Ken Liu

Liu Cixin

"Wildly imaginative, really interesting." —President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy 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. The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Three-Body Problem

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project's signal is received by an alien civilization on the brink of destruction, which 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.

Tem Nugmanov

It was impossible to expect a moral awakening fromn humankind itself just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race.

Jasper

Over the western horizon, the sun that was slowly sinking into the sea of clouds seemed to melt. The ruddy sun dissolved into the clouds and spread over the sky, illuminating a large patch in magnificent, bloody red.

'My sunset,' Ye whispered. 'And sunset for humanity.'

In the spot where it once stood, the weight of the fallen tree being dragged left a deep channel in the layers of decomposing leaves that had accumulated over the years. Water quickly filled the ditch. The rotting leaves made the water appear crimson, like blood.

After a spate of apparent suicides among elite scientists, nanotech engineer Wang Miao is asked to infiltrate a secretive cabal. During his investigation, Wang is inducted into a mysterious online game that is the key to humanity's place in the cosmos and the key to the extinction-level threat it now faces.

Sven Schmidt

Civilization can only develop in the mild climate of Stable Eras. Most of the time, humankind must collectively dehydrate and be stored. When a long Stable Era arrives, they collectively revive through rehydration. Then they proceed to build and produce.

Read the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon - soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones. 1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind.

Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns.

This is the Three-Body Problem and it is the key to everything: the key to the scientists' deaths, the key to a conspiracy that spans light-years and the key to the extinction-level threat humanity now faces.

Edward Steel

I agree, we actually have seen it with the Cosmological constant set by Einstein and some of Stephen Hawking's work.

Amira BEN

"Theory is the foundation of application. Isn't discovering fundamental laws the biggest contribution to our time ?"

Yang hesitated and finally revealed his real concern: "It's easy to make ideological mistakes in theory" 

It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race

"Should philosophy guide experiments, or should experiments guide philosophy?

Vincent Weisz

"...We're bugs! Bugs that are about to go extinct! Haha ..."

Truman M Halladay

The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple 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.

I liked this most when it felt like what it wasn't (historical fiction) and least when it felt like what it definitely is (hard sci fi). I appreciated the questions it explored and I'm glad to have read it. I'm also glad to be done with it.

elizabeth

Omar 

without a doubt, three body problem is one of my favourite books of all time

it is the exact kind of measured, philosophical, deeply intelligent and profound work that science fiction must be. As you live through the tale, you also inevitably expand your worldview, and heed the authors warnings of various technologies and turns of events. Unique to three body is the equal amount of knowledge gained about philosophy, sociology, and cosmology. You can safely say that you are a more learned, more wise individual once you cross the sea of this book.

At the same time, there is no lack of entertainment and genuine excitement to be derived from the work. Yes, so much intelligence is woven into the tapestry of the book, but it remains riveting, entertaining, and beautifully distilled. The emotions of its events is enhanced by the inherent emotion that the exploration of science and space has - awe, wonder, fear; they backdrop the events of the story and enhance them in the way the place an art piece is hung influences the pieces perception. 

Above all, the author has a deep deep love for science and space, and this love has allowed him to delve deeper into the science than many stories have. It allows him, then, to cast magic at his readers: for the average individual, it is difficult to see where to separate science from science fiction, where the reality ends and the imagination begins. He keeps enough cards in his sleeves, showing them to the audience in bursts of misdirection, that you are left wondering if the events of his novel could ever really transpire. This is an enchanting feeling, that few books can elicit.

This same love transmits to the reader across the wavelength of the book, carried from one continent to another by words and phrases and events. You’re left with an impression of an author so deeply and passionately in awe of the universe, yet just as eager to consume it while. It ignites in you a love for this same topic, or perhaps it rekindles it, and sets a fire of childlike wonder and curiosity in the mind. Suddenly, I feel eager to explore some of the things mentioned in the book, eager to pick up a treatise on cosmic sociology, eager to delve into the science of the stars. That feeling is irreplaceable.

