Review of 'El problema de los tres cuerpos' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
A bunch of interesting ideas, but miles away from a great book.
Hardcover, 400 pages
English language
Published Sept. 12, 2014 by Tor Books.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-7653-7706-7
- OCLC Number:
- 868276526
- Goodreads:
- 20518872
Copied ISBN!
3 stars
(10 reviews)
Within the context of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a military project sends messages to alien worlds. A nearby alien society receives these messages and makes plans to invade Earth.
Bob reviewed Le problème à trois corps by Cixin Liu
Pas mal mais je ne comprends pas trop l'engouement
4 stars
J'ai passé un bon moment à lire le problème des trois corps. C'est bien écrit, avec une structure narrative intéressante qui fait qu'on rentre facilement dans l'histoire. J'ai beaucoup apprécié de lire un livre chinois, dans un contexte et une histoire qui change du tout-étatunien de la science fiction, que je connais mal et que j'ai trouvé vraiment intéressant. Le côté science-fiction "dure" est aussi plaisant, on comprends dès le départ qu'il est féru de physique et qu'on va se plonger dans des questions théoriques, et ça fait du bien. Maintenant venons aux aspects négatifs : déjà il faut bien le dire, si j'ai trouvé que c'était un bon livre, je ne comprends pas sa réputation internationale, il y a plusieurs points (comme la société des tri***) que je trouve assez bancals et pas très crédibles. Si le sujet est amené de manière originale et prenante, on en arrive au …
J'ai passé un bon moment à lire le problème des trois corps. C'est bien écrit, avec une structure narrative intéressante qui fait qu'on rentre facilement dans l'histoire. J'ai beaucoup apprécié de lire un livre chinois, dans un contexte et une histoire qui change du tout-étatunien de la science fiction, que je connais mal et que j'ai trouvé vraiment intéressant. Le côté science-fiction "dure" est aussi plaisant, on comprends dès le départ qu'il est féru de physique et qu'on va se plonger dans des questions théoriques, et ça fait du bien. Maintenant venons aux aspects négatifs : déjà il faut bien le dire, si j'ai trouvé que c'était un bon livre, je ne comprends pas sa réputation internationale, il y a plusieurs points (comme la société des tri***) que je trouve assez bancals et pas très crédibles. Si le sujet est amené de manière originale et prenante, on en arrive au final à un scénario assez classique dans la science fiction et que j'ai trouvé un peu décevant. Enfin, le côté physique prenant du début finit par être pesant dans les derniers chapitres (comme avec les protons à 11 dimensions qui m'ont clairement perdus). Évidemment, je vais lire les deux livres suivants pour me faire une idée de la trilogie et peut-être que je me rangerais à l'avis dithyrambique de pas mal de mondes. Mais en attendant, ça m'a pas fait tomber de ma chaise. (Il faut sans doute également noter que l'auteur a apparemment apporté son soutien à la politique chinoise au Xinjiang d'après le New Yorker)
Raspijedi@bookwyrm.social reviewed The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Three-Body Trilogy, #1)
Very thought provoking
4 stars
I read this book a few years ago now, and found it very thought provoking, It certainly gave me pause for thought about the world and universe we live in.
I would hightly recommend this book.
Raspijedi@bookwyrm.social reviewed The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Three-Body Trilogy, #1)
Very thought provoking
4 stars
I read the bok a few years ago now, and it was very thought provoking, first in a trilogy and certainly gave me pause for thought about the world and universe we live in.
I would highly recommend this book.
Daniel reviewed The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Three-Body Trilogy, #1)
How to hack a proton
3 stars
This was a little too weird for me and I can’t say I really bought the premise of the story fully…
Jonathan Hartley reviewed The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Three-Body Trilogy, #1)
Not just bizarrely nihilistic and cynical, but also pro-authoritarian propaganda
1 star
Content warning This book is intensely political.
Everyone loves this, but I can't understand why nobody seems to be put off, or at least puzzled, but the way that every human individual or organization in the book is just relentlessly awful, ranging from suicidal to genocidal, and everything in-between, without respite.
