The Three-Body Problem

Three-Body Trilogy #1

Hardcover, 400 pages

English language

Published Sept. 12, 2014 by Tor Books.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-7706-7
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OCLC Number:
868276526
Goodreads:
20518872

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4 stars (21 reviews)

Within the context of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a military project sends messages to alien worlds. A nearby alien society receives these messages and makes plans to invade Earth.

14 editions

Review of 'Three-Body Problem' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Content warning Discusses elements of the plot

Not just bizarrely nihilistic and cynical, but also pro-authoritarian propaganda

1 star

Content warning This book is intensely political.

Science Fiction

5 stars

Spannend aufgebaut mit verschiedenen Handlungssträngen, die sich irgendwann zusammenfügen. Technische / physikalische Grundprinzipien auch für mich als Laien verständlich dargestellt. Und die Frage nach dem "First Contact" mit all ihren Implikationen wurde toll beackert. Zusätzlich erfährt von noch etwas über die jüngere chinesische Geschichte.

Good, but watch out - sets up trilogy

5 stars

The first few chapters had me darting to and from Wikipedia to help add some context to a story that is deeply set in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It',s a triviality to call the story complex, a mystery than unfolds through the book. Be warned this is the first in a trilogy and a very much sets itself up this way, which was a little frustrating in the last few chapters.

professional play

3 stars

Much of the novel assumes a tone of gossamer fantasy, still with the heft of a folktale. Think of fabric draping a central space into being, over a solid floor.

There is video gaming (along with rally and militarism) as theatre, perhaps most overtly, but the whole story is almost palpably sited within in staging containers — which mostly stretch or are transcended rather gently, in contrast to the claustrophobic violence possessing and constricting the gap in the crowd, the logged woods, the cramped room, the retina, the battered biosphere, the rigid formation, the traumatic shared memory, the laden canal, the proton.

For its themes, The Three-Body Problem is a very comfortable read. The “hard sci‐fi” elements are good fun, silly (or playful and open) without committing to ridiculous abandon. Although, on occasion, explanatory dialogue felt condescendingly conspicuous, on the whole, Liu’s devices moved smoothly enough. There are some beautiful …

Guter Auftakt der Trilogie

4 stars

Ich hab innerhalb von zwei Tagen "Die Drei Sonnen" von Cixin Liu gelesen. Das hatte ich schon sehr lange auf meiner Liste und erfreulicherweise waren alle drei Bände der Trilogie in der Stadtbücherei vorrätig.

Die knapp 550 Seiten haben sich schnell und angenehm gelesen. Das Meisterwerkgefühl bliebt bei mir jedoch leider aus.

Die Geschichte ist nett, aber jetzt nichts neues, vieles wirkt eher konstruiert und anstatt Entdeckung wird eher präsentiert.

Review of 'The Three-Body Problem' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I think the image I will always remember is the computer made of tens of thousands of humans and flags. Liu Cixin explains how to make AND, OR, and NOT gates, and it is great, because the image concocted of a plain filled with people, all being fed by huge supply trains... Impossible to forget.

It is a strange story overall too. An the 3-body problem itself is really an issue. ;-)

Review of 'El problema de los tres cuerpos' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Empecé con muchas ganas este ganador del Premio Hugo de 2015. Ciencia ficción "hard", de una cultura un tanto exótica para mí como la china, y con aplauso unánime de la crítica, prometía mucho. Y no es que sea una mala lectura ni mucho menos, pero me ha acabado decepcionando bastante.

Se dice que el autor está muy influido por Asimov, Clarke y similares, y la verdad es que sí: la trama contiene muchos elementos que podían haber sido originales en los años 60, pero que desde luego hoy en día no lo son, al menos en Occidente. El personaje principal es bastante plano; los secundarios, que tenían mimbres para ser interesantes, acaban resultando estereotípicos; el hecho de que la novela acabe en un "continuará" (es el primer libro de una trilogía) no ayuda tampoco a la redondez de la trama.

En otros aspectos donde se ven influencias de otros …

Review of 'The Three-Body Problem' on 'LibraryThing'

5 stars

Wow. In the classic way of much great sci-fi, this book uses a couple of outlandish inventions to explore the human society of its time. The inventions themselves are interesting, but their reflections in earth society much more so.



This is partly a book about China--particularly about how the horrors of the Cultural Revolution still shape survivors even now--but it also has a lot to say about globalised culture, especially the divisions within the environmental movement.



The first 2 or 3 chapters are set in the Cultural Revolution and are absolutely harrowing. If you have a hard time getting through them, it's worth knowing that the book doesn't stay that dark.

Review of 'Three-Body Problem' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

SPOILERS THO

The three-body problem in physics states that although it is trivial to model the path of two bodies (e.g. binary stars) revolving around each other, it is currently impossible to create a model that can accurately predict the future positions of three bodies around each other, as minute instabilities add up over time to create a chaotic system. This book postulates that the nearest star to the earth, Alpha Centauri, as a ternary star system, is such a chaotic system; despite its unpredictability, a race of sentient species have evolved to sentience on an immensely inhospitable planet. When they learn of the existence of Earth, and realize it is in a stable solar system with a relatively mild climate, what would such a civilization do?

The book reminds me of Carl Sagan's "Contact" (well, the movie; I haven't read the book) but goes beyond the touchy-feely aspects of …

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