Scan barcode
A review by goodthingsread
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
challenging
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
3.5 stars rounded down because there are a lot of issues, I feel, that one has to overlook to truly enjoy the story.
My main issue with this book is how the science part of the science fiction was disseminated. While there were some clever tricks to explain some processes -- the human computer devised by von Neumann was great, for example -- I found other concepts to be explained like a character reading from a Wikipedia article. Even with the human computer, when von Neumann explains its working to the emperor, it felt like certain passages were simply copy and pasted from another website with a few "Ah!" and "Hm!" added in to make it read like regular human speech. All it did was make the awkwardness stand out to me more.
And there is a lot of science in this book. I don't mind necessarily. I feel like, generally speaking, scifi has trended more towards the fi than the sci in recent decades. But that means the average reader isn't prepared for this level of intricacy. My husband is in computer programming and engineering, so some terminology caught my attention; even if I didn't fully understand what was meant, I remember him using a term so I paid more attention in the novel. I feel like for others, the wall of words would make their eyes glaze over. Sometimes that's fine; this book just has too many walls of words that matter to get away with that.
(I just remembered, this also happened but with character backstory and thought in the very beginning of the book. Just a wall of internal monologue by Ye Zhetai mixed with exposition for a character that doesn't really factor into the story beyond that moment. It left me with a sour taste in my mouth in the very first chapter; even though I got over it, in remembering it, I still can't believe how clunky and awkward it felt as the introduction to a book so renown.)
I found enough twists to keep me interested, but the twists themselves were almost too twisty while not being novel enough. At a certain point, the pacing of the novel takes a turn where it feels very much like you've hit the edge of the ski slope and it's a nonstop, ramping up of speed until you've hit the cliffhanger at the end of the book. Some of those twists you encounter on that wild ride to the end hit you in a sort of, "Oh, we're doing <i>this</i>, are we? Okay, why not?!" sort of way. You always feel like you're dangerously close to jumping the shark.
That said, I did enjoy the book. The characters were somewhat flat, due to the number of them, but I enjoyed the ones that did have personality, Ye Wenjie especially, for all her flaws. I do think this is ramping up into something special, so I'm excited to eventually read the rest of the series and see if that pans out. But this is a hard book to recommend generally and requires a bit of warning to those that you think could enjoy it.
My main issue with this book is how the science part of the science fiction was disseminated. While there were some clever tricks to explain some processes -- the human computer devised by von Neumann was great, for example -- I found other concepts to be explained like a character reading from a Wikipedia article. Even with the human computer, when von Neumann explains its working to the emperor, it felt like certain passages were simply copy and pasted from another website with a few "Ah!" and "Hm!" added in to make it read like regular human speech. All it did was make the awkwardness stand out to me more.
And there is a lot of science in this book. I don't mind necessarily. I feel like, generally speaking, scifi has trended more towards the fi than the sci in recent decades. But that means the average reader isn't prepared for this level of intricacy. My husband is in computer programming and engineering, so some terminology caught my attention; even if I didn't fully understand what was meant, I remember him using a term so I paid more attention in the novel. I feel like for others, the wall of words would make their eyes glaze over. Sometimes that's fine; this book just has too many walls of words that matter to get away with that.
(I just remembered, this also happened but with character backstory and thought in the very beginning of the book. Just a wall of internal monologue by Ye Zhetai mixed with exposition for a character that doesn't really factor into the story beyond that moment. It left me with a sour taste in my mouth in the very first chapter; even though I got over it, in remembering it, I still can't believe how clunky and awkward it felt as the introduction to a book so renown.)
I found enough twists to keep me interested, but the twists themselves were almost too twisty while not being novel enough. At a certain point, the pacing of the novel takes a turn where it feels very much like you've hit the edge of the ski slope and it's a nonstop, ramping up of speed until you've hit the cliffhanger at the end of the book. Some of those twists you encounter on that wild ride to the end hit you in a sort of, "Oh, we're doing <i>this</i>, are we? Okay, why not?!" sort of way. You always feel like you're dangerously close to jumping the shark.
That said, I did enjoy the book. The characters were somewhat flat, due to the number of them, but I enjoyed the ones that did have personality, Ye Wenjie especially, for all her flaws. I do think this is ramping up into something special, so I'm excited to eventually read the rest of the series and see if that pans out. But this is a hard book to recommend generally and requires a bit of warning to those that you think could enjoy it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Body horror
Minor: Murder