Luke Harkness

Fascinating but comes with a warning

I'll get the warning right of of the way: this book heavily revolves around theoretical science. This means there are many terms, many explanations and a whole load of times you may be confused. However I don't want this to dissuade people as it is a fascinating insight into how earth could really communicate with extraterrestrial life. This is not an easy read with a smooth flowing story, but as stated: it is a fascinating one!!

Lindy

In order to enjoy The Three-Body Problem you must have some level of appreciation for Asimov and Clarke and their outdated/wrong ideas about civilization, science, and "progress." If Foundation or Childhood's End make you bang your head on a table, so will this.

Pedro Figueiredo

I loved the story, but It would have benefited from a better translation - hence the 3 stars. The sequel, which I started on straight after, seems to have fixed this.

vanessa

this was conceptually very interesting but i’m not sure the prose really lured me in.

Loved every page. What a mind Liu Cixin has, and what a remarkable bit of translation Ken Liu has done. A useful guide to the cultural revolution and brain bend-ingly smart bit of sci-fi. 

Daniel Bower

Loved every page. What a mind Liu Cixin has, and what a remarkable bit of translation Ken Liu has done. A useful guide to the cultural revolution and brain bend-ingly smart bit of sci-fi. 

On to the next book.

Tobias V. Langhoff

A really refreshing take on science fiction and first contact scenarios, with a cultural backdrop that was very unfamiliar and almost as alien as the actual alien society in the story. The cultural revolution sets the stage for the inception of an interesting antagonist that changes the fate of the human race. Like how communists dampened science during the cultural revolution, in the present day a global conspiracy is hampering science and causing scientists to die mysteriously or commit suicide. We follow a family through the revolution, the cold war and to the present day, with a gallery of characters that made me grateful for Kindle’s X-Ray feature.

Apart from the Chinese history and criticism of the cultural revolution (which makes me wonder how the book was published without incident), there are a lot of interesting sci-fi concepts in this book: SETI and first contact, virtual reality, quantum mechanics, astrophysics (like the eponymous three-body problem of orbital mechanics), alien culture and physiology (although we only learn bits and pieces in this first novel in the trilogy), nanotechnology, and much more.

The first half of the book I couldn’t really decide whether or not I liked it. Stuff happened that I didn’t see how the author would resolve. A lot of fantastical stuff occurred that seemed like magic out of a fantasy novel. The protagonist experiences unexplainable and supernatural “miracles”, for lack of a better word, that challenge his world view.

These parts reminded me of the Arthur C. Clarke quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, because everything that occurs is ultimately “explained” with quantum mechanics (and perhaps a few info-dumps too many) around the half-way point. The book is actually reasonably hard sci-fi although some things are too crazy to actually be possible.

By the end of the book, the only criticism I really had left was that the translations of dialogue seemed a little stiff, or else literal, verbatim translations of the Chinese dialogue that didn’t really sound natural in English – but in the translator’s end notes, he defended that as a conscious way to retain the way culture impacts how people speak to each other – a bit like a weak Whorfian concept.

Here is a fan-made soundtrack for the book: https://site.douban.com/TBOST/room/13...

Anton

A different kind of sci-fi. 

I’ve enjoyed reading this book because of it’s accurate scientific details. It is nice to read how some scientific theories can be connected into a book.

Very imaginative world-building with lots of speculative science. If you hate reading very physics-y sci-fi, I would skip, but if you enjoy that kind of thing, would definitely recommend!

Ashley Freeman

Jay Harris

I've read this twice now and enjoyed it both times. 

I love Cixin Liu's short stories, especially his collection To Hold Up The Sky, which has some of my favorites like "The Time Migration". 

For me, The Three Body Problem sometimes feels more like a short story collection than a novel: the characters and plot mostly seem like an excuse to explore a series of big sci-fi ideas like (view spoiler)[nanotech, VR games, first-contact-as-symbol, conspiracy theories and higher-dimension computers (hide spoiler)]. The journey between those big ideas might sometimes feel contrived, but it didn't stop me from enjoying the ride.

