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The Three-Body Problem
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The Three-Body Problem
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I have started and so far it is very promising. Well written, intelligent and hints at being original. It also deals with politics which is always nice.
I love the human computer! What a wonderful idea!!!
"Wildly imaginative." Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy
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So why did I nominate this book? The main reason was because I have never read a Chinese Sci fi book. This has also gotten great reviews and I had a copy of it.
I have now finished the book. I loved it. Can't wait to start on the 2nd book. Really well written and original. The jumping forward and backward in time is a little confusing at times (not easy to see how all of this is connected) but it all comes together beautifully in the end. There will be SPOILERS from here on so don't read on if you have not read the book.
I find it quite interesting that this book was not banned in China since it is quite critical of the cultural revolution. I know that China has condemned the cultural revolution as a failure and a mistake but still, a lot of what is being criticized could be applied to modern China. And it is this connection I would like to focus on here. The book as a political attack on the system at home.
The book opens with students attacking their teacher during the cultural revolution for teaching them theories that go against the teachings of communism. They have turned the world upside down. Reality has to fit the theory, not the other way around.
Then we move forward in time where the law of nature has been broken. What was believed to be law is suddenly not a law any more. The scientific world collapses. There is a mirror here. What was preached in the cultural revolution has become a reality.
Now this book could have been written without the connection to the cultural revolution. It could have started later or without the historical context. In other words, there is a reason why we are getting this mirror. It's like Liu Cixin is telling us that the damage done back then has something to do with modern time. But what?
We do get some hints in the book. One is the environmental problems in China. There are few countries (if any) that have destroyed their nature as quickly and polluted their land as much as China. All because it tried to make up for lost years in economical development (do to the disastrous cultural revolution).
Another problem we see is the central control. It is the government that can decide what is right and wrong and who can investigate things and who can't - and this makes all progress problematic.
And finally there's the corruption in the system.
These are not problems of the past. They are all modern problems. Yes science is free from communist ideology but that does not mean that there is freedom of thought or speech.
Is the communist government in China like the Trisolarans who have sent two sophons computes to distort reality? That's at least how the book reads to me. And if that is the case then the only way forward for China is to free it self from these reality distorting computers.
Tagging, will start reading next week.
I finished the 2nd book. It is epic. Even better than the first one. It is obvious that Liu Cixin is very much inspired by Arthur C. Clarke (down to his love of ants and hope in humanity). I look forward to reading the third book. If it is as good as the other two then this might be my favorite Sci fi series.
Have been stuck in the early stages of this book for a long time, will def get onto it!
Karen wrote: "Have been stuck in the early stages of this book for a long time, will def get onto it!"It is less complicated that it looks like in the beginning. It all comes together in the end.
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There will be SPOILERS from here on so don't read on if you have not read the book. "
As I'm still in the early stages of the book, I'll avoid reading the rest of your post for the time being, Thorkell, because of the spoilers. I'm glad to hear that you liked it! I will say that I am enjoying the book so far, although reading about what the so-called Cultural Revolution meant for intelligent and highly educated people as well as the natural environment of China is rather disturbing. The utter pointlessness and mindlessness of it. Similar to the Khmer Rouge a decade or so later.
Ryan wrote: "Tagging, will start reading next week."
Welcome to the group, Ryan! :)
Karen wrote: "Have been stuck in the early stages of this book for a long time, will def get onto it!"
The sci-fi aspect is certainly slow to arise - except perhaps (view spoiler).
Finished the third book. This is now my favorite sci fi series. The third one is even better than the first two. I wish we were discussing the third book. So many amazing ideas there.
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LOL We might get around to it for a future group read!
Thorkell, you're an incredibly fast reader!I hope we can engage with this book a bit more before the month ends. I just finished it, and I liked it.
For those of you who know a lot of science, how plausible is the science in this book, particularly towards the end? I've heard Liu called a "hard sci-fi" author, is this accurate? The proton dimensional folding seems a little sketchy to me, as does the real-time monitoring of Earth by Trisolarians via quantum spins or something (I forget how this is described exactly). Doesn't this violate the lightspeed limit?
Unfortunately for this discussion, I did not read the book, but "monitoring Earth through quantum spins" is nonsense. The spin is either left or right handed, and there is a fifty-fifty probability either way. 18 g of water will have 1.2 x 10^24 proton spins to monitor while the oxygen has no net spin. The ocean will give you lot of data. Once you start looking at other elements it is a nightmare. Think of 17O with a spin of 5/2 instead of the proton 1/2.My view of hard science fiction (and I write it it) is that is OK to invent new technologies, etc, in the future, but it has to have a plausible way of working given what we know anyway. I also think the invention should introduce some scientific way of thinking. For example, in Troubles, which was not selected for the dystopian read, I designed a fusion reactor, and given that design, showed how it could be extended to develop a motor for a space ship, and a means of separating elements on Mars so people could build things. A certain degree of fancy, but I hoped to show that if you get somewhere, there is usually some other things that pop up.
