Daniel reviewed Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
How to hack a proton
3 stars
This was a little too weird for me and I can’t say I really bought the premise of the story fully…
Paperback, 432 pages
French language
Published Sept. 13, 2016 by Actes Sud.
The Three-Body Problem (Chinese: 三体; lit. 'Three-Body'; pinyin: sān tǐ) is a science fiction novel by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. The title refers to the three-body problem in orbital mechanics. It is the first novel of the Remembrance of Earth's Past (Chinese: 地球往事) trilogy, but Chinese readers generally call the whole series The Three-Body Problem. The trilogy's second and third novels are The Dark Forest and Death's End. The Three-Body Problem was serialized in Science Fiction World in 2006 and published as a book in 2008. It became one of the most popular science fiction novels in China. It received the Chinese Science Fiction Yinhe ("Galaxy") Award in 2006. A Chinese film adaptation of the same name was in production by 2015, but halted soon after. The English translation by Ken Liu was published by Tor Books in 2014. Thereafter, it became the first Asian novel ever to win …
The Three-Body Problem (Chinese: 三体; lit. 'Three-Body'; pinyin: sān tǐ) is a science fiction novel by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. The title refers to the three-body problem in orbital mechanics. It is the first novel of the Remembrance of Earth's Past (Chinese: 地球往事) trilogy, but Chinese readers generally call the whole series The Three-Body Problem. The trilogy's second and third novels are The Dark Forest and Death's End. The Three-Body Problem was serialized in Science Fiction World in 2006 and published as a book in 2008. It became one of the most popular science fiction novels in China. It received the Chinese Science Fiction Yinhe ("Galaxy") Award in 2006. A Chinese film adaptation of the same name was in production by 2015, but halted soon after. The English translation by Ken Liu was published by Tor Books in 2014. Thereafter, it became the first Asian novel ever to win a Hugo Award for Best Novel, and was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel.The series portrays a future where, in the first book, the Earth is awaiting an invasion from the closest star system, which in this universe consists of three solar-type stars orbiting each other in an unstable three-body system, with a single Earth-like planet unhappily being passed among them and suffering extremes of heat and cold, as well as the repeated destruction of its intelligent civilizations.
This was a little too weird for me and I can’t say I really bought the premise of the story fully…
Spannend aufgebaut mit verschiedenen Handlungssträngen, die sich irgendwann zusammenfügen. Technische / physikalische Grundprinzipien auch für mich als Laien verständlich dargestellt. Und die Frage nach dem "First Contact" mit all ihren Implikationen wurde toll beackert. Zusätzlich erfährt von noch etwas über die jüngere chinesische Geschichte.
The first few chapters had me darting to and from Wikipedia to help add some context to a story that is deeply set in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It',s a triviality to call the story complex, a mystery than unfolds through the book. Be warned this is the first in a trilogy and a very much sets itself up this way, which was a little frustrating in the last few chapters.
Es el primero de una trilogía. Me ha gustado, aunque hay algunas cosas "científicas" que me han parecido muy simplonas. De cualquier forma, estoy leyendo el segundo, y creo que también leeré el tercero. Lo recomiendo.
This book was a real rollercoaster for me.
The book is good, but, it felt like a rollercoaster to me. We start with a looooot of description, nothing makes sense and I kinda lost interest until the middle of the book.
I knew there was going to be something interesting, so I kept on reading, and it was worth it... until I started reading the last few chapters and then again, descriptions, descriptions and descriptions.
And as someone who is fairly acquainted to some physics terms, I got the gist of a lot of things, but there is too much going on in there and that makes you lose your interest. At least in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong it is still a good book overall, but I'm not sure that I want to read the books that will follow.
De la (hard) SF chinoise, voilà qui sort de l’ordinaire et qui pique la curiosité, à supposer que la quatrième de couverture, (qui en dit peut-être un peu trop certes mais pas plus que les anglo-saxonnes) ne suffise pas. Je ne me fie pas au prix remporté par ce roman, car si certains prix valent peut-être mieux que d’autres, par principe je n’en tiens pas compte.
[Vous pouvez lire la suite sur mon blog, merci :)]