The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #1) by Liu Cixin - Starting February 2nd 2020

[Claire]

The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

[Claire]

End of Part 1
(view spoiler)[Wow, that a start. I got like 8 pages in before I had to spend a good 15 mins looking up what happened during the Cultural Revolution, that wasn't on my school's history curriculum so I knew literally nothing about it other than that it happened in the 70s.

I'm really excited to get to the scifi part of this story! I'm not really into historical fiction but it is definitely cool to learn new things. (hide spoiler)]

[Claire]

Up to the End of 'Three Body: Mozi and Fiery Flames'
(view spoiler)[The real-world plot feels quite straightforward so far but I'm a little confused by the game plot and how the game works. Like it's a MMORPG, so are all the people being dehydrated real human players who just aren't participating in the scientific aspect of the game or are they NPCs?

The story kind of just threw us into the game with little context or explanation, hopefully it will make more sense later on. The idea of a game with no guide where you have to figure out the mechanics of the world is so freaking awesome though! (hide spoiler)]

[Wiktoria]

chapter one
It's taken me a while to get to this book but I finally managed it xd
(view spoiler)[ so far I really love the writing style. I love the detached third-person point of view and it's piqued my interest (hide spoiler)]

[Claire]

End of Part 2
(view spoiler)[Whew, this book is starting to really test my understanding of computer programming. So we got a little more explanation about what's going on with the game, but I'm still hella confused especially with different players having experienced a different number of iterations of the game?

The level of detail in the game is a little difficult to really imagine/accept especially considering that the story takes place in the mid 00s, we don't even have close to that level of technology now. (I mean look at what happened with No Man's Sky)

I was expecting to be confused by the science but instead I'm just confused by the plot, hopefully more things get explained soon! (hide spoiler)]

[Claire]

Wiktoria wrote: "chapter one
It's taken me a while to get to this book but I finally managed it xd
[spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[Same! I'm not at all a fan of flowery or purple prosey writing styles, I'm much more comfortable with writing like this. (hide spoiler)]

[Claire]

Finished!
(view spoiler)[I legit laughed at Da Shi saying how he didn't expect aliens, because same 😂

I know it says 'alien' in the book summary but this was one of the rare times when I picked up a book purely as a recommendation without any prior knowledge of the plot.

I really appreciate that even though the scientific sections get pretty technical, the author always eventually sums up what's happening in layman's terms so that it can be easily understood even by people with minimal knowledge of the subject like me.

So that was pretty awesome, I wasn't 100% wowed by the book (maybe something was lost in translation) but I found it quite engaging and thought the plot was very well done. I was getting worried that I would remain confused about what was going on with the game after it ended without proper explanations, but everything actually managed to make sense by the end.

I was surprised at how so many of the characters in the character list at the start of the book just dropped like flies, I mean there obviously wasn't time for every single one of them to become important but still.

Fun fact: There's an episode of Bob's Burgers that parodied scenes from this book! (UFO Oh No You Didn't) I didn't realise it at the time because I wasn't familiar with this book, but as soon as I read the scene with Ye receiving the 'Do not reply' message I was like wait a minute... I've seen this before! It's a fun episode btw, would recommend watching it :D (hide spoiler)]

[Wiktoria]

oh wow, that was fast, I'm only on part two!

[Wiktoria]

end of part one, thought I might as well check in.
(view spoiler)[ I really love this writing style, but I'm so confused about what the plot of this book is. There's so much happening, with different time periods and I don't know which will be our main one.
I can't wait to get to the sci-fi part of the story, I sure hope it happens soon! (hide spoiler)]