the solutions to those problem (many, not all) were equally clever and creative. He also came up with the (as far as I'm aware) completely novel concepts of alien biology, culture, and psychology and fictional technologies. But the story very often yadda yadda'd over complex narratives and geopolitical events with time jumps after making them seem like they were incredibly important before hand. He also comes up with some very cool concepts like the Wall Facers and the massive ramifications of having a handful of people that are unquestionable and work in complete secret and will have the highest levels of machinations in the works to save humanity, including one that DOES NOT WANT THE JOB. Such a good setup for so many possibilities... And then they almost immediately backpedal and undermine that with political oversight, borderline cartoon supervillain plans from some of them, and revocation of all of their statuses. There's other stuff too that's just disappointing from a narrative perspective.
But I kept going. I think because the technology was cool, the stakes were massive, the challenge was interesting, some of the mystery was really compelling, and I enjoyed the uniqueness of it all. It could have definitely been better. I think a lot of the ideas could have been explored more thoroughly and more cleanly. But, I don't regret reading it. I think it was pretty cool for the things it did well.
I read it some time ago before it was hyped up as much, saw it as a fun and interesting read but yeah a little shallow and action movie esque. It is definitely worth reading for the premise if you are a science fiction fan though, that aspect is solid, and I liked how it gives some details about Chinese culture and history that I wasn't very familiar with.
Aliens live on a planet orbiting three suns. The planet regularly gets scorched by those suns. Hot enough to melt rocks. How tf these aliens keep evolving and advancing all the way to space travel?
It is utterly ridiculous.
Rant incoming
The three body problem is chaotic dynamical system. Chaotic means, between other things, that it is unpredictable: given two different starting points, even incredibly close, their behavior will diverge (become different) exponentially fast over time (and we saw during the Covid epidemic that exponentially fast is really damn fast).
So having a super smart mathematician approximating its simulation… that’s a load of bullshit, hot and steamy. That’s a master level example of how not to spend your days, because any approximation you do is going to impact your results exponentially fast.
Furthermore, the three body problem’s solutions don’t need to be bounded. What does this mean? That there is no reason for the planet to stay in orbit of the three suns. Any time it gets far, it could come back, but just as easily keep going further away and lose connection with its starting system. Any time it gets near the suns it could just as easily fall into one of them. So, most likely, during geological ages, the planet would have either gotten ejected or eaten up. If you want to go even further back, there is no way an asteroid belt would generate a planet in these conditions.
Finally, there are well-known configurations of solutions of the three body problem. Configurations are very specific situations (usually assuming two suns of equal mass and a sun that is much smaller and much further away) that can sustain periodic solutions, aka behaviors that repeat after a certain time. If a planet ever got generated in a three suns system, it would definitely need to be in one of these configurations.
The nail in the coffin: if there are three suns and a planet… it’s the four body problem. If you consider the planet to have basically zero mass with respect to the suns, you call it the restricted four body problem.
And this is why knowing way more than the author spoils the fun :( I could not enjoy the science part at all… even when i tried to suspend my disbelief.
Exactly what keeps me from writing anything, which is silly, but I hate the idea of somebody reading something I wrote and thinking, "what an idiot" 😔
Oh, I am sorry… but you can see this thread: even if there are quite some inaccuracy on the math and physics side of things, many people still really enjoyed this book (my partner included, even after hearing my rant many time). You should not censor yourself! (But accept criticism and improve from it). You go gender-neutral-guy!
Easy. DEHYDRATE!
Here's how I understand it to work.
They have random periods of activity in which they advance as a species so they make large leaps in scientific progress when they are awake as opposed to a slow and steady build up of knowledge. Their large leaps in advancements becomes a disadvantage at times but more so their way of thinking in general.
Because they kinda portray themselves as humanoid that's how you're lead to think about them, like approximately human sized smart mamal-ish creatures, when really they are between ant to beetle sized hive mind creatures. This is why the more of them that they are able to have active between the harsh sun cycles the faster they advance. Also makes the whole dehydration thing easier to swallow.
