April 2015 Group Read - The Three Body Problem

[Jo]

This thread is to discuss The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin.

[Buck]

I have this on hold at my library. It was available for me for three days, but I overlooked the notification and discovered it two hours after my hold expired and now it's unavailable again. Drat.

[Jo]

Buck wrote: "I have this on hold at my library. It was available for me for three days, but I overlooked the notification and discovered it two hours after my hold expired and now it's unavailable again. Drat."

That's unlucky. I hope you get to read it soon, i'm half-way through and really enjoying it. It's really clever and well written, i'm totally gripped.

[Jo]

What a great book, in fact it's one of the best books i've read in some time. I do like hard sci-fi and this is certainly that. I'm often disappointed by highly rated sci-fi but not this time and I can't wait for the second book.

[James]

I'm about half done, love the premise (it's all a lie) and it does indeed seem well written (or well translated?). Not getting into the 'game' parts very much, the plethora of historical characters, and in particular their introductions, seems a bit corny. Also there seem to be some inconsistencies with it (of course, I'm not finished, so these may be resolved yet). Having recently read Altered Carbon and not so long ago read Ready Player One, I may just be suffering some 'VR Fatigue'.

Despite those complaints I am enjoying it and looking forward to seeing how everything pans out.

[Jo]

James wrote: "I'm about half done, love the premise (it's all a lie) and it does indeed seem well written (or well translated?). Not getting into the 'game' parts very much, the plethora of historical characters..."

I liked the 'game' parts partially due to the fact they are more of a science nerd type game rather than fast paced complicated things which are difficult (for me) to understand. I'm completely hopeless at computer games unless they are logical so this is the kind of game I can appreciate. Anyway don't want to give anything away so will wait and see if you think the inconsistencies get resolved or not.

[Barb]

I am almost done with this book. I'm really loving it. I thought there were some really unique ideas (i.e. the photography countdown) and so much fun science!

[James]

Good speculative hard sci-fi. Rather enjoyed how it panned out, and will no doubt read the next one.

One inconsistency with the 'game' part still irks a bit, but the game parts didn't dominate like I thought they would, and they aren't hugely important in the bigger picture anyway.

Recommended.

[Buck]

I have mixed feelings about The Three-Body Problem. Following it's convoluted plot is a good read; never a dull moment, but I feel it fell short of all the hype it has received. It is certainly science heavy, which to me is generally a good thing, but I don't know how plausible some of the science is. After hearing the audiobook version, in which I had difficulty with the Chinese names, I got a Kindle version that has a list of characters. That was helpful. I thought it was very interesting to see the dystopic cultural revolution through the eye's of a present day Chinese author.

Here are some random thoughts:
--It was never really explained why scientists were committing suicide.
--Why didn't Shi arrest Pan at the first Three-Body game meet-up, for the murder of Shen?
--Why wasn’t math prodigy Wei's outside-the-box solution of the three body problem ever tested? It seemed to become immaterial and just fell by the wayside of the story.
--The Three-Body game was full of self inconsistencies, but then, of course, it was just a game.
--Ye had a fever dream about three suns before she knew anything about Trisolaris and before the three-body game.
--The end of the book, the dimensional unfolding of protons by the Trisolarians, was just too bizarre.

Although I'm admittedly not a mathematician or physicist, it's my belief that the three body problem, first raised by Newton, is purely hypothetical; a solar system with three suns would not act that way. If gas giants Jupiter and Saturn had been a little more massive, our solar system would have three suns. And the Trisolarian system was not strictly a three body system – it had three suns and a planet. At one point it had had twelve planets, in the game anyway. Why wouldn't that system have behaved like a natural solar system.

[Buck]

James wrote: "One inconsistency with the 'game' part still irks a bit, but the game parts didn't dominate like I thought they would, and they aren't hugely important in the bigger picture anyway."

I concur. The inconsistency that bothered me the most was people and objects floating off the surface of the planet due to the gravitational pull of the aligned three suns.

[Valyssia]

I read it too, and nonsensey, proton flattening, pseudoscience aside, I didn't find it that compelling. I gave it three stars because it wasn't a total slog. It was just the kind of anti-emotional, plot driven, puzzle based storytelling that you get from some authors who are analytically minded. Sometimes that can be good, but the puzzle itself has to be super. Moreover, the one who's sharing it must be excellent at describing the pieces and explaining how they fit together. Without that what you end up with is a muddled plot and no characters that really compel you to hang on. Three-Body was right on the edge of that for me.

The second protagonist's well being held no emotional investment. He could've been bumped off at any time and I would've been more interested in what that did to the plot then affected by his passing. He was almost a non-entity to me. His wife was so overly emotional, I was insulted by her. She was like a caricature of 'the hysterical woman' sketched in the background of a few scenes.

The woman scientist (first protagonist) selling out humanity to the aliens didn't resonate for me either. I guess the author managed to humanize her enough by pouring on the trauma. That's literally how he built her character. Every time we saw her, she was getting the crap kicked out of her for 'The Revolution.' I can't really lay my finger on the one thing that made her character not work for me. Maybe it's that she felt just as cartoony as the wife. The author beat her to an emotional bloody pulp, and then she shows back up in act three as an old lady wearing Ming the Merciless drag. Her development was like trauma, trauma, trauma, villainize. It made me wanted her to wring her hands and cackle madly. There would've at least been some comic relief in that.

And then there were the girls/women who killed the first protagonist's father. What can be said about them? Really, I think the thing about the story that bothered me the most was the women in it. They made me want to ask the author how he feels about his mother.

[David]

Buck wrote: "I have mixed feelings about The Three-Body Problem. Following it's convoluted plot is a good read; never a dull moment, but I feel it fell short of all the hype it has received. It is certainly s..."

The scientists committing suicide was explained fully enough in my mind. Imagine being subjected to an unexplained countdown imposed by the universe itself. As a scientist you'd be compelled to explain it. Is it the end of the world or just the end of you. Either way, not being able to explain the countdown would drive a scientist nuts. They might be inclined to stop it through suicide. I can imagine that.

As for parts that go unresolved, it is a trilogy after all. If everything was resolved, what would be left for the next two books?

[Andrew]

I’ve read 4 Cixin Liu books now and here’s my main take away.

He can write brilliant, highly engaging human interest plot lines.

He can write really dense hard science fiction.

He has trouble blending the two together. One minute you are immersed in a highly relatable human interest story. The next minute you are a wading through page after page of that mind numbing compulsory scientific textbook that you somehow got through uni without ever opening the cover