Author Topic: Cixin Liu's Trillogy - The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death's End  (Read 9587 times)

Offline Norm38

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Who here has read Cixin Liu's trilogy?  I read Three Body Problem last year on my first flight to China.  I wanted to read a Chinese sci-fi novel and saw that 3BP had won the Hugo and picked it up.

Three Body Problem I really liked due to several elements.  The invented Chinese historical backstory, the cultural issues, the surreal nature of the communications with the Trisolarans, the nature of the Trisolarans themselves.  The Trisolaran society is one of the most novel alien races I've read since the middle part of Asimov's The Gods Themselves. (That is a trip).

On my next trip to China I read The Dark Forest.  That one is a more straightforward hard sci-fi space epic.  So not as inventive / surreal.  And I did feel it dragged a bit in the middle.  But it raised some interesting subjects and speculation about SETI and Zoo theory.  None of it good for humanity.

And on my last China trip I read Death's End.  The close of the trilogy was better than part 2 I felt.  Using hibernation, characters are able to skip ahead in time and humanity's evolution is explored.  The end goes kind of 2001, open to interpretation which is good.

I'm interested to hear what people thought of it.

Offline gongora

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I'm about 3/4 of the way through the first one, liking it so far.

Offline Lar

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I'm reading the translated versions, Norm38, did you read it in the original Chinese?
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
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Offline missinglink

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(Mild spoilers ahead)



Have read Vol. 1, happy to give a gushing recommendation. It's been years and years since I enjoyed a "hard" sci-fi novel, I'd just about given up on the genre. In the U.S., the rise of the social justice warriors, diversity fetishists and feminists poisoned the field, provoking a counter-reaction from writers who don't feel that being white, male and heterosexual is a crime. Unfortunately most went overboard in an opposite direction: the catalog of Baen Books is full of military science-fiction that is crushingly, mind-numbingly boring and predictable, with cardboard characters and derivative plots.

What a breath of fresh air to read a writer who is not part of this reader-unfriendly war, but has an entirely different cultural background (while obviously having studied and absorbed the entire history of science fiction from Verne through the Golden Age and beyond). I read the novel in three nights, eagerly turning the page to see what happens next.

There is some "cultural strangeness" in observing how the characters act. Motivation for their choices isn't always made explicit; presumably the Chinese readership does not require it. However, the gruff cop flouting convention and the female scientist whose momentous decision changes the course of history are two well-realized, engaging protagonists if not always sympathetic.

The book explores a wealth of themes. Obviously, China's "cultural revolution" and the extreme misery that it inflicted are one. But the science fiction is not window dressing. The author has thought long and hard about the "Fermi question" and approaches it using the toolkit of game theory, although this only comes to full flower in vols. 2 and 3, of which I have only read summaries.

Whether intentionally or not, the plotline seems to mirror or even forecast (it was first published in 2008, I believe) current events, specifically the massive migration from third-world countries into the first world aided by a "welcoming culture" that some consider nothing short of suicidal.

I understand that a Chinese film studio has made a big-budget production of vol. 1 and I really look forward to seeing how it turns out. The novel does have several passages that should lend themselves well to being realized on the silver screen. The final scene of the book, taking place on the Panama canal, should knock people's socks off.

tl;dr Hawking was right, we should think twice before putting up a big neon sign to the cosmos.

Offline Norm38

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I'm reading the translated versions, Norm38, did you read it in the original Chinese?

No.  I am trying to learn some Mandarin, but I won't ever be literate.  I read the translation too.  (The translator notes are interesting).
I've been curious though how the two versions differ for someone who has read both.

Offline Norm38

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I understand that a Chinese film studio has made a big-budget production of vol. 1 and I really look forward to seeing how it turns out.

Hadn't heard that, though Wikipedia says it's on hold.  Hopefully it gets finished and gets a US release.

Offline The_Optimist

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I think the series is fantastic. It is clearly written from a different perspective compared to western sci-fi and I found that very refreshing. I also enjoyed Metro 2033 and Metro 2034, written by Dimitry Glukhovsky, which gives the reader the same feeling of observing sci-fi through a slightly different cultural lense.


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Offline Basto

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I have read all 3 and really loved them.  It was great reading sci fi with a different cultural perspective.

It’s a painful story though. (I read Deaths End in December 2016 and was already in a somewhat emotionally fragile / nihilistic state as a result of current events. This book did nothing to help that).

Offline joncz

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And The Three Body Problem ordered...

Offline The_Optimist

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And The Three Body Problem ordered...


Cool, let us know what you thought!


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Offline Norm38

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I have read all 3 and really loved them.  It was great reading sci fi with a different cultural perspective.

It’s a painful story though. (I read Deaths End in December 2016 and was already in a somewhat emotionally fragile / nihilistic state as a result of current events. This book did nothing to help that).

I agree with that.  Definitely not feel good books or a nice distraction.  Not much optimism to be found either for humanity or the galaxy at large.  I haven't decided yet if that's realistic, but I'm leaning that way.

Offline Dalhousie

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Extraordinarily good books, probably among best written and most original SF I have read for a very long time.

Love the Chinese perspective, very refreshing.

The dark forest metaphor that surfaces in the second book is very disturbing.  I have been thinking of good loop holes, and have yet to find them.
« Last Edit: 03/19/2018 06:16 am by Dalhousie »
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline joncz

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And The Three Body Problem ordered...

Cool, let us know what you thought!

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I enjoyed it enough to order the next two and am partly (~20%) through The Dark Forest.

