Book Review: The Three Body Problem trilogy, by Cixin Liu

I don't feel I'm exaggerating when I say that Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem and its two sequels are some of the most important science fiction written in decades. It certainly is in China- it's sometimes credited there with reviving the importance of the entire genre in China.

[Image source]

The Three Body Problem is the first ever Chinese science fiction translated into English- which seems somewhat surprising, considering the sheer amount of Russian science fiction that's been translated into English, even at the height of the Cold War. This is, however, thanks to a quirk of history. Russia had already been developing a utopian strain of proto-science fiction and science fiction for some time before the Russian Revolution, and the Communist Party there quickly embraced science fiction as a tool of propagating the communist message and the material dialectic. A lot of it, despite the political constraints on it, is actually even really good. In China, during Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution of 1966, science fiction was effectively banned. Even after Mao's death, conservative opponents of Mao's replacement fought to oppose all Western imports, including science fiction. This started to change in the 90s, and by 2000, science fiction was on the rise again in China, but it was an uphill battle, until The Three Body Problem burst onto the scene. It sold in massive numbers, and revitalized interest in the genre.

The first book itself is... an interesting one. It starts with a scientist during the height of Mao's reign going rogue and responding to a message from aliens that, well... she probably shouldn't have. For the first 80% of the book or so, it reads like a Michael Crichton novel, albeit with an oncoming alien invasion to be worried about centuries in the future. Good, but I couldn't really see what all the fuss was about. The end of the book, however, contains some of the most shocking twists I've ever encountered in fiction. They're not unearned, out of nowhere twists like the ones you get in certain movies by a director who will go unnamed. Instead, they're carefully prepared for and foreshadowed, and you will not see them coming. The Three Body Problem won a much deserved Hugo after it was translated.

[Image source]

The second and third books- especially the third book- are far stronger overall than the already impressive first. The Dark Forest, the second book, is one of the most cynical works of science fiction I've ever encountered. It's not grimdark at all- it's no Warhammer 40K. Its pessimism is an insidious intellectual worm. It does everything you want for the second book in a trilogy and then more. The final book, Death's End, is even more depressing and cynical yet, something I didn't even consider possible going into it. Somehow, however, everything doesn't come to a crashing, horrible halt. The incredibly hostile universe depicted in the trilogy somehow manages to encapsulate a tiny piece of hope and light in the end, and it's that little fragment that sticks with you.

The translation of the trilogy is top notch. The first and third books are both translated by Ken Liu, a Chinese American science fiction/fantasy author (of no relation to Cixin Liu) who is extremely worth checking out on his own merits. His short story The Paper Menagerie won the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards (along with some others, I believe), making it the most highly decorated science fiction short story in history. His other short fiction is excellent, and he's published the first two books in an epic fantasy trilogy, The Dandelion Dynasty, based in Chinese history and philosophy. The middle book, The Dark Forest, is translated by Joel Martinsen, who while not an author himself, does an excellent job.

[Image source]

Science fiction translations provide fairly unique challenges to both the translator and the reader. The differences in how different cultures think about the world is exaggerated to an astonishing extent when it comes to predicting and considering the future. When dealing with the past, conflicting ideas of human nature are forced to cope with the events that have actually happened, giving them common ground. When dealing with the future, well, there are no such chains, and it leads to some seemingly bizarre scenes that nonetheless ring with their own internal logic. It's well worth the read, I promise you.