Reviews with content warning for Torture - The Three-Body Problem

Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

19 reviews

zombiezami's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

4.25

This is the first book that I’ve read by this author, and I can tell he’s super talented and knowledgeable. He weaves history, advanced science, and philosophy together in fascinating ways. It was hard to follow at times, though, because of the thoroughness of his descriptions. Not sure if I’ll read the other books in this series, but this one was pretty fascinating.

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kamela's review against another edition

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challenging informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I hate to say it, but I largely found this book dull. I adore Ken Liu's stuff, so I was looking forward to a really luminous translation from him. It's nigh-impossible to judge the quality of a translation if you don't know the original language, but I'm guessing he did a really good job, and that the odd flatness of the prose is reflective of either the author's style, a translation difficulty with the Chinese, or both.

In the beginning, I almost put it down because of how brutal the opening scenes in the Cultural Revolution were. If it had gone on much longer, I wasn't going to be able to deal with it - I didn't want to spend all that time in a world where these intensely violent and head-twisting things were being depicted one after the other. But it did cause me to feel attached to Ye Wenjie, and I was quite disappointed when the rest of the book didn't focus on her. Her every appearance in the book added intrigue and pathos, but I truly wish Liu had made her the protagonist, to the extent this book has one.

Because honestly...it really doesn't. It mostly has a bunch of characters whose purpose it is to react to huge, physics-related happenings that are difficult to feel much about. There's an incredible underlying thread here, about the way systematic brutality and having your mind beaten down repeatedly

(and your father murdered in front of you in the public square)

can cause a person to become hardened toward the fate of the entire human race, and when given the opportunity, to

arrange with an alien civilization for their wholesale destruction and

bring about untold vengeance, however long it takes. To me, this journey of Ye Wenjie is the beating heart of the book, but unfortunately the author decided to put that heart in the book's big toe or something. I got through it, but it left me cold.

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the_planetarywanderer's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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pipn_t's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I disliked this book a lot. There was unnecessary gore. There was not much characterization, so the reveal of one antagonist had no meaning. There was only one woman who was a main character, the rest were side characters with no personality. It was militantly pessimistic about human nature and society to the point where I wondered why I should root for the main characters at all. The plot made little sense, and the book ended suddenly, like it just got cut off mid book rather than any plot points wrapping up. I don’t know about astrophysics, but considering some basic details regarding glasses and eye health were not right, it made me a little bit question whether some of the more science things were right or not also.

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mdiffer's review

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challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Old-school, hard sci-fi.
Might not be everybody's cup of tea.
Expect a little more character development than Asimov or Clark... but not much. Characters are mostly one-dimensional. And that's ok, because this a story about big ideas. It's plot-heavy and a little dry at times with technical details. But I enjoyed the book and finished it quickly. For me, this was a page-turner.
I enjoyed the mystery plot and premise. It was nice to read something from a non-western perspective and history.

Characters navigating life in China during and after the Cultural Revolution were especially fascinating and heartbreaking. The end was abrupt and posed a subtle yet terrifying cosmic horror premise. What if a hostile invader could stunt our scientific progress?

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