The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu was originally published in China in 2006.  This book won the Hugo award for best novel as well as several Chinese science-fiction awards. The novel is an example of what I call hard science fiction. I agree with the many commentators who contend that this book is already a science-fiction classic. The “classic” descriptor has a double meaning, as this book resembles much of the classic science fiction of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. 

The narrative alternates between China in the 1960s during the cultural revolution and twenty-first century China of the very near future. This novel pulls no punches in regards to the horrors of China’s cultural revolution.  That period is depicted as a time of brutality, when irrational forces were destroying truth, science and peoples’ lives. Ye Wenjie is a young physicist whose father is murdered in front of her by a state-sponsored mob. When she gets into her own trouble with the government for reading forbidden books, she chooses a life where she must permanently reside at a secret government base called Red Coast as an alternative to prison. This base is dedicated to sending transmissions to potential extraterrestrial civilizations as well as to searching for signals from those civilizations. This narrative continues through the 1970s and into the 1980s. Signals from an alien civilization, dubbed by humans as Trisolaris, are eventually received. The initial message is a warning from a Trisolaran pacifist that as the Trisolaran civilization is threatened by unstable stellar events, further communications from Earth will likely trigger an invasion of Earth by Trisolarians’ looking for a new home. Ye manages to keep these transmissions a secret and begins communicating with the aliens. Ye has experienced the horrors of the cultural revolution, and she is also convinced that humanity is causing the destruction of Earth’s environment and fears that nuclear war may be coming. Though the aliens’ intentions are not benign, she looks to the Trisolarisarians for salvation. 

In the twenty-first century, the narrative centers on Wang Miao, a young scientist. Wang begins to experience strange events. He discovers messages in photographs that he takes and observes bizarre data from scientific instruments. Wang discovers a strange virtual reality game that simulates a world that orbits three stars, like the Trisolaran home world. He eventually encounters a much older Ye Wenjie, who is now leading a bizarre organization called the Earth- Trisolaris Organization, or ETO. The ETO is trying to actively help the Trisolarisare takeover of Earth. The ETO members have become completely disillusioned with humanity. 

Wang eventually gets pulled into a secret alliance of world governments that are battling the Trisolarians and their human allies. Shi Qiang is also an important character. He is a police counterterrorism expert who is gruff and abrasive, but who provides invaluable assistance in thwarting the alien threat. 

The book is filled with hard science. Current day human technology and science is interwoven into the plot. This includes physics and astrophysics, virtual reality, nanotechnology and more. Extremely advanced science and technology of The Trisolarisarian’s are described. Even wondrous innovations are based upon real physics and current theories. At times, the text becomes a little technical. Though I found it interesting, I think that readers who are less interested in these technical passages can easily skim over them without losing much in this book. 

Though published in the last decade, this book very much resembles works of older classic science fiction. The author clearly was influenced by such writers as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. As mentioned above, the science and physics are all plausible in this work. Even when describing mind boggling alien technology, Cixin Liu provides a scientific basis. The story is also logically consistent. This is a work of hard science fiction. The writing, at least in translation, is straight forward. Most of the story’s characters are scientists. The alliance of world governments uniting to fight off an alien invasion is right out of so many earlier works.

The fact that this was influenced by earlier works is not to say that this is not a very creative book. This novel is filled with creative speculation and imaginative situations. For instance, The Three Body Virtual Reality Game is original and full of unprecedented touches. The way that the Trisolarisarians attempt to undermine human civilization by using just radio and electromagnetic transmissions is wildly inventive. The philosophy behind the story is also original, as will be explained further below. 

The novel has environmental, anti-war and anti-totalitarian themes. Humanistic values are championed.  While the Trisolarisarians attempt to destroy Earth’s civilization, they worry that transmissions from Earth might undermine their own oppressive system. Two members of their leadership observe,

“The humanism of Earth will lead many Trisolarans onto the wrong path. Just as Trisolaran civilization has already become a religion on Earth, Earth civilization has this potential on Trisolaris.” “You’ve pointed out a great danger. We must strictly control the flow of information from the Earth to the populace, especially cultural information.””

Cixin Liu seems to be illustrating how harmful environmental damage, totalitarianism, anti-literacy, etc. are to humankind. However, the message of the book seems to be that people should not fall into despair and to give in to gloom and doom. The members of the ETO do this as they betray humanity and court a cataclysm.

“The most surprising aspect of the Earth-Trisolaris Movement was that so many people had abandoned all hope in human civilization, hated and were willing to betray their own species, and even cherished as their highest ideal the elimination of the entire human race, including themselves and their children.”

Ironically, when the aliens seem so very omnipotent, it is the politically incorrect Shi Qiang that rallies the protagonists with a message of hope and defiance. The Trisolarisarians are able to invade the visual cortex of the members of the group fighting them with a message that they are all forced to see - “You’re bugs!” This completely demoralizes the scientists and the military leadership trying to fight the aliens, but Shi brings the main characters to a region being devastated by locusts and observes, 

“Look at them, the bugs. Humans have used everything in their power to extinguish them: every kind of poison, aerial sprays, introducing and cultivating their natural predators, searching for and destroying their eggs, using genetic modification to sterilize them, burning with fire, drowning with water. Every family has bug spray, every desk has a flyswatter under it … this long war has been going on for the entire history of human civilization. But the outcome is still in doubt. The bugs have not been eliminated. They still proudly live between the heavens and the earth, and their numbers have not diminished from the time before the appearance of the humans.”

The book is not perfect. While several of the characters are interesting to read about and Ye shows a little complexity, they are for the most part simplistic. Better crafted characters would have made this book so much stronger. The writing, at least the translation of it, is at times a little flat. 

This English translation by Ken Liu restored the author’s original sequence of chapters which was changed by the book’s editors upon original publication. It also contains a fair number of helpful notes relating to Chinese history and culture. 

I highly recommend this work to anyone who likes the older science fiction.  Such readers will likely enjoy this book a lot. It is a great piece of science fiction. There are follow-ups to this novel. The Remembrance of Earth’s Past Trilogy refers to this novel and its two sequels. I will likely be reading the remainder of the series soon.