I’m currently reading the trilogy, and while it’s an entertaining enough read I don’t really understand the fascination with it. The overall plot is a bit simplistic, characters are wooden and storytelling awkward (but that might be an effect if Chinese literal tradition). Besides, the sci-fi elements are fairly weak and inconsistent.<p>I mean, I can see that a reader who is used to the run of the mill contemporary sci-fi or fantasy would see this trilogy with its plot twists and big topics as some kind of masterpiece, but that’s a pretty low bar to beat. I can also see comparison with Asimov novels (it’s pretty clear that Liu tries to follow the narrative style of Foundation in his own way), but let’s be real here - Asimov wrote the core of his stuff hundred years ago and he pioneered the relevant plot devices. The main narrative innovation of Liu is the idea of total surveillance (no matter how hand-wavy it is introduced) and the rest is mostly poking around with a stick and awkwardly bringing plot points together.
I loved the trilogy even though I agree with various criticisms discussed here. But I think those can be easily forgiven if you’re trying to see the <i>forest</i> (heh) instead of the <i>trees</i>.<p>Yes the mechanics of reading are kind of a slog due to the translation, and constant repetition of full character names. You just have to figure out how to efficiently read it. And there are plenty of scientific and technological incongruities, of the form “if they had the tech to do X, why do they still do Y?” Sometimes there was a narrative reason for such, and the rest I just left to entertainment value while consuming a social commentary.<p>It was the first time I think encountering some narrative devices which I enjoyed. I liked seeing the dialogue with Trisolarans that appear in a sans-serif font. I liked the excerpts from <i>A Past Outside of Time</i> in Death’s End, although sometimes they wind up sort of repeating what had just happened in the previous chapter. Also the fairy tales in Death’s End I thought were some of the best writing and devices in the whole series.
I read the trilogy and thoroughly enjoyed it. But yes, not exactly hard sci-fi through and through. My favourite idea wasn't even really a sci-fi thing. I really liked the idea of the Wallfacers. Really clever bit of storytelling, I thought.<p><a href="https://three-body-problem.fandom.com/wiki/Wallfacer" rel="nofollow">https://three-body-problem.fandom.com/wiki/Wallfacer</a> (spoilers, I guess)
While I highly enjoyed the trilogy (especially 'The Dark Forest'), the Science Fiction element of the story remains very soft. At no point does the author offer any meaningful explanation for any of the technologies used in the books.<p>I really liked the story, and enjoyed the ride, but as a fan of 'hard SF' such as the Expanse or the Mars trilogy, this book left me somewhat dissatisfied.
Ironically, buried in a footnote at the end of the article is a reference to the only technology that will actually matter in the future:<p><i>"All images generated with Midjourney."</i>
For those who enjoyed the trilogy, there is a fourth book "The Redemption of Time: A Three-Body Problem Novel" written by Baoshu [1]. Originally one of the first fanfics by the Chinese sci fi author. Later approved by Liu Cixin himself for publishing and translated into English by the same sci fi author Ken Liu who also translated the original trilogy. The book envisions the aftermath of the conflict between humanity and the extraterrestrial Trisolarans.<p>1. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42646354-the-redemption-of-time" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42646354-the-redemption-...</a>
I'm disappointed by the slow progress in cryo-suspension. It seems like it should be possible, and would be very useful on earth too. You could just hop however many years into the future. It'd have fascinating social implications if people could do that.<p>The main problem is apparently that ice crystals grow and damage cell membranes. Surprising that that should be so unsolvable.
My “favorite” part of the trilogy, is when a character in the book praises the writing and quality of a couple of fairytales that are part of the plot and written in the book<p>As in.. Cixin literally calling his own writing great and patting himself on the back
a brilliant series, scope is mind bogglingly vast. Liu Cixin is an engineer by trade as I understand, so the sci-fi is pretty 'hard', imo he was just trying to fit in a story to the end of the time in 3 volumes. Some adaptions coming up, hope they do it Game of Thrones level justice
Kind of cheap to quote from the first item in the article, but:<p><i>While it could cost $10+ billion to build</i> [...] <i>scientists believe that carbon nanotube material could be the answer.</i><p>Yeah, that's going to cost a lot more than $10 billion!<p>There's plenty of fun tech and mega-structures in this book but I don't think it has anything interesting to say about the plausibility of any of it.
