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CC's Reviews > 三体

三体 by Liu Cixin
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really liked it
bookshelves: science-fiction, owned, non-english-original

3.5 stars, rounded up purely for the entertainment value.

First, I should probably clarify that this is a review for 三体, the Chinese original of The Three-Body Problem, and therefore contains no opinion on Ken Liu's translation (except that I'm happy he fixed a factual error in the original text, which I found out while discussing with friends in this thread). I should probably also clarify that, had this book been in English, I would've probably DNF'ed or given it a much lower rating, since the writing style hits quite a few no-nos that are typically immediate turnoffs for me -- bland and distant narrative voice, all tell and no show, flat stick figure characters, weird and awkward moments when sudden emotional monologues pop up that build up from nowhere, etc ... But somehow, either because I have a different cultural expectation here (many of these traits aren't too uncommon for Chinese books as far as I can tell), or because I can read Chinese much faster and skim over the details I don't like (it took me only about a third of the time I typically need for an English book to finish this one), I was able to look past these problems and focus on just the ideas instead of the writing, which honestly is what I think the author expects us to do.

Okay, with those caveats out of the way, I can now talk about the science fiction part.

The majority of the book felt like a collection of trivia facts to me, in a good way. Things started slow, and it took seven chapters to get to the real focus of the plot, but once it got there I was thoroughly intrigued. The video game chapters, which explained the three body problem through a semi-historic tour of philosophy, math, and basic computer technology, were entertaining and surprisingly accurate (or, at least as accurate as I could tell. I did find certain details misleading, such as the error linked at the beginning of this review and the fact that (mild spoiler) (view spoiler), but none of the important information was off, and the messages behind the examples were all valid). The backstory of Red Coast, a space radio station, got increasingly interesting over time as well, and I was thrilled to have learned quite a few random facts about cosmic radiation and directed-energy weapons. It's been a while since something prompted so much googling to satisfy my curiosity, and for that alone I thought the book was worth reading.

And then ... there came the ending with the big reveal and twist that made me wonder if the author was tripping.

Here I have a confession to make: I am not a physicist, so I had a lot of fun reading that chapter and cackling at the insanity of it. BUT, even a non-physicist me knows that a lot of the science behind this is pure fiction:(view spoiler) So if the credulity of science bothers you on an intellectual level, or if you don't like your hard sci-fi turning into a fantasy... then tread carefully. But otherwise, I thought it was nice to just see how far the author's imagination could take us, which, I admit, was quite far.

At this point though, I'm not entirely sure if I want to read The Dark Forest, since it appears to take a more typical first-contact turn and feels quite a bit different from this book. But I'll consider it, and I might even finally pick up A Brief History of Time after being intrigued by all the cosmic trivia facts.

P.S. For anyone else who might find this useful, I stumbled upon a great post written by a physicist, which talked about some other science bugs in this book that I had absolutely no idea were there. I liked part 1 of the post more than part 2, though they were both massively informative.

P.P.S. This was a buddy read with Hirondelle, who unfortunately didn't enjoy it as much, but it was a lot of fun and quite educational nevertheless! Thanks a bunch <3
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Reading Progress

September 26, 2023 – Started Reading
September 26, 2023 – Shelved
September 26, 2023 –
page 0
0.0% "After being asked too many times "have you not read The Three Body Problem?", I'm finally getting to it!"
September 28, 2023 –
page 113
37.42% "The random insertions of historical figures are fun and, surprisingly, quite grounded. I like how their models of the universe match the namesake person's worldview."
September 30, 2023 –
page 153
50.66% "The problem with reading hard sf is that I get very judgy when fake/wrong science gets passed off as real. Been doing a lot of googling and was so far pleased by most of the cosmic facts turning up true, until this mentioning of Monte Carlo ruined it. I've never heard anyone describe Monte Carlo like that and I'm pretty sure it's wrong. You don't COVER a shape with dots to find its area! That's called pixel art :/"
October 2, 2023 –
page 295
97.68% "O...Kay... author is on drugs"
October 2, 2023 – Shelved as: science-fiction
October 2, 2023 – Finished Reading
October 9, 2023 – Shelved as: owned
October 20, 2023 – Shelved as: non-english-original

Comments Showing 1-21 of 21 (21 new)

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message 1: by Mai (new) - rated it 3 stars

Mai H. I wish I spoke enough languages to be able to discern how awkward a translation feels. Very much enjoyed your review!