Thanks for the reply, Ian. In case you'd like more information, here is the text from the book: “Quantum entanglement can work at a distance. Even if four sophons were placed at opposite ends of the universe, they could still sense each other instantaneously, and the quantum formation between them would still exist. Keeping Sophon Three and Sophon Four here will enable them to receive the information sent back by Sophon One and Sophon Two instantaneously. This gives us a way to monitor the Earth in real time. Also, the sophon formation allows Trisolaris to communicate in real time with the alienated forces within Earth civilization.”(view spoiler)
I have no idea if all of these theories are real but I love them. I especially love the idea of different dimentions in the books (it becomes a huge part of the whole plot in book 3).
Sorry, but that is a crock. Quantum entanglement is unfortunately one of those things that is wildly misunderstood. First, what is it? Two particles are entangled if the manner of their creation leads to some sort of conservation law being applied and can apply at any size. Suppose I have a pair of gloves and I put one glove in a box and post it to you. You open the box and see it is a right hand glove. You now know immediately that I have a left hand glove, but nothing is transmitted to that glove.Quantum entanglement is a little different because while the gloves always know what they are, according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, an entangled particle does not know what it is until it is measured. Now, suppose you measure it, and for argument's sake, it could have left or right handed spin. According to the Copenhagen interpretation it has BOTH (like the Schrödinger cat that is both dead and alive! As an aside, I don't believe that, but that is beside the point.) until it is measured, in which case, the other has to collapse to whatever specific value the first chose. The arguments for and against this are a bit complicated but not relevant to your question. There are two important points here. The first is when you measure, if the particle actually decides, IT decides, not you, so you can't impose any information on it. Second, the act of measurement breaks the entanglement. While, like the gloves, you know what they are, the next action on one of them has no effect on the other. For example, if the entanglement led to a right and a left spin after measurement, and you turn the left one around so it becomes a right one, the other stays a right spin. Leaving aside the fact you cannot send messages because you have no control over what a result will be, even if you could, it would be restricted to 1 bit if information, so four whatever could not monitor much.
Very interesting Ian. Not that it bothers me that it is bullshit. It is a fiction. But in case people are interested, I found this online: https://poetryinphysics.wordpress.com...
https://poetryinphysics.wordpress.com...
Intriguing links, Thorkell. To go into it with that depth, I suspect the reviewer was more interested in finding out what was wrong with the book than actually reading it for pleasure.
Thanks for the links. The author of the blog says in the beginning that he highly recommends the book, though, so it is probably just that he derives additional pleasure from explaining the more suspect scientific parts.I don't think it is necessary for good science fiction to always be restricted to what our science now tells us is actually possible. I don't mind a bit of fantasy, as long as it is scientifically plausible to a layman (i.e. me).
That's the difference between you and me, Ryan :-) I think the science part, where it is imaginative, should at least tell you something about the way science works. I can even stand the Star Trek transporter, even though it is physically impossible, although I confess to having another version that some will object to - rather than transport the body, you possess one that is already there. Devilish eh??
Ian wrote: "rather than transport the body, you possess one that is already there. Devilish eh??."As in a robot body or another human?
But back to the science of the book. There is one thing that irritated me. That's the issue of language. In the later books it explains how they leaned the different languages, but how was the original communication understood?
IIRC, that was glossed over - some sort of automatic software translation with a "self-interpreting code", whatever that is.
Thorkell wrote: "Ian wrote: "rather than transport the body, you possess one that is already there. Devilish eh??."As in a robot body or another human?"
A machine, a very recently deceased person, or a living person. The important point was whatever it was, it had to be there. It could only move as it would normally. It is the control that is teleported, and the machine generally speaking won't work unless it is specially suitably designed. The only time my novel used a machine was when it was controlled by another equivalent, so maybe that is not real teleporting as opposed to just transmitting instructions.
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Just finished the book today, nearly two months later! Anyway, I just wanted to say that I was also attracted to reading a book by a Chinese SF writer - something I'd never done before either.
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I also found the historical and political aspects to this tale interesting. Previously, I had only a vague sense of what the Cultural Revolution was about - now I know more. That said, some of the historical characters who are mentioned in passing - mainly scientists who died during the Cultural Revolution - are categorically described as having killed themselves whereas Wikipedia entries on some of them indicate that the cause of death of some of them is uncertain.
In terms of the novel, I think the actions of the communist regime in China on people's rights, intellectuals and the environment do, of course, represent a broad criticism of China under Mao Zedong. However, their effect also acts as a catalyst on the behaviour of Ye Wenjie and Mike Evans, both of whom (for different reasons) seek revenge on humanity as a whole for what they experienced in their personal lives.
I think you're right, Thorkell, in saying that the authoritarian Trisolaran government could be seen as a mirror image of China's communist regime.
The other group read topic for this month (A Canticle for Leibowitz) can be found here.