Deep Science and Machiavellian Politics in China

This is definitely the best science fiction, I read in a long time. It is very different from the average science fiction fare, no gross and bizarre alien creatures, no galactic battle scenes or return to primitive life forms in the aftermath of a nuclear war, quite the opposite. This story has epic dimensions, it starts in recent history and its political environment and leads us into the very near future.

With amazing honesty and insight Cixin Liu describes the horrors and madness of the Cultural Revolution in China and what consequences it had for the people living during that era. With the same accuracy and insight Cixin Liu talks about astrophysics, nuclear science and technology in general. It is a real delight to listen to him.

I do not know, how well written the original Chinese prose is, but I liked the translation. The language perfectly matches the content of the narrative. It is businesslike and brisk, when describing technical issues and becomes quite artful, when emotions and feelings are expressed. Bruno Roubicek is a perfect speaker, but I have to admit that I struggled with keeping track of all the different Chinese names. This was a real challenge for me.

The story spans over the lifetime of the protagonist Ye Wenjie. It starts with young Ye Wenjie witnessing the humiliation and murder of her father Ye Zhetai, a university professor by a mob of the cultural revolution. Ye Wenjie has a rough childhood, her sister and her mother join the red guards and denounce her father. Her troubles become even worse, when she is trapped into reading and commenting on a forbidden foreign book. She gets punished and finally ends up in a remote area working on a secret defense project. Very soon she unveils the real purpose of the project, establishing contact with alien cultures. Ye Wenjie devotes her life to the task and she is the one, who receives the first signal from another world, Trisolaris, a doomed galaxy.

Read the book, you will love it.

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fine science fiction

If you are looking for a novel which could bring back the cosy feeling of the time when there was a high dose of science and a healthy cynicism toward human society in science fiction, this is your pick. If you are looking for a novel where you could meet well developed characters with depth and complexity of human correlations, you should better look elsewhere.

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Hmm.

1. The storytelling isn't very compelling. I don't know if it has something to do with narrative traditions in China, but for a Western reader the story seems very aseptic. The main characters remain two-dimensional (pun intended for those who read/listened to the book). All other characters are clichés at best.

2. The main motivation for telling this story really seem to be the numerous scientific excursūs. It makes "The Three-Body Problem" more into a physics book with a bit of a background story. That's fair enough. Unfortunately though at times it remains unclear which bits are actual scientific evidence and which are pure fiction for the sake of the story.

3. There are quite a few logical gaps and faults – especially in the chapters that describe the extraterrestrial civilisation. I won't give any examples as not to spoil it. Had the writer been as enamoured by biology and sociology as he evidently is by physics, the sections about extraterrestrial life might have been quite fascinating. Unfortunately it felt more like a bunch of SciFi shortstories from the 50s.

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Beyond my imagination

The Three-Body Problem is a unforeseeable journey into the scientific foundation of the universe we live in. If you have not read the abstract of the book, don't do it. Let yourself surprise by the diverse paths Cixin Liu leads you onto. If the questions after the human future, the power of future scientific discoveries and the ethical conflicts arising from our ongoing fights with humans and our surrounding world fascinate you, this book might inspire thoughts as you have never had before.

This book ist thrilling, very interesting and topically mindblowing. I recommend it to everyone who is interested in science and the far future of the world we know.

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Very good & intelligsent No classic or dump SciFi.

The story is starting with more casual topics and is touching some really important questions in the end.
Absolutely magnificent.

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Beautifully thought out story - what a book!

Rarely have I read a book with such a rich content (have the kindle edition paired with the audio book) - it touches philosophy, is critic to society, makes an excursion through Chinese history, regards environmental issues and the human nature as well as the potential nature of intelligent or sophisticated civilisations in general. The scientific ideas in this book are based on recent achievements in science and technology, but taken a step further with really beautifully bright ideas; the story of the alien civilization is entangled into almost heartbreaking scenarios full of clever, colourful imagination and didn't seem absurd or inconceivable at all. The Three Body Problem to me is a fantastic book that teased my brain as well as my "heart" and I'm looking forward greedily to reading the next part. Definitely one of the best books i've read so far (and I read a lot)!

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Richtig gut!

Viel Science im Science Fiction!
Hier bekommt man eine ordentliche Portion Physik und Soziologie. Dieses Buch bietet wenig Action und keine Schlachten.
Jedoch eine gewissenhaft bis ins Detail weiter gedachte Idee. Qualität.

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very interesting idea, writing style with flaws

I was listening to this book by recommendation. I really liked the idea the unfolded in this book and specially the very strong of real world theory of physics. many times I was very into the story.
sadly I was not overwhelmed by the we ting style technically. what I mean with this is a non consistent way of describing events of the different players by withholding information at one time to create something like tension, even though the narrator should explain it right away.
in my opinion this book lives from the strong physics use and should have less tried to be a exciting the-reader-needs-to-be-surprised-by-events story.
also, sadly the author is picking up very interesting non physics topics but does not event tries to develop an interesting discussion about them. for example, he raises the question of how active participants in the cultural revolution feel lost after they executed the wishes of their political leaders after the cultural revolution ended and suddenly the leaders decided that the revolution participants where to be blamed for everything.

in total, I still liked the book for the concept and will continue with the next in the series.

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great Scifi

great story, but it's hard to keep up with the foreign character's names when solely listening to the audiobook and never being able to read them and memorise them properly.

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Interesting opening, but degrades rapididly

The start with a reflection on the Chinese revolution is great. Also, the author seems to be quite knowledgeable on physics, especially high-frequency. Yet the same author has huge deficits in information technology, the characters are very poorly written, the dialogues and metaphors awkward and the plot is frankly silly.