The Three-Body Problem

By: Cixin Liu

Narrated by: Luke Daniels

Soon to be a Netflix Original series!

“War of the Worlds for the 21st century.” (Wall Street Journal)

The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking listeners 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 Supernova Era

To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming)

©2006 Liu Cixin (P)2014 Macmillan Audio

Not in love, but definitely intrigued

No science fiction works without a great plot/concept driving it and The Three-Body Problem has zero problem on that score - an experiment, done out of a kind of desperation, actually results in first contact with an interstellar alien community and sets up a pending crisis. But even a great concept still needs good characters, setting, and fluid writing to make for a great sci-fi read.

I didn't have much trouble with setting. This first book of a trilogy draws on the Chinese Cultural Revolution, past and current geopolitics, and current and theoretical quantum physics to set the stage for the saga - interesting, with plenty of potential to sustain the trilogy. My only quibble with the setting used was with the sequences that take place within an on-line game. It is in the game that characters attempt to resolve the Three Body Problem and I found those segments of the book to be rather dull and confusing. No doubt some of the information in those sections will come into play in later books, but they read like bad dream sequences where you don't have any context to make sense of what is going on. And, there is no plot or character development happening during those passages so I just wasn't engaged during those sections.

The flow of the writing feels a bit choppy, but I would chalk that up to the fact that this is a translation. The translation seems pretty good in that the meaning is clear, but English and Chinese are such very different languages there is bound to be some loss of fluidity. Ultimately, my biggest difficulty with The Three-Body Problem is the characters. The book starts with Ye Wenjie during the Cultural Revolution and she is a very interesting character throughout the book and the only character that is ever really fleshed out. Much of the book is from the POV of Wang Miao, a character that gets little back story and is hard to connect with, and none of the other characters is more than sketched. The Aliens may have some potential in the sequels, but ruthlessness is about the only characteristic they show in this first book.

Luke Daniels does his normal phenomenal job of creating great character voices which is a huge help with a book with unfamiliar names and he adds much to making this a good listen.

Bottom line, The Three-Body Problem is challenging, but intriguing and I will listen to the sequels when Audible has them available.

Culture, mystery, and then lots of science fiction

Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem is an intriguing and engaging read. Much of the early tale occurs during the Chinese cultural revolution, mainly concerning a young physicist whose parents were on opposite sides of the divide. She becomes involved in a top secret Chinese science endeavor that ultimately sets in motion the main driver to the plot. As a result, current day presents divided camps of nearly religious-like followers anticipating the invasion of Earth by an alien force. The main character in present day is a materials nanotechnologist who becomes integral in locating the cult and taking down the group.

The sci-fi elements are diverse including the unique physics of a world with three stars that has no stable orbit. Interestingly, the reader is oriented to this world through an elaborate computer game that is rather addictive. Use of the the sun as a signal amplifier and nanotech monofilaments are offered, although not necessarily original. Of particular note is that this was originally written in Chinese and so this version is a translation. As such, the aspects unique to the cultural revolution have a genuine sense about the mood and feel of the time.

The narration is well done given the overwhelming number of Chinese characters, as well as non-Chinese with good gender distinction. Pacing is a bit slow, but the early portions have more of a storytelling feel than an unfolding novel.

Flawed but worthwhile to me

This novel and its sequels have a huge following in China (and like some fads over there, perhaps a ridiculous one). It’s not hard to see why -- this is good old-fashioned, fly-your-nerd-flag hard SF in tradition of Asimov or Clarke, centered there rather than the West.

Like some classic SF, the novel concerns the implications of First Contact with an extraterrestrial species. It begins with the story of a young physics student whose father runs afoul of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Imprisoned in a labor camp, she's fortunate enough to get drafted to a nearby military outpost devoted to space research. There, she discovers a novel way to send a signal into the galaxy -- which leads to an eventual reply. However, the nature of the reply raises the question of whether further contact is a good idea. But Ye Wenjie decides that anything another civilization could bring to Earth would have to be better than what she's experienced of human society so far.

This history is interspersed with a story set in the near future, in which Wenjie's actions have borne fruit that is only now beginning to attract attention in important circles. Scientists are mysteriously dying, and the government pressures a middle-aged nanotechnology scientist named Wang to help them infiltrate a cult-like organization that might have something to do with it. In the course of this, Wang begins playing a mysterious computer game called 3Body, a recruiting tool for the organization that reminded me of the "testing" game from The Last Starfighter, but in a much nerdier way. As he progresses, the game's creative virtual reality seems to reveal information about the extraterrestrials and their world (a mathematically-inclined reader can probably guess a component from the name of the novel). How did information about the extraterrestrials get to Earth? And what does it signify?

The remaining near-future plot and flashbacks into the past serve to answer these questions. Unfortunately, Liu's storytelling, while it works well enough in the 1960s-70s sequences, is somewhat clunky and unconvincing in the 21st century ones, full of large tracts of pedantic exposition. Some aspects of it didn't make sense to me -- he glosses over how the aliens managed to grasp human language and psychology so well from a handful of radio broadcasts. His concept of a computer game suggests that he never actually played one before writing the book. Finally, the dialogue can be rather stilted, though the audiobook reader does a good job of injecting personality into different characters, which compensates somewhat.