Alexandra I enjoyed your review very much! I read the book ages ago. I don't remember the details, but I liked the ideas much better than the plotting and the characters ;) The second book was more enjoyable imo, but I never got around to reading book 3 and I am not sorry ;)


Hirondelle (not getting notifications) It was lots of fun reading this with you, much more fun than on my own, and I had been meaning (Dutifully) to win this since 2015 (one of these days I am going to tackle The Calculating Stars, for completeness, and the same reason).

The physics really really did not work for me (apart from some bits like Ye Wenjie's work) and not even because of stuff like in the link you post but basic stuff. Will put spoilers

(view spoiler)

I think this book is very much into string theory, which was fashionable indeed in early 2000s but existing string theories can be a kind of sterile theory "oh, but we are not watching that because the other dimensions are folded really tight" where it predicts nothing new, verifiable and there is always a justification to why it can not be observed. But visible structures, wtf.

Even the engineering and economics of making some decisions were totally WTF to me.

It is a very odd thing, the science in this book.


message 4: by CC (last edited Oct 03, 2023 10:35AM) (new) - rated it 4 stars

CC @Mai but you only have to know English to know when translations are awkward! There was this video of Let it Go being google translated into other languages and back into English. It was hilarious.

@Alexandra oh I heard the third book was the best. Hmm...

@ Hirondelle HAHAHA I KNEW IT. When I was reading the proton chapter I was like, yeah, that's absolute BS, and seeing how you've already disliked the earlier fake science I knew you weren't gonna like it. Honestly if I were a physicist I'd hate it too (interesting that the person who wrote the blog didn't), kind of the same logic why I disliked the computer part of the plot I guess. But oh well in my case I liked how much I had to look up things to find the right answer so I'll give the book credit for that (might be implying a very bad science attitude of me, oh well...)

Here's what I wanted to ask you about physics wise:

(view spoiler)

I know I'm basically asking questions like "if we assume some falsehood is true, can you tell me if this other falsehood is true or not" :) Sorry if that infuriates your scientist mind lol. I'm definitely not disagreeing that this is a lot of BS science, but what can I say, apparently I like BS science (and please don't defriend me for that!)


Hirondelle (not getting notifications) A lot of people liked this do not worry.

About dimensions, and folding dimensions, sorry no idea. I think it would all be theoretical anyway, I mean there can be mathematical models (string theory is mostly about that) assuming folded dimensions but there are many different mathematical models and folding dimensions is, as far as I can tell, all theoretical so all theories are valid theories with no experimental evidence to make us up pick one. I do not see how we could compress a proton or anything really into one dimension and that be a finite length (150 light years?) but then again I can wave it off. It is a matter for mathematics really, not really physics. String theory has a lot of theories and notions but like I said before string theory can be particularly sterile, in which theoreticians, as far as I understand (partially) need to add conditions and constraints to match the real world and explain why we have had so far no hint of such extra dimensions.

>What you said about the proton being invisible is really fascinating.

Light is photons, wave-particle thingies which are detected by sensors in your eyes and your brain later processes. There are several kinds of eyes, and well sensors in general. But "seeing" something implies you received a photon and can know which direction it comes from, and its wavelength (color), and many photons you got intensity, you got pictures, because your brain can process the photons your eyes receive.

To see something, it either must produce its own photons (the sun, a light source) or photons from another source get scattered on it and bounce back, again, to the eyes of whoever is seeing.

All interactions (gravity is mysterious and very very weak, do not hold me to it, maybe not gravity, never seen) are in a way an exchange of virtual particles which carry the "force", the interaction. For any photon to be scattered by say a single proton, or anything really, for light to be deflected, at a sufficiently fine scale those particles interacted as particles, with a proper feynman diagram which is basically just a way to keep track of complex probabilities calculations. But if it was a proton it would have the same "charges" as any single proton, mass (or it would not be accelerated to be sent to earth right?), spin, charge, baryon number and such. It would not interact with a photon any more frequently than any random proton would interact with any photon, no matter what "size" it was supposed to be with dimensional tricks. It would be very very rare, one single photon (meaningless to biological eyes or even super accurate neutrino super detectors) and and any interaction to scatter a photon would also alter the position momentum of the proton. The treatment of those "protons" as big macroscopic objects which can get broken was just also very nope to me.

But everybody has a different place to draw their line regarding suspension of disbelief and what they actually really believe in either by wishful thinking do not worry.


message 6: by CC (last edited Oct 03, 2023 10:53AM) (new) - rated it 4 stars

CC Hirondelle wrote: "It would not interact with a photon any more frequently than any random proton would interact with any photon, no matter what "size" it was supposed to be with dimensional tricks."

