The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu

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⭐ 7.0/10

(Originally written by hoodie_logi)

Y'all this is some bleak sci-fi right here.


I've been curious about this book for awhile, and am happy I finally read it, but there was quite a bit that didn't land for me.


First of all, this book featured my forever biggest complaint with sci-fi; the author knows way more about physics and science than I do, and it shows. A lot of the dialogue is information dumps for certain problems in physics and philosophy, mainly, the Three Body Problem. There was a lot I couldn't follow which always takes away from the reading experience.


Most of the characters also exist purely to serve idealogical or political stances as well. Outside of Ye Weinje, there really isn't a lot of character development for anyone, especially our main character. Part of me wonders if this is a fault of the author, or more typical of modern Chinese fiction. Hard to know what got lost in translation.


One thing I really did like was the way we were slowly introduced to the Alien civilization. There was a decent bit of intrigue at the beginning before it became a huge information dump.


Overall, glad I read it, might finish the series, but not my favourite book ever. I see why it was a huge award winner, as the themes it tackles are insanely complicated. I only had a few existential crises about our place in the vast universe while reading this lol.

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