The Three Body Problem
By Cixin Liu
Print Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Head of Zeus / Tor (12 Mar. 2015)
ASIN: B00S8FCJCQ
Review notes by Geoff Nelder
This is a science fiction book from an award-winning Chinese author who while relatively unknown in the west is the most popular science fiction author in China.
Beware of plot spoilers.
Notes
The three body problem has been around mathematicians and physicists for nearly 400 years with studies on it by Newton, Galileo, Euler and others. Basically the problem is what happens to three bodies (usually astronomical bodies such as the Sun, Earth and Moon) close enough for their gravity to effect each other. Starting conditions being infinite means solutions are difficult and there is no one set of equations satisfying all situations. In this book Alpha Centauri is the planetary system where sentient aliens exist. It is known to be 4.4 light years from Earth, have one planet and three suns – hence the three body problem affects their existence. The visualization of three floating bodies in 3d orbiting each other is appealing, a fact that must have influenced Cixin Liu to use it.
The book starts with a lot of head hopping as if from Omniscient viewpoint. The footnotes irritate and take me out of the fictive dream. Some of the science seems thrown in for effect. This is likely to be the lost in translation elements of Chinese to English in both words and style. In some ways this is fine in that although it makes it more like an old-fashioned Western scifi novel it accentuates its foreign nature and appeal.
I like the reference to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1960s) – and it becomes the main theme for me in that Ye Wenjie one of the main characters, is saddened to the point of desperation with the way humanity is destroying wild life. I made Silent Spring a set book for my sixth form Environmental Science classes back in the 1970s. It seems to me that Ye’s despair of the disrespect of Nature led her to ask for help from the aliens.
Ye Wenjie was a prisoner during the Cultural Revolutions and saw her father murdered by Red Guards. Time and a remote location allowed her to accommodate to these atrocities but it lingered, as it would for all. She has quite profound thoughts such as ‘Old intellectuals like her…long years had ground away all the hardness and fierceness in their personalities, until all that was left was a gentleness like that of water.”
On p192 she says a mix of Zen and Jean Paul Satre’s existentialism with this: ‘Emptiness is not nothingness, it is a kind of existence. Use this existential emptiness to fill yourself.’ I love that. It kind of answers how my father-in-law can empty his mind to go to sleep while mine is full.
After getting used to so many Chinese names with Dong Dong, Da Shi, Yang, Ye, Wang and to note equalities such as Da Shi = Shi Qiang it jarred to encounter Mike Evans. Especially so as I taught a Mike Evans!
p270 Ye Wenjie was against nuclear weapons as “a power that should belong only to the stars” yet nuclear weapons are tiny compared to the weapons of the universe.
Several jarring instances of changes in POV and even to first person – that and the clunky style could relate to the translator, Ken Liu, who didn’t want to stray too far from the Chinese narrative voice. Even so I didn’t like the Americanisms in style and language that occasionally crept in – eg “Here’s the thing,” p326 Also most western authors would be slated for such a contrived solution in using nanostrings as a weapon when a main character, Wang Miao, specialized in nanotechnology.
I wonder if that applied to the treatment of the characters too. Only one persistently obnoxious character was the policeman Da Shi – and he possessed redeeming qualities in his ability, learned from criminals, to think outside the box. Saying he is obnoxious doesn’t mean I didn’t like him!
p341 Colonel Stanton tells Wang that he’d suffered amnesia episodes since learning of the Trisolarian invasion fleet. Hah. So reminds me of ARIA with its infectious amnesia brought by aliens.
Overall theme of environmental retribution is that of the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Ie Ye, Evans, et al wanted a more harmonious Earth while the Trisolarians considered the environment of Earth as paradise. Both kind of wrong. First contact. Yet the opposite of a BDO although interesting description of a proton in less than 11 dimensions!
For me the Trisolarians although not described and surviving via dehydration, or not, with a completely different suns – planet geometry, are too humanlike in their thought processes and science. Examples are the use of CPU, linear accelerators, etc. Inconceivable that the alien messages would include whole conversations and arguments between individuals even to the point of their Science Consul being described as ‘visibly excited’ when the poor reader has no idea what he looks like! 379
The fragments of two-dimensional strings from a proton falling onto cities and their inhabitants reminiscent of RIngworld (Larry Niven) when part of the rim precipitated.
Are sophons real? No, except Playful factions in the scifi game, Endless Space 2012
Rather unreal that the best players of the ETO’s VR game to recruit members were elderly academics and business men. Not the younger generation as we experience them. This could be explained in that video games in the west are more shoot-‘em-up whereas the Three Body Problem game is subtle.
Some science is pseudo – nothing wrong in that eg sending a microwave transmission at the sun which amplified it 100 million times. More interestingly Ye was forbidden to do that because it symbolically went again Mao’s name was associated with the sun and so he would be metaphorically eclipsed. Interesting how the aliens treat the initial invasion fleet as a funeral procession because by the time they reach Earth (450 years) we would have advanced far beyond them. Hence stopping Earth from developing small particle research by sabotaging linear accelerators – umm.
Quite enjoyed the novel and its Chinese dimension and engaged thoroughly with both Wang Miao and Ye Wenjie.
Summary:
First contact
Grass is always greener
Observations on the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s-70s
We are bugs!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Body-Problem-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00S8FCJCQ/
Sequel out later in 2015 and the third out in 2016.
Nelder News
To grab a copy of one of my ARIA books here are the links
Kindle – Amazon.comhttp://www.amazon.com/ARIA-Left-Luggage-ebook/dp/B008RADGYC/
Paperback Amazon.comhttp://www.amazon.com/ARIA-Left-Luggage-Volume-1/dp/1905091958/
Kindle UK –http://www.amazon.co.uk/ARIA-Left-Luggage-ebook/dp/B008RADGYC/
Paperback UKhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/ARIA-Left-Luggage-Geoff-Nelder/dp/1905091958/
Buy it quick before you run out of memory
Another science fiction book you might like of mine uses a bit of quantum mechanics but in a fun way. ALIEN EXIT, After timequakes cause chaos, a Mars mission is diverted to chase departing mysterious spheres. Will the spheres listen and return before Earth rips apart?
https://mybook.to/alienexit
This crazy #vegan finally penned a surreal science fiction. SUPPOSE WE A spaceship crashed on a planet but natives so advanced they ignore the humans. “Original mouth agape concepts” Non-vegans praise it in 5* reviews! first contact https://mybook.to/SupposeWe