Ah, I actually made an edit to my previous post, I guess it was too late for you to see it :') I think I got it better after reading some more (and realizing that I probably did learn about it long long ago and have completely forgotten). I'm understanding it more like, you can't magically give the unfolded proton a surface structure that's covered by other particles (because it's still just a proton). It has a macroscopic size but not a macroscopic structure. So since there are no such surface particles to absorb or emit photons, you won't be able to see it?

I'm so glad I read this with you btw. These are such educational discussions!


message 7: by L (last edited Oct 03, 2023 12:22PM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

L Is it even remotely possible to turn something from higher dimension to lower dimension?

It's an interesting question. Mathematically, it is sort of possible -- look up Peano Curve (on wikipedia, for instance). However, there is no continuous curve that exactly fills up a two, three, ... -dimensional region. The Peano Curve does it by hitting some points in two-D space more than once. That means that if you unfolded a square into a curve guided by the Peano Curve, there would be breaks in the resulting curve. But the total length of the breaks would be zero, so one might argue that this is not really a problem.

Also, it is entirely possible for an object that appears to be three-dimension to actually be a folded up single-dimensional thing. I.e. It might be that *every* proton is really a 100-meter long one-dimensional curve folded up to fit into a tiny ball. (This, of course, is not consistent with the current physical theory of the proton -- I just mean it is something that one can coherently imagine.)


message 8: by L (last edited Oct 03, 2023 11:36AM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

L All interactions (gravity is mysterious and very very weak, do not hold me to it, maybe not gravity, never seen) are in a way an exchange of virtual particles which carry the "force", the interaction.

Well, the gravity force-carrying particle would be the graviton, which in large numbers manifest as gravitational waves. Those have been observed. So I would say gravity, too. Although, of course, no one has figured out how to write down a theory of gravity based on exchange of virtual gravitons. That would be quantum gravity, which people are still trying to work out.


message 9: by CC (new) - rated it 4 stars

CC L wrote: "Well, the gravity force-carrying particle would be the graviton, which in large numbers manifest as gravitational waves."

Thanks, another new concept for me to look up. Somehow that feels like something this author would be interested in using, actually... I wonder if it can be linked in some way to a solution to the three body problem, lol (it should apply to all gravitational forces right?)

Just a random thought that I didn't give more than five seconds to think about. Ignore the non-physicist's babbling :)


message 10: by Hirondelle (not getting notifications) (last edited Oct 04, 2023 01:02AM) (new) - rated it 2 stars

Hirondelle (not getting notifications) CC, gravitons, if they exist, will do nothing to solve the three body problem. The three body problem has been known for centuries, it is just non linear classical mechanics - solutions go chaotic fast except for a handful of precisely chosen initial conditions for location and speed (not even sure what to call them in english, x and x with a dot on top, lol).

These concepts of forces as exchanges of particles/waves and probabilities is purely quantum mechanics and it is at a different scale. Three body problem is at a totally different scale, of planets and gravity only where classical mechanics (plus, as they specify, general relativity) is valid, but where the theories about forces between small, elemental, particles are not really used.

There are 4 forces, and 3 of them have enough similarities we can literally unify two of them as a single one for theory making and relate it well with the third, but gravity is its own thing. It is like there is a playground with several areas and there are different play areas and like what you do in the sand pit is not what you do in the swings, though what you do in the swings is similarlish to what you do in seesaw or something (and like some babies are in the sand pint, and kids other ages snub it and are on the slides or climbing frame... It is all the playground, but just different areas and different things being done). Reconciling the three other forces with gravity, to have formulas, tools to use for all scales and forces would be the theory of everything, and that is well, like the holy grail or the philosopher's stone were...

I know it sounds very weird to say this, but gravity is very very weak, and very difficult to study. Something as basic as the gravity constant, the fancy G in Newton's formula for gravitational constant is know experimentally with still a relatively huge uncertainty, of the order of 10^-5, while for anything related to the other forces, fundamentals are known with many more figures and we can predict and see subtle effects... And there is stuff like gravitational mass (the "charge" for the calculation of gravity, or we can even separate it into passive and active) is, as far as we can tell experimentally but not with HUGE accuracy, the same value always as inertial mass (the one in f=ma) but why? Nobody really knows.