And how do Trisolarians manage to transfer knowledge from one stable era to the next? The surface of the planet literally burns during the chaotic era. Which begs another question, how do they rehydrate? With what water?
Yeah I thought it sucked ass too. Supposedly the second and third books are better.
The first one is a major slog, and the next two aren't significantly easier to get through. I thought the ideas were fascinating and the overall story was pretty good. But the characters are all completely flat and uninteresting. I had a tough time remembering who was who, but it really didn't affect the story at all.
Additionally the writing was not great and, especially in the second and third book, very sexist. It was worth it to read once, but I definitely won't be reading it again. My spouse keeps asking if I'll watch the show, but I'm on the fence. I heard they condensed the characters to a more streamlined cast, which would be a good start. But I still doubt I'll watch it.
The American version of the show is a lot more what people would want, character wise. Not quite as flat. But not true to the book at all.
I liked it, even if the characters weren't great. I liked book 1 in kind of a detective/mystery novel kind of way. The first book is very different from the next two, which is where I think the series really starts to address larger questions. It's still kind of flimsy and the characters might get worse, but I like some of the questions and hypotheses about the universe that it addresses. It gets into a more philosophical approach to the universe and how other species may interact with each other, mutually assured destruction, and how the human race would react to a sword of Damocles hanging over our head for 400 years. It's told from a Chinese perspective as well, so it was interesting to me to see how he thinks these might play out as opposed to my assumptions coming from a western perspective.
I think the dark forest hypothesis as an answer to Fermi is reasonable, and I like a lot of the big picture ideas.
But yea, it's not really a character driven series.
You are absolutely correct OP. They are genuinely terrible books. And no, it's not - as some people like to claim - that book 1 is bad but the series gets better. Out of sheer morbid fascination I have made it to book 3, and it absolutely, categorically, does not get better. Dark Forest is actually worse than Three Body, considerably so. At least all the cultural revolution backstory in book 1 is kind of interesting and well executed. Dark Forest is a steaming pile of bullshit; utterly unlikable characters, one of the weakest versions of a scifi future ever committed to page, endless chapters worth of dumb Death Note style "Aha, but I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that..." bullshit, and the signature premise of the entire book is a theory about the universe grounded in some absolutely atrocious game theory that can be disproved in five minutes. And ten chapters into Death's End... Yeah, it's still awful. Even more unlikable or just outrageously unbelievable characters - the author writes like he's never actually interacted with another human being - and dull plotting with no sense of pacing or urgency.
Cixin Liu has some strengths as a writer; at times he shows himself adept at building anticipation, he's good at knowing how to lay out his ideas towards a conclusion without suddenly dumping everything on you at the last second (something a lot of writers struggle with) and he really is very good at big crazy scifi ideas that make you go "Wow, that's so cool." But he's a bad writer. I compare him a lot to Asimov, in that he's strong on ideas and weak on everything else. But Asimov was primarily known for his short stories, where those strengths could shine and the weaknesses could be hidden (which is exactly why the Foundation novels get worse as they move away from being collections of novellas and towards being full length novels). Liu on the other hand writes interminably long books that absolutely expose those weaknesses. When it shines, it's really cool. There's one particular sequence in Dark Forest that really does stand out as being an incredibly inventive idea, executed very competently. But the standout moments just aren't worth the dross you have to wade through to get there.
I think there's a real struggle in translating Chinese literature into English.
For what it's worth, the second book - The Dark Forest - starts off much stronger and builds from there, making the first book feel more like it was just introducing the story.
the Dark Forest sucks just as hard if not more so. the premise of the story
spoiler
Mutually Assured Destruction
isnt an original thought, but the author refuses to acknowledge it until the end, pretending like it wasn't obvious the whole story. then he hand waves the problems he sets up (how do you deal with an alien technology so much more sophisticated than your own) pretending like the sophons just couldn't deal with the threat. All this and the character doesn't ever really develop. Things happen to him, but we don't get any meat to his personality, just external bullshit.
