Love the books but completely agree. I devoured the trilogy but all of the charcters felt like cardboard cut outs. I liked the concept and the story, but hated all of the charcters and the writing in general.
I’m glad you said it. I read so many great reviews for it. It was recommended to me. I tried to read it. Couldn’t get past the first few chapters.
I’m an avid sci-fi reader. I’ve read hundreds of sci-fi books of all sorts; from goofy pulp to sci-fi-smut to high stakes epic novels. But I simply could not get into Three Body Problem.
I thought maybe it was that something was lost in translation.
Three Body Problem is what I call "big ideas" sci-fi. Large-scale problems, global crisis, often detailed world-building, sometimes decent plot, but boring characters, who often act simply as reader's eyes / observers.
Many of Alastair Reynolds' novels are like that, so was Red Mars, and even Blindsight and Rosewater.
Not everyone's cup of tea, and I completely understand why.
...asimov is example one and stands as a titan astride the archetype of Big Ideas in poorly-written stories...
...still super-fun reads if pulpy science fiction is your jam: classic genre works were science-first, with the fiction serving as window-dressing to sense-of-wonder ideas; by contrast, modern popular media is fiction-first, with the science serving as window-dressing to sense-of-drama situations...
I read it some time ago before it was hyped up as much, saw it as a fun and interesting read but yeah a little shallow and action movie esque. It is definitely worth reading for the premise if you are a science fiction fan though, that aspect is solid, and I liked how it gives some details about Chinese culture and history that I wasn't very familiar with.
The first one is a major slog, and the next two aren't significantly easier to get through. I thought the ideas were fascinating and the overall story was pretty good. But the characters are all completely flat and uninteresting. I had a tough time remembering who was who, but it really didn't affect the story at all.
Additionally the writing was not great and, especially in the second and third book, very sexist. It was worth it to read once, but I definitely won't be reading it again. My spouse keeps asking if I'll watch the show, but I'm on the fence. I heard they condensed the characters to a more streamlined cast, which would be a good start. But I still doubt I'll watch it.
To each their own!
I didn't super care about the characters but the sci fi problems, solutions and ideas of the whole series were a blast.
That being said, I grew up reading a lot of classic/"hard" sci fi so I'm pretty used to characters taking a back seat to fun/cool ideas.
Yeah, I felt it was largely a throwback to 1940s and 1950s western SF. Liu feels a lot like Asimov or early Heinlein. I was thinking it was like the kind of thing that a rapidly industrializing society would write as part of the cultural zeitgeist.
Interesting, I really hadn't considered much beyond the political context and hadn't really thought about the societal ones but now that you mention it, yeah absolutely.
Damn, that's a neat take. Hadn't thought of that, but yeah, the sheer, weird "what would happen if" premise is what kept me reading, so all of the exposition was yummy rather than annoying
Exactly how I felt! The premise and everything was so much fun. Like, the opening "mystery" of why physics seemed broken was such a wildly cool idea and the answer was so neat but opened up more etc.
Liu's short stories are all like that, if you get the chance. What if the world had to be moved out of solar orbit? What if a small class of Chinese schoolchildren were chosen to be representative of all humanity? He has these bold, brash concepts that feel like they were written in a USA that felt that the moon was a stepping stone to the stars. Like Heinlein writing about a kid boshing up a spaceship in the yard.
Liu kinda represents a China that can dream really big in the same way.
So here was my experience: finished Project Hail Mary, Google for books similar to it, was recommended 3 Body Problem. Cool. Start listening to it on audible while running errands, a LOT of stuff about the cultural revolution in China, and a very depressed smart young woman and a satellite dish that does weird stuff... a few chapters in and no humor, no science, nothing even remotely like Project Hail Mary or Andy Weir's other writing. So I dropped it.
A year or two later and Netflix adapted the novels into a TV show. Gave it a watch and got pretty bought in. Definitely some cool mystery, intrigue, done if it a bit cheesy, but raised a lot of cool challenges and questions. Also I could see that there was actually some science coming in my science fiction story. So I went back and gave the book a go.