Most of them, given any chance at all, are trying hard to selfishly save their own skins, with not a moment's regard for the fact that their plans will immediately doom the rest of the human race. Those not intent on self preservation at any cost are instead committed to bitter nihilism, such as the ultimate eco-terrorists, who feel that to save the Earth's biosphere they must collaborate with alien forces to bring about humanity's defeat, and likely annihilation.
These characters and groups are not depicted as outliers. They represent the human race in its entirety. The only thing that holds back this tide of destructive behavior is the government, who keeps everyone in line.
I can't tell how much of this bizarrely one-sided depiction of humanity is a deliberate choice by the author, versus simply being an unplanned exposure of their worldview, shaped as it is by their native Chinese immersion in authoritarianism. Does that form a subconscious backdrop to everything they wrote here, or are they consciously making a deliberate point that strong government is absolutely necessary?
The author Liu Cixin has since gone on record in support of the Chinese government's internment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang. There, people have been rounded up, because of their ethnicity, into over 400 internment camps. The camps administer cultural and religious re-education, forced labor, involuntary sterilization and abortion. This is something Liu Cixin is openly in favor of.
It makes my skin crawl to read that, and then carry on blithely with this story book of theirs, which seems to be an unapologetic justification for an authoritarian government's impositions on its populate. I did finish it, but have no desire to read the sequels - and not just because I don't agree with the politics. I genuinely found the behavior of all the characters to be intrusively bewildering, demented and incessantly frustrating.
doc-halo@bookwyrm.social reviewed The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Three-Body Trilogy, #1)
Review of "The Three Body Problem"
4 stars
A good hard fiction novel that explores the question of making first contact. It's a quick read that has decent character development, a smooth flowing plot, and asks deep philosophical science questions.
Ashwin reviewed The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Three-Body Trilogy, #1)
Review of 'The Three-Body Problem' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Crossposted from my blog here: daariga.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/the-three-body-problem/
In the midst of the bloody purges of intellectuals in the Cultural Revolution, a teenager’s family is destroyed in front of her eyes by Red Guards. These gripping events set a brilliant premise to The Three-Body Problem. Ye Wenjie, the university student who is mentally crushed by witnessing these events, is shipped off to a remote location near a mysterious radio telescope for hard labour. With her growing hatred of entire mankind, she gets a chance to set in motion events that would put the entire planet at risk of annihilation by an alien force in the present day.
Cixin Liu is supposedly a famous science fiction author in China and this book translated by Ken Liu to English is the first from Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. This is hard science fiction and Cixin Liu is pretty damn good at …
Crossposted from my blog here: daariga.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/the-three-body-problem/
In the midst of the bloody purges of intellectuals in the Cultural Revolution, a teenager’s family is destroyed in front of her eyes by Red Guards. These gripping events set a brilliant premise to The Three-Body Problem. Ye Wenjie, the university student who is mentally crushed by witnessing these events, is shipped off to a remote location near a mysterious radio telescope for hard labour. With her growing hatred of entire mankind, she gets a chance to set in motion events that would put the entire planet at risk of annihilation by an alien force in the present day.
Cixin Liu is supposedly a famous science fiction author in China and this book translated by Ken Liu to English is the first from Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. This is hard science fiction and Cixin Liu is pretty damn good at that. The physics and history at the radio telescope in the past and at an alien planetary system in the present are all in extreme detail and very plausible. Wenjie’s flashback to the Cultural Revolution is just beautiful writing and is actually a pretty good insight to what was happening on the ground during that dark phase of Chinese history. It in the present however that the novel runs into hiccups. Some of the characters, especially Shi Qiang the detective, are not well suited to the grim narrative. I did not like the Three-Body Problem virtual reality game, which occupies a large part of the book. I get that the author uses the game to make the reader understand the history and motives of the alien system, but it is way too long and not that good. The third act of the book is tense, but waters down to a Dan Brown-like chase sequence. Though the vision in this novel is galactic and I had a great time, I do not think I will be picking up the rest of the trilogy due to these reasons.