Le problème à trois corps

Sésame

Comment s'organiser face à une menace extraterrestre dont on connaît l'existence mais qui n'arrivera sur Terre que dans 450 ans ?
Le Problème à trois corps raconte cette histoire dans un récit vertigineux à plusieurs voix et plusieurs temporalité. Je l'ai lu à toute vitesse, n'étant pourtant pas très fan de hard-science. Malgré tout, je n'ai pas été aussi embarqué que ce que toutes les critiques m'avaient fait penser.
Les questions politiques et existentielles sont nombreuses, et c'était aussi la première fois que je lisais de la science-fiction non-occidentale : ça fait vraiment du bien.
Mention spécial au jeu-vidéo mis en scène dans le livre qui est vraiment fascinant, bien que la retranscription littéraire de l'expérience vidéo-ludique ne soit pas forcément parfaite.
Gros point noir tout de même, la représentation des personnages féminin est assez insupportable, particulièrement quand elles sont décrites du point de vue des hommes. On a heureusement un personnage féminin fort et défini par autre chose que son physique et ses relations amoureuses, mais cela n'empêche pas de nombreuses descriptions vraiment sexistes.

Quinn Tenorio

After sitting on this book for a minute after reading, I think this is one of my favorites in the world of science fiction. There are so many interesting facets to this book that they all work towards one harmonious story. Ultimately, I think it deserves a half point extra.

[Mild spoilers below]

Initially, I did struggle to stay focus and interested in the historical portions, especially coming into the book expecting something more along the lines of Foundation or Dune. But then Cixin starts dripping in a bit of science fiction themes here and there which serves as a decent hook to keep reading. But then there is a back and force shifting of modern day and the past, which made me question, "is this book really going to progress to anything related to science fiction?" The answer is yes, but that theme is really just woven throughout this story of history and society, from the point of view of the "Eastern" world.

By then end I understood what Cixin was trying accomplish in weaving these explorations of science, history, society, internationalization, and so many other topics. After that last page, it leaves you questioning what is and isn't science fiction. This book is certainly more of an exploration of something closer to this moment in time than far far in the future. Plus, I am particularly fond of the non-Western viewpoint of what a more science fiction future holds.

But, this book does have its struggles. The first I mentioned above with the heavy reliance on history and other topics for a large portion of the book. The other is the particular granularity of physics and science jargon. With a background in science and math, I found myself able to follow the story, but at times my knowledge lapsed. I have no doubt that others would struggle with the physics-heavy topics, despite Cixin's delicate hand at explaining them.

Geoffrey Froggatt

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 juggernaut of enormous scope and vision. This book does a great job at explaining scientific concepts and big scale events, although there were times that I had trouble connecting to the characters, especially in the beginning. I loved the descriptions of big scale events, grand conspiracy theories, and scientific horrors. I loved how this book depicted scientists discovering “forbidden” knowledge and being unable to cope with it. I’ve seen some reviewers say that the real world science depicted in this book was too difficult to understand or was depicted incorrectly, but I felt like it was depicted in a way that was understandable enough to advance the story, even if some of it went over my head. While I did like this story and the ideas it explored, I do feel like I’ll appreciate this story a lot more once I get to the second and third books in the trilogy, as this book was mostly set-up for bigger ideas and stories later in the series. I don’t think a lot of people are going to like reading this book, and those who do will want to immediately read the following book in the series to reach the more satisfying parts of this story.