I finished all the books and... it's a bit of a mess narratively. I felt like the author was REALLY good at coming up with creative problems that seemed insurmountable. And many of the solutions to those problem (many, not all) were equally clever and creative. He also came up with the (as far as I'm aware) completely novel concepts of alien biology, culture, and psychology and fictional technologies. But the story very often yadda yadda'd over complex narratives and geopolitical events with time jumps after making them seem like they were incredibly important before hand. He also comes up with some very cool concepts like the Wall Facers and the massive ramifications of having a handful of people that are unquestionable and work in complete secret and will have the highest levels of machinations in the works to save humanity, including one that DOES NOT WANT THE JOB. Such a good setup for so many possibilities... And then they almost immediately backpedal and undermine that with political oversight, borderline cartoon supervillain plans from some of them, and revocation of all of their statuses. There's other stuff too that's just disappointing from a narrative perspective.
But I kept going. I think because the technology was cool, the stakes were massive, the challenge was interesting, some of the mystery was really compelling, and I enjoyed the uniqueness of it all. It could have definitely been better. I think a lot of the ideas could have been explored more thoroughly and more cleanly. But, I don't regret reading it. I think it was pretty cool for the things it did well.
Thank you.
I read them all, hated them, and spent a good week finding negative reviews so I could fume at them in company.
I disagree with you on 3 Body, but I love reading reviews that match my opinion just so I can be like, "Exactly! Thank you!"
You are correct. And it's not a translation problem, I've heard native speakers that read the original say it's precisely as awkward there.
It's the most over-rated trash I've ever encountered, it's like it's written by someone that discovered the genre but never read a single SF book and just assumed everyone that reads it is a teenager. There's more handwaving going on than a David Blaine performance.
And the later books show plotholes you could throw a truck through, when you get to the deus-ex-machina plot device that invalidates the whole marianne. And the character development never improves, it's just, I have to use the word again, awkward.
I wanted my money back.
Whoa whoa whoa, hang on there a second. David Blane would never use enough energy to wave a hand. David Copperfield maybe.
My bad. You're right Copperfield is way more of a flashy showman.
I just pulled the first magician I could think of out of my ass. Like a rabbit. Now how the hell did that get up there?
Dude, if I had a nickel for every rabb... Know what? This should go to a different thread.
From your fiery post, seems you had a wild hare up your arse.
You are absolutely correct OP. They are genuinely terrible books. And no, it's not - as some people like to claim - that book 1 is bad but the series gets better. Out of sheer morbid fascination I have made it to book 3, and it absolutely, categorically, does not get better. Dark Forest is actually worse than Three Body, considerably so. At least all the cultural revolution backstory in book 1 is kind of interesting and well executed. Dark Forest is a steaming pile of bullshit; utterly unlikable characters, one of the weakest versions of a scifi future ever committed to page, endless chapters worth of dumb Death Note style "Aha, but I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that..." bullshit, and the signature premise of the entire book is a theory about the universe grounded in some absolutely atrocious game theory that can be disproved in five minutes. And ten chapters into Death's End... Yeah, it's still awful. Even more unlikable or just outrageously unbelievable characters - the author writes like he's never actually interacted with another human being - and dull plotting with no sense of pacing or urgency.
Cixin Liu has some strengths as a writer; at times he shows himself adept at building anticipation, he's good at knowing how to lay out his ideas towards a conclusion without suddenly dumping everything on you at the last second (something a lot of writers struggle with) and he really is very good at big crazy scifi ideas that make you go "Wow, that's so cool." But he's a bad writer. I compare him a lot to Asimov, in that he's strong on ideas and weak on everything else. But Asimov was primarily known for his short stories, where those strengths could shine and the weaknesses could be hidden (which is exactly why the Foundation novels get worse as they move away from being collections of novellas and towards being full length novels). Liu on the other hand writes interminably long books that absolutely expose those weaknesses. When it shines, it's really cool. There's one particular sequence in Dark Forest that really does stand out as being an incredibly inventive idea, executed very competently. But the standout moments just aren't worth the dross you have to wade through to get there.
Okay, to start: not every book is for everyone and everyone is entitled to opinions. My opinion is that it is okayish. I liked the second one more (Dark Forest).
That said, the book is weird. It's like going to an art gallery and staring at paintings. Each painting is a chapter. Everything is beautifully depicted but totally static. The chapters in the book are look someone describing a painting to someone in the gallery who is blind.
