2d ago

The Three-Body Problem Trilogy by Cixin Liu

My opinion:
Interesting concept of a Dark Forest & cosmic sociology axioms.
Unpleasant characters: Ye Wenjie (narcissistic and psychopathic), Cheng Xin (a kind billionaire lol).
Disappointing ending—the last few chapters feel weak.
Bonus: Absolutely fascinating interpretation of the first book by @yogthos@lemmy.ml.

Books @lemmy.ml

tracyspcy @lemmy.ml

2d ago

The Three-Body Problem Trilogy by Cixin Liu

26 comments

I enjoyed the Chinese TV version, mostly because of the actors & characters. Didn't try the books or the Netflix series.
Usually I read things instead of watching them, but on this, I think it was the right call - the images brought it to life.
I enjoyed the series alongside my son. Not the best writing and a little heavy on philosophy for my taste but some interesting takes on interstellar coexistence. Book 3 was my favorite and Sophon my favorite character by far, though Luo Ji is a badass.
I've heard these were good
These books are only worth reading if you're really, really into the kind of Isaac Asimov big ideas scifi that willingly sacrifices story fundamentals like plotting and character development.
Most of the characters are really caricatures at best. Some plot beats are well delivered, others are painfully bad. Most of the second book is basically just your Death Note style "I know that you know that I know that..." bullshit where two "super genius" characters tell each other how they're outwitting each other.
The science fiction stuff is fun, but it quickly becomes clear that the author's commitment to research ends at the moment where actual people get involved, a subject with which he has apparently never interacted. Every single person in these books is either a robot, or a hyper-emotional weirdo. And his grand scale psychology fares no better. The signature Dark Forest hypothesis is just really bad game theory that falls apart if you think about it for more than five minutes. It's a cool "What if", but it's not grounded in reality at all.
What the books do well is scale and playing out events over large swathes of time, and if you're OK with significant chunks of the narrative basically just reading like the "World history" parts of an RPG setting guide than you might get a kick out of that. But unless you have very little need for engaging characters and storytelling, you're likely just to find them a painfully dull slog.
I'm not saying everyone is going to hate them, obviously the books have their fans. But I will say that if anyone dares try to tell that it's only book one that sucks and they're amazing after that (an opinion I have seen expressed more than once) you have permission to kick that person in the balls for being an abject liar. Nothing about Cixin's style or writing ability changes after book one, the scale just gets bigger.
- Interesting, why do you think the Dark Forest idea falls apart?
  
  Three of the biggest critiques I've heard:
  If you really are a genocidal alien race, you don't sit around waiting for new life to evolve and challenge you. You send out a swarm of self-replicating machines. They fly to every star system and simply systematically disassemble every planet that exists around a star's habitable zone. Considering interstellar communication timelines, some life could go from apes to interstellar threat before the speed of light even allows you to react. If you really are so paranoid that you'll commit genocide at the drop of a hat, then the far more safe and efficient strategy is to simply prevent new life from evolving at all. In the Three Body canon, species have been genociding each other for billions of years, but no one has bothered simply removing the source of new species entirely. The fact that we exist at all is evidence that we don't exist in a Dark Forest condition.
  There are more than two civilizations. If we discover an alien civilization ten lightyears from Earth, it's likely there is another just a little further out, and even more even further out. The number of expected civilizations should increase with the cube of distance. The point is that if you genocide a new weak species, it's very likely that other species are going to see you do it. And they may be far older and more powerful than you. And there's no better way to convince that third species that you a threat worthy of extermination than to commit an act of genocide against a new species that is no real threat to yourself. It's possible there are dark ancient races out there, but the only species they ever attack are those that prove themselves a threat against others. Who better to genocide than a bunch of genociders?
  The logic behind it is flawed. The same issues with communication and intentions uncertainty apply to game theory analyses of human beings. By the logic of the Dark Forest theory, I should go bash my next door neighbor's skull in right now. I can't really know what he's planning, and for all I know he's planning on killing me. I can't always observe his actions. How do I know he's not booby trapping my house while I'm at work? As I value my own survival above his, I have no choice but to kill him now. He's never done anything to suggest he has the slightest ill intentions towards me, but you can't be too careful. I can't read his mind. I can't know what he's thinking. Game theory demands I murder my neighbor. See how ridiculous that sounds? It just seems like profound logic when applied to the context of extraterrestrial species. But if you apply it to human beings, the whole thing falls apart.
Like many of the comments I had mixed feelings about this trilogy (enjoyed some concepts and large scale plot, disliked some characters and prose and specific plots) but so far no one has mentioned the misogyny. Phew boy the misogyny is front and center in a few places and it's really jarring and unpleasant.
- Dear God, it is egregious, and somehow gets worse as the series goes on. It's hard to talk about a lot of it without getting into serious spoilers, but Jesus Christ the stuff in book three especially is insanely bad. And I didn't even think it could get worse after the shit with Luo Ji in book two.
- "The world is doomed because of FEMINIZATION"
  Okay buddy.
  Maybe it was just an Asimov homage?
i hate that people complain how he was not very good at writing people, so was Asimov.
it's hard science fiction, it's shines in that aspect. the author obviously has a different set of skills, and at some point it's like judging a fish for his hability to run.
not making excuses, not going to say it's the perfect book and peak literature. but it's one of the best science fiction written in a long time. especially because the focus is in the universe and science fiction.
way too many "science fiction" stories are great stories with shitty science fiction. because those are two different skill sets. theoretically, you could have an author one day that excels in boths. and I'll be happy with him/her (originally wrote one him, might have personal biased or the excuse that I had Liu in mind). but so much of the criticism feels cruel.
- Just because something is (or pretends to be) hard sci-fi doesn't make it well written even if you ignore the major character flaws. The concepts the first book explores aren't even that amazing. This is one of the most over-hyped sci-fi books of all time.
  