I started listening to the third book because I am a gluten for punishment and I have a long commute, but it just meandered. If it was another author Id give them the benefit of the doubt, but I havnt been able to get through it.
The premise of The Dark Forest is extremely explicitly not MAD though.
After much struggle I got some geeky friends of mine to start a book club. I suggested this as the first book based on the hype. Almost no one finished it. When we got together to drink and talk, only two others bothered to dial in (It was during COVID and we are scattered), no one else finished it.
I dislike this book in so many different ways. It has some interesting Ideas and some surprising insights into the modern Chinese view of the revolution, but as an actual story? Ive read better fan fic.
Okay, to start: not every book is for everyone and everyone is entitled to opinions. My opinion is that it is okayish. I liked the second one more (Dark Forest).
That said, the book is weird. It's like going to an art gallery and staring at paintings. Each painting is a chapter. Everything is beautifully depicted but totally static. The chapters in the book are look someone describing a painting to someone in the gallery who is blind.
And the paintings (and their descriptions) are good, but they aren't mind blowing or anything.
But, if you sit an digest it for a bit afterwards -- continuing the metaphor: you're on the train home from the gallery and it hits you -- there's themes woven between them. In my opinion, it's actually better once you step back and look at the whole book as though it was an exhibit of paintings with a theme. A few days removed from the book, you'll be returning to the ideas in it, even if all the characters and plot points blend together.
Anyway, my two protons.
I agree that The Dark Forest is better. The premise is so simple: Alien fleet is coming here in a few hundred years, let's see how humanity will go nuts or prepare in a myriad of ways. (And also there are no aliens in the second book - I did not like them, they were too human attitude-wise and too inconsistent tech-wise)
The fictional science of the sophons was also bad.
The book author thought that protons were fundamental particles. Protons are made up of quarks. So the idea of unfolding a proton when it's made up of 3 quarks doesn't make sense. Put 3 marbles next to each other. Label the 3 marbles a proton. Unfold it. ???
Quantum teleportation doesn't allow for FTL communication.
I enjoyed it and have recommended it, but then I reread it and yea, it's not great. But it had some interesting new concepts, for which I'm still grateful I read the books, like the dark forest theory.
Except that the dark forest hypothesis completely falls apart when you examine it for more than a few minutes.
SPOILER
Basically, the fundamental problem is that it applies game theory really badly, by treating the value of "survival" as functionally infinite, which is something that - if we actually applied it in reality - would make life unlivable. For example, eating a chocolate bar contains a miniscule risk to your survival. But if you multiply any minute fraction by infinity you get infinity, so the risk outweighs any possible value you could obtain. This becomes true for every decision you can possibly make. At both the individual and societal levels, treating survival as a purpose that outweighs everything else just leads to total paralysis. Any society that operated on those principles would never actually advance to the point of being capable of interacting with the wider universe. Liu even has to treat humanity itself - our only extant example of a space-faring species - as an almost impossible outlier because our own behaviour completely shatters the hypothesis. Even our studies of animal life on earth repeatedly demonstrate that curiosity and altruism are actually traits that evolution selects for, not against. Yeah, it solves Fermi's Paradox, but that's literally the only argument for it. It fails every other test possible. It's a really interesting idea for a scifi setting, but it's not remotely supported by reality.
I'm not really sure what you mean. I don't think 'infinifte' value vs arbitrarily high value makes a difference here. Also evolutionarily, intraspecies collaboration is beneficial, not necessarily interspecies. Although we're talking about civilizations making decisions, not animal behaviour.
I know it falls apart quickly, but I still like it as a concept. I also like dragons, magic and immortal beings as concepts.
I read it nine years ago and it was a slog. I had heard good things, but it definitely wasn't for me. Needless to say, I did not read the rest of the trilogy.
I tried to read the book but good God it was so bad and so boring it took me months to get about halfway, then the show came out and I was like 'yes! Maybe this will give me motivation!' and I couldn't be bothered to finish that either.