The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu

⭐ 4.0/10

(Originally written by Tim)

Boy oh boy was this a disappointment. Originally released in China but recently translated for American release, this award winning book starts in historical events, anchoring the story to the world we live in and establishing our characters.

However, after 100 pages or so this is all tossed out the window. The book features no meaningful characters or arcs. Everyone we meet serves as a mouth piece to dump information, and the book becomes one big scientific thought experiment instead of a novel. Don't get me wrong, the ideas it presents are really cool, and I was pretty fascinated to start. But our "main character" continually hops from one universally important event to another. Seriously, he only knows award winning scientists, and is juggled between them for us to know what the next scientific breakthrough is to drive the thought experiment forward. It was really frustrating, and felt like I was reading a wikipedia plot summary.

At the end of the book the author has some notes, and he sounded really pretentious. Almost like, I am super smart and think about things like no one else and these books are a result. I instantly didn't like him. But then the translator had some notes, talking about the difficulty of balancing an American interpretation with its Chinese origin, keeping the story true to the original writing, and I felt a bit bad. Maybe something was lost in translation, and my ignorance of their culture gave me the wrong expectations or interpretations.

That being said, I read the summary of the rest of the trilogy online (something my inner completionist has never allowed me to do), and the things I dislike seem to continue. All sci-fi ideas, no character or plot. That's the last time I read a book with a reviews from Obama and GRRM on the back. Should have known it was too good to be true.