It's challenging reading, similarly, but for different reasons that The Southern Reach trilogy.  Not having a familiar cultural touchstone means I have to pay closer attention than with other books (ie, The Expanse series).  That makes for slower, and often tiring reading.

That said, the writing's very good and the translator's notes quite helpful.  And I've been looking more for less formulaic and darker fiction, both written and television, and this fits that desire.

Offline thewallfacers

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I love all three books. Loved it so much that I've created a website dedicated to discussions of the trilogy. Www.threebodytrilogy.com. Feel free to give me comments and participate! There is also a facebook page: Three Body, or @threebodypage

But I love the books because it feels so different from other types of sci fi books. Death's End is an absolute fav. The first two books are setting up for the final book.

I dont want to spoil, but the time line the third book stretches from the year 1453 to 18,906,416. No you didn't read that wrong. That's how creative the author is. It truly stretches your brain and your imagination  8)

Offline su27k

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but the time line the third book stretches from the year 1453 to 18,906,416. No you didn't read that wrong. That's how creative the author is.

Just to nitpick here, description of a far future is nothing new in SF, it started in H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, which described a future in A.D. 802,701, since then many excellent far future SF have been written. Frankly Death's End's far future part is pretty mediocre comparing to others.
« Last Edit: 03/31/2018 03:15 am by su27k »

Offline zack

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Looks like I have found my next book to read.  :)

And it seems Amazon is planning to spend $1 billion (!?!) on an adaption of the three books. https://news.avclub.com/amazon-might-spend-1-billion-to-adapt-sci-fi-trilogy-1824174388

Offline thewallfacers

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Just to nitpick here, description of a far future is nothing new in SF, it started in H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, which described a future in A.D. 802,701, since then many excellent far future SF have been written. Frankly Death's End's far future part is pretty mediocre comparing to others.
[/quote]

Fair point, you didn't enjoy death's end? I haven't read the Time Machine. What I love about it is that it's based on science we are currently exploring, development of light speed travel via curving space to generate propulsion sounds actually do-able in the next millions of years, va just pushing a button like Star Trek or going through a worm hole

Death's end also doesn't just focus on earth, well it's gone by then anyways, but focuses on the universe as a whole and how all species interact. It describes inter-galactic wars with freshness. Usually it's just lasers and big space ships. This time it's destroying an entire galaxy by reducing its dimensions or covering it in a Black Domain where speed of light is zero. The warring parties don't actually need to meet face to face for a major "battle". It is more akin to warfare in our modern day. Technologies like drones, missiles, bombs dedicate our current wars, rather than face to face gun blasting.




Offline missinglink

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And it seems Amazon is planning to spend $1 billion (!?!) on an adaption of the three books.
Sounds reasonable, at least more reasonable than the reported $30 million for the Chinese motion picture based on vol. 1 of the trilogy. Always seemed dangerously low to me, even at lower wages for Chinese animators, and now that it appears the film will never be released, it seems obvious that the end product fell short of expectations and had to be scuttled.

The bar for CGI quality gets raised with every new sci-fi movie. This video clip from Avatar of the interstellar spaceship arriving at Pandora is stunningly believable (watch it in highest resolution), but the challenges of showing the folding of the sophons (scene near the end of vol. 1) in a way that helps audiences maintain their suspension of disbelief are even greater.



Also, not to take anything away from people in the Chinese film industry, but when it comes to meshing science fiction with human drama and putting a fascinating story on the silver screen, Hollywood simply has more people with a track record of success (and even then, most new sci-fi movies fail).

Offline zhangmdev

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Maybe it is because the culture background, I can hardly finish the first book. The characters, plot, solution appears to be unbelievable, sometimes bordering on the ridiculous. Pages and pages, especially those about that silly computer game, are just needless padding.

The cultural revolution part, which so many people in the west found "refreshing" is in fact a cliche in China. In the late 1970s and 1980s, when books and films were allowed again, there was an explosion of books about how people were wronged during that crazy era. Many films since then were about that topic. That was known as the genre of the Scar.

Those books and films are now largely receding into history and forgotten. After 2000s, the era of cultural revolution is somehow glorified, otherwise it is a taboo. I remember there is very popular book about a semi-fictional red army general once was a Shaolin monk. The story begins with his spoils during the Sino-Japaness war, ends up with the protagonist committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution. The book was made into a TV series which is equally popular, but the tragic ending was dropped. It is not worth the danger painting the party in the wrong light.

Offline su27k

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Fair point, you didn't enjoy death's end? I haven't read the Time Machine. What I love about it is that it's based on science we are currently exploring, development of light speed travel via curving space to generate propulsion sounds actually do-able in the next millions of years, va just pushing a button like Star Trek or going through a worm hole

Death's end also doesn't just focus on earth, well it's gone by then anyways, but focuses on the universe as a whole and how all species interact. It describes inter-galactic wars with freshness. Usually it's just lasers and big space ships. This time it's destroying an entire galaxy by reducing its dimensions or covering it in a Black Domain where speed of light is zero. The warring parties don't actually need to meet face to face for a major "battle". It is more akin to warfare in our modern day. Technologies like drones, missiles, bombs dedicate our current wars, rather than face to face gun blasting.

The book is not bad, I would give it 4 out of 5 stars, I'm just saying it's not a unicorn if you read enough SF. I don't remember how the book explains FTL, but isn't curving space exactly how Star Trek explains it? Using the change of physical law as a weapon is not new either, Stephen Baxter used it in the Xeelee Sequence.

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