And the paintings (and their descriptions) are good, but they aren't mind blowing or anything.
But, if you sit an digest it for a bit afterwards -- continuing the metaphor: you're on the train home from the gallery and it hits you -- there's themes woven between them. In my opinion, it's actually better once you step back and look at the whole book as though it was an exhibit of paintings with a theme. A few days removed from the book, you'll be returning to the ideas in it, even if all the characters and plot points blend together.
Anyway, my two protons.
I agree that The Dark Forest is better. The premise is so simple: Alien fleet is coming here in a few hundred years, let's see how humanity will go nuts or prepare in a myriad of ways. (And also there are no aliens in the second book - I did not like them, they were too human attitude-wise and too inconsistent tech-wise)
I think there's a real struggle in translating Chinese literature into English.
For what it's worth, the second book - The Dark Forest - starts off much stronger and builds from there, making the first book feel more like it was just introducing the story.
the Dark Forest sucks just as hard if not more so. the premise of the story
spoiler
Mutually Assured Destruction
isnt an original thought, but the author refuses to acknowledge it until the end, pretending like it wasn't obvious the whole story. then he hand waves the problems he sets up (how do you deal with an alien technology so much more sophisticated than your own) pretending like the sophons just couldn't deal with the threat. All this and the character doesn't ever really develop. Things happen to him, but we don't get any meat to his personality, just external bullshit.
I started listening to the third book because I am a gluten for punishment and I have a long commute, but it just meandered. If it was another author Id give them the benefit of the doubt, but I havnt been able to get through it.
I liked it, even if the characters weren't great. I liked book 1 in kind of a detective/mystery novel kind of way. The first book is very different from the next two, which is where I think the series really starts to address larger questions. It's still kind of flimsy and the characters might get worse, but I like some of the questions and hypotheses about the universe that it addresses. It gets into a more philosophical approach to the universe and how other species may interact with each other, mutually assured destruction, and how the human race would react to a sword of Damocles hanging over our head for 400 years. It's told from a Chinese perspective as well, so it was interesting to me to see how he thinks these might play out as opposed to my assumptions coming from a western perspective.
I think the dark forest hypothesis as an answer to Fermi is reasonable, and I like a lot of the big picture ideas.
But yea, it's not really a character driven series.
After much struggle I got some geeky friends of mine to start a book club. I suggested this as the first book based on the hype. Almost no one finished it. When we got together to drink and talk, only two others bothered to dial in (It was during COVID and we are scattered), no one else finished it.
I dislike this book in so many different ways. It has some interesting Ideas and some surprising insights into the modern Chinese view of the revolution, but as an actual story? Ive read better fan fic.
I enjoyed it and have recommended it, but then I reread it and yea, it's not great. But it had some interesting new concepts, for which I'm still grateful I read the books, like the dark forest theory.
Except that the dark forest hypothesis completely falls apart when you examine it for more than a few minutes.
SPOILER
Basically, the fundamental problem is that it applies game theory really badly, by treating the value of "survival" as functionally infinite, which is something that - if we actually applied it in reality - would make life unlivable. For example, eating a chocolate bar contains a miniscule risk to your survival. But if you multiply any minute fraction by infinity you get infinity, so the risk outweighs any possible value you could obtain. This becomes true for every decision you can possibly make. At both the individual and societal levels, treating survival as a purpose that outweighs everything else just leads to total paralysis. Any society that operated on those principles would never actually advance to the point of being capable of interacting with the wider universe. Liu even has to treat humanity itself - our only extant example of a space-faring species - as an almost impossible outlier because our own behaviour completely shatters the hypothesis. Even our studies of animal life on earth repeatedly demonstrate that curiosity and altruism are actually traits that evolution selects for, not against. Yeah, it solves Fermi's Paradox, but that's literally the only argument for it. It fails every other test possible. It's a really interesting idea for a scifi setting, but it's not remotely supported by reality.
I'm not really sure what you mean. I don't think 'infinifte' value vs arbitrarily high value makes a difference here. Also evolutionarily, intraspecies collaboration is beneficial, not necessarily interspecies. Although we're talking about civilizations making decisions, not animal behaviour.