I am a huge fan of the trilogy but it's because I accept it for what it is. Most of the characters are not that well written and do not have satisfying arcs; instead, they are merely there to push the plot in a certain direction at the required moment.<p>I also didn't think that the technologies got too fantastical until Death's End, where everybody inside the solar system as well as outside of it are experiencing new things every 25 pages or so.<p>I still think back to the trilogy as different events over the last few years. Looking back at the actions and habits some people started during the early weeks of the pandemic (washing groceries) feels a lot like humans at the end of the Dark Forest looked back at the early years of the Crisis Era - a lot of grasping at straws and trying to give the appearance of doing something. And it's very easy to see how people would turn against Escapism in the end.
I'm pretty confident that it is intentionally not about the characters. People are so used to stories where specific characters are individual saviors of everyone else, but I don't think that is the purpose of the characters in this story. There just needs to be characters to help guide the story and have a lens to view the world through, but who they are and what they want is not the purpose of the book.<p>It's more about the collective response of humanity to situations and any individuals perspective is not that important.<p>This was one of the things that I actually really enjoyed about this series. I really don't think a book that is as grandiose as this where the entire world, solar system and universe are at stake can have an individual savior like a super man.
I thought this trilogy was full of fresh takes. For one thing, it’s written from a Chinese pov, so things like the cultural revolution and appeal of authoritarianism are big themes. Second, it’s full of dry humor. It’s hysterical when aliens’ super weapon doesn’t work, over and over again. Third, it toys with issues in the philosophy of science, like how how our view of reality can change because of long periods of comfort or difficulty, or just boredom too, even though reality hasn’t changed at all. I would read more of these if he wrote them.
Sidebar:<p>For anyone who liked it, and wants a related, a bit more "out there" story: The Redemption of Time is fan fiction, but the novel has been officially blessed by the author and published by the original publisher, and later by Tor in English.<p>It’s not quite on the level, writing wise, but quite close. This sequel takes place so many years in the future, that it’s buttery-soft sci-fi, though. I still enjoyed it.
This trilogy is the first one that I read that is on the same level, or even better, than Asimov's novels.<p>Concepts and ideas here are much bigger, but there are so many cramped into every book that sometimes it feels like a Rick & Morty show. And I like that the point of technology is that no matter how advanced you are, there is always a bigger fish.
Really loved this trilogy, sure there might be some inconsistencies here and there, but it's still pretty much hard sci-fi or borderline so and more importantly I don't know any other sci-fi books which are so intense like this one. Relentless twists, there is really little time to be bored.
I absolutely <i>LOVED</i> Liu Cixin's <i>The Wandering Earth</i> collection of short stories. One of my favorite Sci-Fi books. Surprised no one else mentioned it here yet.
I extremely enjoyed the trilogy, was hesitant at first because I‘ve never read Chinese sci-fi. One thing I enjoyed reading about was the whole concept of the „Dark Forest“:
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis</a>
Nice graphics, but the article misses what was the most interesting new (to me) idea in the books: the Droplets, which are made of "strong interaction" material so dense that miniscule amounts can destroy planets. I'd love to read more about this idea.
The space elevator was proposed by Arthur C. Clarke in Fountains of Paradise in 1979.<p>That said, I do love Cixin Liu's work even if I don't love his prose.
Liu Cixin manages to write a great sci-fi trilogy with an interesting global plot without pissing of the chines communist party - that's what I find really impressive.
SpaceX's Starship+Superheavy ("can+kicker", informally) promises $100/kg to orbit. (Musk is on record lying that it might be $20/kg.) So, the space elevator would need to do much better than $50/kg.<p>Anyway there are better alternatives than the space elevator that have the advantage of being, y'know, possible. The orbiting, rotating "skyhook" concept, that dips down to snatch a payload from the upper atmosphere and fling it to space, is one. A ring-shaped version, rolling, might be more structurally practical.<p>None of the ideas cited in the article originate from Liu. He riffs on them. What would make them more interesting would be knowing how to achieve them. But we don't. People are working on some of them. Some are just bad ideas, the Neptune one spectacularly so.
I was going to read his books, but then discovered he parrots Chinese government propaganda about the Uighur genocide.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Cixin#Political_views" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Cixin#Political_views</a>