Luke Daniels

Steve C

I think my mind isn't ready for Sci-fi yet lol, it's interesting but loads of concepts to wrap around

> Placing on DNF @ Ch 6 - might comeback to it later

Die Science-Fiction-Sensation aus China China, Ende der 1960er-Jahre: Während im ganzen Land die Kulturrevolution tobt, beginnt eine kleine Gruppe von Astrophysikern, Politkommissaren und Ingenieuren ein streng geheimes Forschungsprojekt. Ihre Aufgabe: Signale ins All zu senden und noch vor allen anderen Nationen Kontakt mit Außerirdischen aufzunehmen. Fünfzig Jahre später wird diese Vision Wirklichkeit – auf eine so erschreckende, umwälzende und globale Weise, dass dieser Kontakt das Schicksal der Menschheit für immer verändern wird.

Roman

Die drei Sonnen

Klaus Eck

Ein tolles SF-Werk aus China, welches mich positiv überrascht hat. Ich kann es wärmstens denjenigen empfehlen, die Social Science Fiction mögen. Wir lernen als Leser über "die drei Sonnen" neue Welten auf unserer Erde kennen und nehmen völlig unerwartete Perspektiven ein. Die Fortsetzung der Triologie habe ich nach meiner Lektüre sofort auf dem Kindle bestellt und freue mich auf die Lektüre in 2018.

Andrew John Kinney

I vacillated between a 2 and 3 star rating, and finally decided it's a 3, rounded up from 2.5, mainly because the book is a bit of a page-turner, at least sometimes. The characters are relatively wooden, the references to past scientists are superficial (I mean, even Breaking Bad gave a nod to Heisenberg), and the preachy-teachy science and computer science lessons were a bit boring if one knows much real science. I won't be reading any more from this series. The wonder of real science is far more interesting than the not very convincing world that has been constructed here. By the way, there were more than a few implausible aspects of the "science" in the novel, but since this is sci-fi, I guess I shouldn't quibble about those.

Rohit Arondekar

The author has done a wonderful job of mixing so many different elements that come together beautifully to create a whole that is exquisite. It has its flaws ― the middle is a little drawn out and then towards the end, the physics/science-y bits get hard to understand, but the ending is totally worth it!

I liked how events in the book seem fantastic and fictional, but turn out to be true. This is the case mostly with the political/social upheaval related events but also extends to the science. This is what I enjoyed most about the book! It's hard to tell, at least for a layman like me, where the science ends and science fiction begins and this adds a realism to the book which drew me in. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Mitch Stewart

Do you want to read a science fiction with well developed interesting characters? Then this isn't the book for you. The characters in this book only serve and exist to move forward the plot, they are completely forgettable. 1/5

Do you want to read a hard scifi book with fascinating and enthralling ideas that will leave you thinking about them long after you finish the book? Do you want to see how the enviorment affects the culture of a civilization? Then this book is the bees knees. 5/5

I normally can't stand hard scifi without good characters but despite the sometimes clunky writing, the ideas and world this book created leave me wanting more and I'm going to immediately start the next in the series.

rumbledethumps

Interesting ideas, but badly executed in a work of fiction. So much of the hard SF element was exposition of one character explaining a concept to another, that it just became tedious. There were chances to make it interesting, by focusing on one or two supporting characters, but instead the main character was just a doofus who was being acted upon rather than acting. Overall just a slog to get through, and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff was more effort than it was probably worth.

Bo Jeanes

Despite the many many recommendations by friends for this book, I can't say that I really enjoyed it. 

Quite possibly, my difficulties with it are due to either cultural differences or translation, but i simply could not get immersed in this universe due to fundamentally unbelievable dialogue.

This was pretty good! I don't consider it to be entirely masterful, but it is much better than most sci-fi thrillers. This book amplified my base-level existential anxiety, which isn't a good feeling but it is a sign of a well-crafted piece of literature. I also don't know who I would side with in this case, which is also a sign of well-balanced story development. I'm excited to read the next installment! 

Ashlyn

Tuago

One of the most original books I’ve read, full of scientific detail and clever ideas. It’s about the humanity’s first encounter with aliens and the consequences in society that would happen after that. 

I’ll definitely move on to read the whole trilogy.

The Three-Body Problem

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