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

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What Members Thought

Aug 25, 2020 Michelle rated it it was ok

Shelves: audio, aliens, science-fiction, book-clubs, author-asian, bbbbc, award-winner-hugo, 2020

Finally done...shout to my boyfriend who had to listen to no less than 3 rants in a 4 hour period.

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So I have a lot of thoughts and not a lot of mental energy to put them here without it devolving into another rant, so I'll boil this down the best I can.

1. This book is extraordinarily long-winded in every way. The characters can literally fill pages with explanations to things that can be summed up in easier to digest ways. The metaphors are piled on top of each other as if to ease the digesti Finally done...shout to my boyfriend who had to listen to no less than 3 rants in a 4 hour period.

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So I have a lot of thoughts and not a lot of mental energy to put them here without it devolving into another rant, so I'll boil this down the best I can.

1. This book is extraordinarily long-winded in every way. The characters can literally fill pages with explanations to things that can be summed up in easier to digest ways. The metaphors are piled on top of each other as if to ease the digestion of info but only served to make the explanation that much longer.
2. Some of the science just seemed...off? I'm not physicist, the extent of my scientific knowledge is only slightly higher than casual, so I could just be underthinking it but some of this just didn't make sense.
3. As a human cynic, who often shrugs at the idea of humans being wiped out by their own stupidity, the cynicism in this was still rooted in optimism and I kind of had to laugh at that. If I'm jaded to the concept of humanity being about to fix the problems it's caused, then the idea of another life form fixing those problems for me is just as unlikely...because they also live and I'm assuming have some sort of ingrained bias (like their survival) that will probably screw it all up.
4. That video game was at best a visual novel, and not a good one. I get the point of it, but if you are going to force me to read chapter after chapter of this game make it more interesting than having the character just sort of sit there and witness it. He does speak up occasionally, but that's just to finally advance the plot.
5. None of the characters have any sort of depth to them except Ye Wenjie, and even she falls victim to just being an important that plot point at times. The story barely takes time to acknowledge it's own characters but is by its nature about the character of people...which makes the whole thing massively frustrating to read.
6. Most of the plot is shoved in the last third of the book. The first third is set up, the second third is essentially a series of long-winded hints, and the third actually tells you what's going on. As a result it's a slow slog through most of it.
7. This book could have easily been condensed down, which is frightening considering it's not actually that long to begin with. ...more

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Oct 20, 2020 Winter rated it it was ok

Shelves: scifi

I just couldn't' get into this book. I did manage to finish it, but near the end it was more out of sheer stubbornness. I don't like to spend too much time on reviews that aren't positive. So just a few quick points. (There are probably some spoilers.)

• I picked it up because it was a Hugo Award winner. And now I'm confused.

• I have been focusing on sci fi and fantasy from different voices. I keep coming back to the Octavia Butler quote "There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new sun I just couldn't' get into this book. I did manage to finish it, but near the end it was more out of sheer stubbornness. I don't like to spend too much time on reviews that aren't positive. So just a few quick points. (There are probably some spoilers.)

• I picked it up because it was a Hugo Award winner. And now I'm confused.

• I have been focusing on sci fi and fantasy from different voices. I keep coming back to the Octavia Butler quote "There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns". And for me this was a new sun.

• In so many other reviews I see comments along the lines of "maybe hard sci fi isn't for me...". I thought I knew what hard sci fi was, but I checked wiki to be sure. Per wikipedia "Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic.
...neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy; instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful." Given that definition I was going to make a case that this isn't really hard sci fi. But that's just arguing about categories that have a lot of grey area, and not helpful. So I'm not going there... Also, wikipedia itself lists Three Body Problem as an example of hard sci fi, so there's that. I will say this instead, when the expanse series goes into orbital mechanics and gravity wells and thrust gravity, I love those parts. And right after finishing Three Body Problem I jumped into The Calculating Stars . In the opening chapter there is discussion about how ejecta plumes from a meteor and the differing speeds of light, sound and shock waves. And I was immediately hooked. But in Three Body Problem I didn't get that. The giant computer made from millions of people was interesting - sort of. But the aliens felt magical, more like supernatural creatures than aliens. And the 2 photon and information folding bit felt about as much like real science as a lightsaber, maybe less. The worst for me was the indestructible monofilament wire. I'm not a physicist, but I could see some significant issues with that. And yes, there's the Clarke quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” But then just call it magic. Don't try to hide behind hard science and "it's magic" at the same time.

• I liked Da Shi. He was the closest to a rounded character in the book. I probably should have started with this... I need characters and character development, at least to some degree, to enjoy a book. There isn't much of that here.

• The artificial reality game within the book was interesting. But Snowcrash has my heart, and it just wasn't anywhere near that level. (or Ready Player One if you haven't read Snowcrash, and you should)

Overall, it left me feeling unsatisfied. I'm glad I read it. There were some interesting insights into they way science and scientists are viewed in other cultures. That was probably the part I'll remember the longest. But it didn't do anything new, or tell a story that I haven't heard some version of already. ...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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