I know it falls apart quickly, but I still like it as a concept. I also like dragons, magic and immortal beings as concepts.
I just read it as a parallel to the realists perspective of international relations on a cosmic scale. It the survival of the state in relation to other states that is the goal. In that respect it holds up well enough.
But even there it falls apart, because if it had any merit then every country in the world would be North Korea. And even that wouldn't be enough, because even North Korea trades with China. The idea that the natural state of the world is total paranoia and the instant annihilation of every civilisation simply doesn't hold up. The realist's perspective of international relations actually serves to disprove; even when you begin from the presumption that their own survival is the primary goal of every civilisation, it can be observed that the optimal behaviours that arise from that goal are cooperative, not defensive.
Countries on the same planet results in a completely different situation. Dark Forest theory is a result of great distance (the enemy could become technologically superior within the time it would take just to gather intel), being hidden (so MAD doesn't apply), and having a large number of civilizations (even if only a very small percentage of civilizations send out dark forest strikes, the principle holds.)
I agree that the natural state with the total paranoia is tad silly. Even the books toy with the idea of cooperation between Tri-solaris and Earth. It would have been better if it was treated as the domineering ideology in their area of space and a theory with flaws from the characters.
If North Korea location was secret, there where no way of telling the difference between North Korea and Switzerland, we had no countermeasures against nukes, and communication increases the risk that North Korea finds you, tensions would way more likely lead to a fist strike doctrines. You only really need one actor with the doctrine to force others to adjust to it.
I read it nine years ago and it was a slog. I had heard good things, but it definitely wasn't for me. Needless to say, I did not read the rest of the trilogy.
I tried to read the book but good God it was so bad and so boring it took me months to get about halfway, then the show came out and I was like 'yes! Maybe this will give me motivation!' and I couldn't be bothered to finish that either.
exact same here. I've even tried reading it like three times
The fictional science of the sophons was also bad.
The book author thought that protons were fundamental particles. Protons are made up of quarks. So the idea of unfolding a proton when it's made up of 3 quarks doesn't make sense. Put 3 marbles next to each other. Label the 3 marbles a proton. Unfold it. ???
Quantum teleportation doesn't allow for FTL communication.
Wouldn't argue with point 1, but point 2 may be a misunderstanding of Einstein's spooky action at a distance, or particle entanglement, which may enable ftl comms.
which may enable ftl comms.
It can't. Take two playing cards and without looking at them, put them in an envelope and mail one to your friend across the country. Open up your envelope. You now know what card your friend has instantly. You can't communicate instantly this way.
It happens sometimes.
I really enjoyed the movie Arrival, so I picked up the story collection it’s based on. My, what a load of genre fiction in the worst possible meaning of the word.
oh no, Ted Chiang is a delight!
Ted Chiang is one of my favourite authors.
I definitely found many, maybe even most of the characters bordering on comically corny. But i hadn't read anything like it regarding the core stories and concepts, and those got the hooks in me. Maybe for a bit i was holding my nose to keep moving through the story, but at some point i just didnt care and had to read all three books, and in the end they're still a dear favorite. If the underlying story isn't doing it for you, you're only crazy if you force yourself to keep reading it.
I understand this community is about books, but I’m curious if anyone here who read this book also watched the Netflix series?
If so, do you hold a different opinion of the show?
I read the first book, and like OP found the characters bland and the writing boring. I reckon this is due to the way the original is translated into English. The style may be more appealing to a chinese audience. I guess there are cultural differences that transpire in one's language and prose.
Unlike OP however, I found the story compelling enough to finish the first book. I struggled a lot more with the second one, until my dog did me a favor and decided to shred it to pieces while I was away =D
I did enjoy the Netflix show though, and I'll happily watch season 2.
Thank you for the response!
I also enjoyed the Netflix series, at least at a conceptual level, and am looking forward to season 2. I don’t think I’ll read the book though.
The Netflix series felt very different then the book. I found the mystery aspect in the first part of the book the most interesting, but the show completely skipped it. So the show wasn't bad but I was still disappointed.
Yeah I can understand that. I liked Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies a lot, but there were some big differences between them and the books that I wished had been different. Tom Bombadil, for instance.
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