My opinion:
- Interesting concept of a Dark Forest & cosmic sociology axioms.
- Unpleasant characters: Ye Wenjie (narcissistic and psychopathic), Cheng Xin (a kind billionaire lol).
- Disappointing ending—the last few chapters feel weak.
Bonus: Absolutely fascinating interpretation of the first book by @yogthos@lemmy.ml.
You must log in or register to comment.
I enjoyed this series. Some cool concepts, I really like the trisolarian technologies. Like the description of the probe and sophons.
I read the first book and I think it is the first time in decades that I have encountered actual sci-fi concepts that weren’t a reworking of ideas that have been around for decades.
It’s not a character driven novel but the characters are fine, mostly they’re not that likeable - which in my opinion is not a reason to dislike a story - and I think they probably lose something in translation. When I was a teenager I devoured Asimov, Phillip K Dick, Heinlein etc for the concepts, compared to them the characters in 3 Body are masterfully written.
I haven’t yet read the second book as I found the first few chapters a bit of a slog but I plan to pick it up again once I’ve finished rereading some Ursula K LeGuin
Third is the best. It gets better and better imo
Totally agree that novel ideas about science fiction are presented. A group of humans betraying all of humanity was a nice inversion of the “one man has to save everyone” concept.
For me, the succeeding novels became increasingly boring and inconsequential.
Major spoiler for book 3
I was compelled to read the books when I learned about other species collapsing dimensions as a weapon of war. How fascinating.
Unfortunately, that entire concept was explained in two paragraphs by a character who had no right to know that information. And then we moved on like nothing happened.
I think a better novel that explored very similar themes is The Last Human by Zack Jordan.
I honestly loved all of them. The end of the second one is really really cool and the scope of everything that has happened by the end of the trilogy is really fun to think about.
I’ve been interested in this author after I found out the show Pantheon, which I really liked, was based on his other works. (Wrong author) I haven’t had a chance to check out the three body problem, but I intend to soon.Pantheon was incredible. Didn’t realize it was the same author
Whoops, I just double checked and I was mistaken. Ken Liu was the person whose story pantheon was based on (though it does look like he helped translate some of Cixin Liu’s works just based on the thumbnail of the post alone)
I’ve read a few of his books besides the trilogy and all his characters are “terrible”.
They seem to me more the personification of a type of personality rather than real characters, while the real protagonists are the groups / factions.
I read the first book and found some of the larger “setpiece” sections to be unique and pretty compelling, but yea everything else including the characters just felt sort of thin to me; which was strange as some details felt very well-rounded and researched. started the second book and just didn’t get on with it and stopped midway through. after that experience I still gave the show a try and found it to be laughably bad and awkwardly delivered, didn’t get past the first episode.
True. In general I found the second book (especially 2nd part) the most interesting in the trilogy .
Yep, totally agree. I just couldn’t stand the characters, especially the second time I read part of it and knew how they messed everything up.
The ending is weirdly “feel good”? Which doesn’t make much sense.
I suggest that the “paper” thing was already scary enough to end the story. All the twists he added in the last chapters contributed almost nothing, in my opinion.
I read all 3. Loved them!
Interesting ideas 💡
Fun sci fi settings
Characters were predictable
Nice mix of science and fiction
The series most interesting as an allegory of the competition between the US and China.
Exactly! Without this angle I would never start the 2nd book. Thank you again
Just finished the first book, thought it was excellent and very thought-provoking.
Ye Wenjie was unpleasant, but it felt like there was good reason for that, given what happened to her and her family during the cultural revolution. Plus she was still a compelling character.
Reading this post and comments I feel relieved, because I decided not to read the books and just to watch a Netflix series. Which by the way wasn’t anyhow special or interesting at all…