Yet, I liked this book. The plot is pretty heavy on science, but most of it made sense to me -- at least until I got to the point where a supercomputer is packed into the eleven-dimensional space of a subatomic particle -- and the clever solutions and philosophical questions the protagonists come up with are interesting. Some sequences even have a Neal Stephenson-like bravura, such as a 3Body episode in which Isaac Newton and John von Neumann come together in virtual reality to construct a giant computer from millions of soldiers waving flags. Last, I enjoyed several of the characters, such as a vulgar but crafty police officer and an Aspergian math genius. Wenjie's story is tragic, but her betrayal of her country seems understandable, as does the less-than-benevolent attitude of the Trisolaran government towards humanity, which we learn of towards the end of the book.

In sum, this is one of those works where you have to embrace the flaws to enjoy it, but it really does have the feel of classic science fiction. As a window into Chinese views on science, extraterrestrials, and the future -- as far as popular culture represents them, anyway -- Three Body is quite interesting.

Pretty Good

Different and very enjoyable listen. Got a bit confused on names a couple of times and had to relisten to several stretchs

Hard Science Fiction with societal implications

The Three Body Problem

by

Cixin Liu


The Three Body Problem is a hard science fiction novel by Chinese author Cixin Liu or Liu Cixin, I have seen it written both ways and I am not familiar with the Chinese protocol for names. It was the winner of the 2015 Hugo Award and was nominated for the 2014 Nebula Award, so it had to be good – right? Well, maybe at one time, but as of late it seems as if the awards - all awards - have become politicized and not necessarily the best entry is chosen. But that is a discussion for another time. At the very least, I thought The Three Body Problem deserved at least a chance to prove itself. While I do not think the novel was worthy of an award, I did find it had some merit and well worth the read.

The story takes place in China, and the beginning deals with the cultural revolution of the 1960’s. I must admit that I know very little of China’s history, or what life is like in China at all, and I found the history lesson fascinating. I could not see the relevance of these seemingly disjointed segments, but by the time the novel ended everything fell into place. In fact, the main plot line did not become evident until shortly after the halfway point of the novel. But after the slow start, things picked up fairly nicely and became more interesting to me.

The characters, with the exception of the astrophysicist Ye Wenjie and the police detective Shi Qiang, were flat and one-dimensional. The dialog seemed clipped and at times forced, but I am giving the author the benefit of the doubt due to translation restraints. I can sympathize with Ye Wenjie but cannot justify her betrayal. I feel her logic was flawed by equating a stronger civilization with a superior one. I did like the character of Shi Qiang. He was abrasive and somewhat uncouth, but he was very smart among all the scientists and felt real to me.

I thought the narrator did an excellent job, if for nothing else than pronouncing the Chinese names. I can hardly believe how badly I hacked those pronunciations. I don't know where Mr. Daniels learned his Chinese, but it is so much better hearing his pronunciations than it is mine. It gives the story a feel of authenticity.

All things considered, I give this read 4 stars. As someone with a math and science background, I enjoyed the reading the hard science. I can see where it may not appeal to all readers, but I think there are enough other items that will appeal to lovers of the genre. The premise was believable and it was interesting to speculate how humanity would react to another civilization and how the people separated into different camps. I always thought humans would line up to protect their world, but I can see how some people may have become disillusioned with our society. I do not feel this work is worthy of receiving an award, but it still has something to offer sci-fi fans.

One of the most brilliant SF novels in recent memo

An enthralling, imaginative book that reminded me of the best of Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke. Very well narrated. I'm eagerly looking toward to the next volume.

Gold from a lost golden age

Science fiction the way science fiction should be written. It is clear from direct references that Liu has read the authors of our golden age which makes me wonder how much of our golden age is available in China and when it became available. Available in general or to elites? Whatever the case, China knows more about us than we know about China. although interesting, this is incidental to the fact that this is great science-fiction? the resemblance of the scene at the Panama Canal to a Larry Nivan short story does less to undermine the astounding originality of the story then it does to indicate that certain scientific advances lead to certain obvious possibilities. The story is driven as much by character development as by technological development appealing to fans of Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlien.

Enjoyable for this Sahm

As a stay at home mom with an infant and a toddler, I do not get much stimulating conversation from other adults. I turn to audiobooks as my closest substitute, of which my favorite genre is hard science fiction.
This book hit all the right notes for me regarding in-depth plausible science AND I learned more about China's cultural revolution to boot. In fact, I've already watched two documentaries(at nap time!) about China since finishing this book.
Looking forward to the next two books and I heard there might be a movie in the works.

Ok, but science and characters flawed

Physics is too speculative, like the kind of wide-eyed stuff you get from “quantum healing” and the like ... and the characters are not very real, too cartoonish. Still, the story is good, and the premise was interesting.

Great modern sci fi with great narration

I would really recommend this book. The narrator does a great job giving each character their own voice and personality so it's easy to keep track of who is talking. The story is based around an interesting mystery and working toward the resolution I always felt like the author had created this huge consistent world and I was just glimpsing parts of it, which I love.