  I think the concepts the books present are key amazing, as an avid sci-fi reader. I went into the series expecting some rigid characters and a lot of if/then human logic given the source and the fact that it had to be translated into English.
- Asimov is at his best when writing short stories, where ideas can shine while character and plotting take a back seat. Long form was always his weakness. Sorry to everyone who loves Foundation but those books are absolute dog-ass. Full of brilliant ideas, but still dog-ass.
  And there are plenty of writers who do good science with good fiction. Hannu Rajaniemi, Alastair Reynolds, Cory Doctorow, William Gibson, Iain McDonald, and Kim Stanley Robinson just off the top of my head. I know there are plenty more.
- i hate that people complain how he was not very good at writing people, so was Asimov.
  Asimov was western and thus "one of us".
  Liu Cixin is Chinese and thus "one of them".
  This makes all the difference.
  
  I don't think that's the case for most critics, but I can certainly say Chinese writing styles rarely seem to translate easily to English tastes.
- i hate that people complain how he was not very good at writing people, so was Asimov.
  I'm still waiting for my nuclear powered ashtray.
The author can't write people very well and if you're OK with that it's a series with some great concepts. It was interesting to see how a Chinese author thought the US would act in a global emergency in Dark Forest, it was the reverse of a US author assuming everyone would act like the US.
I was pretty annoyed with the wallbreakers concept as it played out because the idea that you'd have some intricate plan involving details about how things would play out in several hundred years and then when someone guesses it you just say "Whelp, guess I'll die" is kind of absurd. Surely you'd just invest in tons of technological development first, see how things shake out, and if someone guesses your plan, abandon it for a new one? Same as in the first book, "Physics is weird, guess I'll die" just seemed bizarre to me.
- Did you read the books? They’re called Wallfacers. For a reason. The Trisolarans are aware of the plan, otherwise it wouldn’t work.
the book series I was most glue to.
I am surprised about it being fascinating. Is there any other way to read these beyond politial allegory?
I mean, at one point they put together a crack team of international experts and the countries chosen include Venezuela, the EU (with a side of Japan), the US and China. How do you even read any part of it besides an assessment of political stances via national stereotypes?
I mean, sure, later on the whole thing goes off the deep end and steps into properly Asimovian big cosmic stuff, but the big hook of the series is seeing geopolitics from a Chinese perspective via sci-fi.
Maybe I'm just attuned to it because it's how every piece of pop culture from the US has felt since the 80s?
- Now you know what reading/watching American SF feels like to non-Americans. You're growing!
  
  I already knew. I'm not American, it all reads that way to me.
  It says so in the previous post.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Highly recommend it.

26 comments