Three Body Problem

SPOILERS THO

The three-body problem in physics states that although it is trivial to model the path of two bodies (e.g. binary stars) revolving around each other, it is currently impossible to create a model that can accurately predict the future positions of three bodies around each other, as minute instabilities add up over time to create a chaotic system. This book postulates that the nearest star to the earth, Alpha Centauri, as a ternary star system, is such a chaotic system; despite its unpredictability, a race of sentient species have evolved to sentience on an immensely inhospitable planet. When they learn of the existence of Earth, and realize it is in a stable solar system with a relatively mild climate, what would such a civilization do?

The book reminds me of Carl Sagan's "Contact" (well, the movie; I haven't read the book) but goes beyond the touchy-feely aspects of Sagan's work. Contact is distinctly American, and therefore, deeply religious; when Arroway finally meets aliens, the interaction is solely a personal one, which occurs without any observable proof that it took place at all. With that experience, Arroway is humanity's messiah, able to spread the message that the promised land is a space paradise of hob-nobbing with other, enlightened spacefaring species — if you have faith. 3BP dispenses with the notion that the space age will be a lovely vacation earned by a well-behaved humanity. I don't know if it's because the author takes a very hard-science approach or it's more of a Chinese cultural influence, but the characters in 3BP don't think of joining the aliens because they believe they're worthy. On the contrary, they invite the (presumably enlightened) aliens to Earth as a corrective measure: we're flawed, we're broken, we need your help, come fix us.

Of course, even that ends up being wildly optimistic, as the aliens don't really care about mentoring humans at all. They just want a planet with an easier difficulty level to live on. The universe is a harsh and unforgiving place, and it turns out that outer space isn't the paradise, Earth is. And the aliens wants it for themselves. So, well, they kind of do the science equivalent of driving down the property values so they can swoop in and buy up all the land at a super low price by the time their moving vans get there. (It'll take about 450 years, at a maximum of 10-percent of the speed of light.)

The book ends there. Not with a proclamation of some glorious, kumbaya future, or even a clear evil to be defeated, just a slowly ticking clock. Earth will be occupied in 450 years by star-hopping alien gentrifiers just trying to find a new backyard in which to raise their alien babies. So what now?

The Three Body Problem is the best piece of hard science fiction I've read this year. At first I thought I'd have issues keeping track of the Chinese names because it seemed like there were so many characters and some had nicknames (aka the Anna Karenina problem), but as the story went on it became clear that it was all the same people, just over an immense time span. The narrative style is at times dry and didactic. It felt like I was reading a history book written in the far future and translated back into English. But now that I've finished, I think the unusual narrative style is part of the fun. The translator's note at the end actually shed some light on it: he deliberately tried to keep the feeling that this was a different literary tradition.

Despite the quibbles, The Three Body Problem gets four stars from me for the story and characters. I don't want to say too much about the story because its slow unfolding is a huge part of the fun. In some ways it's a traditional human-alien first contact story. But in many other ways it completely defied my expectation of how that kind of story would unfold. The three main characters, Ye, Wang, and Da Shi are all fully developed people, and their complex personalities are what pulled me into the book first.

The aliens are great. Just so damn alien. Also this book features the best use of a videogame as a story telling device I've seen yet. And despite the long, didactic passages about complex scientific and mathematical concepts, and the foreignness of Chinese culture to me as an American reader, Three Body is an extremely accessible book. It's no wonder it won the Hugo this year.

I recommend it to people who like hard science fiction, are interested in physics, and are interested in China (any combination of the above)