From the Bookshelf of The Sword and Laser…

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

Liu Cixin,

Ken Liu (Translator)

Start date: January 1, 2017

Finish date: January 31, 2017

Discussion: 2017 Reads

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2017 Reads

TIL: April 2017 Pick: The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
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last updated Mar 09, 2019 02:21PM

LWSAP: Does the book succeed on its own terms?
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What Members Thought

May 19, 2015 Tensy (bookdoyen) rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, books-in-translation

In an upper level high school French class I was given an assignment to translate a French poem into English. Adding another layer to this, I was originally a Spanish language speaker. I remember getting my paper back with a bright red "A" written across the top, but what really stuck with me was what the teacher said to the class when she gave it to me. She said I had done a beautiful job of not just translating the words, but also the essence and cadence of the poem.

While reading Cixin Liu's T ...more

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Mar 23, 2017 Tom Britz rated it it was amazing

This novel won the 2015 Hugo, the first novel written in Chinese and then translated into English to have this honor. It, for all of its minor blemishes, is well worth it. The story is reminiscent of some "Golden Age" science fiction, but the science is modern and as far as I can tell fairly accurate. The minor problems with the story that I see are probably due to the difficulties of translating, not only the words and meanings, but also a very different cultural mind-set.

The story begins duri This novel won the 2015 Hugo, the first novel written in Chinese and then translated into English to have this honor. It, for all of its minor blemishes, is well worth it. The story is reminiscent of some "Golden Age" science fiction, but the science is modern and as far as I can tell fairly accurate. The minor problems with the story that I see are probably due to the difficulties of translating, not only the words and meanings, but also a very different cultural mind-set.

The story begins during China's cultural revolution of the mid 1960's and 1970's, where a certain scientist was murdered in front of his small daughter, Ye Wenjie, over his beliefs in science over political dogma. The man's wife was turned against him and the daughter saw this as well. The scene moves to the daughter now fully grown and a scientist in her own right, however due to her "past" associations she was not considered a full member of the party, so Ye Wenjie is exiled to a scientific research station that listened for signals of a possible outer civilization.

This other civilization is a mathematical nightmare come to life. Imagine living on a planet with three suns, and not a stable orbit. Each sun takes its turn "capturing" the planet. The civilization has adopted to the extremes of heat and cold, I do mean extremes, by being able to completely dehydrate their bodys and storing the husk, to be hydrated at a safe time when the orbit stabilizes. This is where a "red flag" came up for me, such as how does that happen? If they are all dehydrated, who gets the signal that all is well? But the story does capture your attention and you are able to gloss over some of these.

It does turn out that when we do get this signal from the Other, that Ye Wenjie is the one that notices it and even after she is warned by this other civilization's own martyr and traitor, to not answer, because that would lead to an invasion from them, her own bitterness against humanity is strong enough that she does answer, hoping that any civilization able to successfully travel the distances of interstellar space, would be benevolent. Which is proven to be NOT the case.

This is volume one of a trilogy, the second is out here in the States and the third is due in September. I have the second coming in the mail and will order the third when it does appear. If the next two are as good as this, it should be an experience well worth your time! ...more

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Oct 14, 2015 Tao rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-collection

Aliens is about to invade earth. There are some earthling collaborators. We have a glimpse of the strange alien world.

Some interesting Chinese background of the Great Cultural revolution in the 1960s.

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Jul 28, 2020 Matthew rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book

This book started off pretty strong for me, but stumbled about halfway through and never fully recovered. I really enjoyed the hard science aspect of the book. There is a lot of discussion regarding physics and math here. Unfortunately, some of the story elements broke my immersion. There were several points in the story where narrative points came across as too convenient.

A scene about halfway in that takes place in a cafe seemed like we had one of our characters jump from outsider to right in ...more

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Jun 07, 2023 Becky rated it liked it

This book had interesting ideas and plot, and the way that the story interwove the history of the the cultural revolution was unlike other sci-fi I have read, but I found the characters and writing style flat.

I also have a real antipathy for dream sequences or drug trips in books/movies/etc. and it turns out that a surrealistic video game occupies very much the same space for me, so it felt like there was way too much of that in this book. In retrospect it is actually a pretty interesting narrat ...more

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