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The Three-Body Problem
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The Three-Body Problem
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Barring all the questions I have about how a species could evolve to live in a three body system in the first place, the concept of a planet governed by three suns and all the minutiae that comes with that (the "three shooting stars" issue, etc) was executed pretty well and we even get a "what if you were there" VR game to explore the issue in depth. In fact, I think the VR game and the external plotlines explained the issue pretty well, so much so that the part where we get a ton of exposition and Trisolaris perspective feels kind of superfluous. I honestly really didn't enjoy the last quarter of the book, especially since it does that pulp fiction thing where basically nothing gets wrapped up at all so that you'll keep reading.
Unfortunately, if this is Act 1 in the series, I'm not super keen on reading what comes next, especially if the storytelling is the same. I mean, all the stuff with the sophone unfolding in multiple dimensions was so far beyond my understanding of physics that I would have just liked to it to be explained as "and then they used science to solve this problem." This book is definitely hard scifi, but in a kind of bad way. Where the Matrix took a premise and infused action and tension, this book takes a premise then just talks about it endlessly until your eyes kind of glaze over.
I will be looking into Eastern perspectives on this book though because, like I said before, I think a deeper understanding of the Cultural Revolution in the late sixties would probably make this a more interesting read, whether the author intended it or not.
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And Eastern Perspective infused into some meditations about what it would mean to make contact with extra-terrestrials and what that would mean for life existentially from a philosophical standpoint (ie how would finding out about other life alter our philosophical perception of life). Also, with a political aspect (ie what would it mean for China to make first contact, who would coordinate our efforts? Could we as a planet come together and coordinate against this potentally existential threat? Would we view it as a threat or an opportunity?).
I'm much less curious about the scientific mechanisms that put them in place.
I think authors writing about technical scient are bound to ge ta lot of things wrong. Didn't Margaret Atwood promise us a whole bunch of things from Oryx and Crake would be here "very soon" when we saw her talk in 2010? Maybe that wasn't true, but the exploration of the impacts that bioengineering could have on our lives was interesting as a premise for a book.
(I also had a professor around that time tell me that biological batteries would start replacing chemical ones, not faulting Atwood at all on that).
It's a murder mystery!
It's got a rogue cop!
There are historical ties to Chinese culture!
There are aliens!
The aliens are treated in a thoughtful way!
To me a big part of the build-up was that this book was building up the policitical and social atmosphere on Earth and that this book was going to comment on these.
But when I read the postscipt, the author says that his goal isn't to use science fiction to explore new ideas about how people interact, but to explore new ideas about science and technology. So, the last 100 pages of the book turned out to be starting towards something I was not prepared for.
The introduction of the sophone and all the technical writing which surrounded it's introduction. That is to say the hard science fiction, is a bit much for me, and I'm worried the series is going to have more of that type of structure, and less of the philisophical ideas about the meetings of civilizations.