Now back to the book, more questions/observations (Still not written a review, thinking about it. It is a 2 star read for me, I am sure of that though):

- the coincidences (view spoiler), it was all a hard nope for me.

- the part which felt more emotional, more compelling to me was precisely Ye Wenjie's story, the bits about the cultural revolution, the portrayal of rural China (that bit with the red guards afterwards, that was good, that was memorable, that was emotional. It does not go anywhere with it plotwise, but I will remember that). I suppose there were, are, far more books already addressing it? This will be a memorable, valuable book for me over that.

- Shih is some kind of Marty Sue! He being present at meetings, giving ideas, being oh so fountain of wisdom for the real experts, oh come on...


message 11: by L (new) - rated it 5 stars

L CC wrote: "Somehow that feels like something this author would be interested in using, actually..."

I think -- let me look this up -- that gravitational waves had not been convincingly observed at the time of publication of The Three-Body Problem.

Yup, The first detection of gravitational radiation at LIGO occurred in 2015 (although, if I remember right, it was not made public for over a year). The Three-Body Problem was published in 2006.

There was evidence of gravitational radiation from observations of a binary pulsar before 2006, but that was indirect.


message 12: by CC (last edited Oct 04, 2023 11:05AM) (new) - rated it 4 stars

CC Hirondelle wrote: "gravitons, if they exist, will do nothing to solve the three body problem"

I'm not trying to solve it, lol. Just saying that from the author's perspective, if a proton can become macroscopic, then the three body problem can also become microscopic? XD

RE the cultural revolution part: actually that was my least favorite part of the book. I hated it especially at the beginning. Too straightup black and white demonic for me, though that was probably the point... Not sure if I know of any good books set in that era (I don't read many real books in Chinese...) but just in general it's kind of a thing that people don't talk about too much. Maybe because it's still fairly recent, my parents' generation grew up during that time.

Rural China wise, I guess that part didn't register for me at all... Did you mean the deforesting? There actually are (were) some Chinese authors known for books set in the rural countryside. I guess the first one that comes to mind would be Shen Congwen and his book Border Town. I didn't read it, though we learned parts of it for school. It's very quintessentially the traditional, unspoiled landscape and culture of his hometown in the mid 20th century


Hirondelle (not getting notifications) > Just saying that from the author's perspective, if a proton can become macroscopic, then the three body problem can also become microscopic? XD

Not sure I understand it, but from my point of view the three body problem is not really a problem, or not in the 21st century. When all calculations were done by hand, I understand the shock of having differential equations one could not solve by hand, the "problem" of not finding an exact mathematical solution to something one needed to solve. But the real world is filled with real phenomena which behaviour is described by differential equations which can not be solved analytical, the differential equations which do get analytical solutions are just a fraction of all of them, even all of them which describe real things. The three body problem could apply to all instances, including in our solar planet of three masses, and we know if masses are sufficiently different the system will not be too chaotic. But what if a system is chaotic? That is life, that is nature, we have chaotic systems all around, it is possible life would not have evolved as it did without chaotic systems. The "problem" of the "three body problem" is purely fictional and kind of forced, making us feel sorry for an invented civilization which gets anhilated again and again. But it is not real, a civilization would not evolve time and time again. Some systems are chaotic, it is not a quantum mechanics thing, it is because some differential equations can not be solved analytical and are extremely sensitive to initial parameters. The three body problem is not IMO a problem which needs fixing or a new insight, it was something famous in the 19th century, but their perspective into the powers of mathematical analysis and determinism were just different. Chaos is a mathematical concept.

Now using the tools one uses to deal with gravity to transfer them to our elementary particles interact with each other is of course fascinating. But it is a bit like taking sand shovels to play in the swing set, using that analogy above - ok, now what, what does one do with the shovel? I am sure there are people, maybe many people, playing with mathematical models of it, but I was never taught any as being relevant, nor am I aware of developments which make something new really relevant. Gravity does not play well with other forces or the tools used to describe the other interactions.

It is a good thing I have no intentions of ever writing any sf, or fiction really, I am completely without imagination regarding anything one can do fictionally with gravitational waves (they propagate at the speed of light, no ansibles there. they need massive massive catastrophic interactions to be created). The book kind of touches on something far weirder, far more fascinating, far more imagination sparking which is when it mentions about proton 3 and 4 being used to transmite information instantly from proton 1 and 2? It is about something called Bell's theorem, though LOL that is a huge extrapolation and Bell's theorem (and assorted reasoning. It is really really gorgeous and compelling) that is really about it not being possible for elementary particles to have hidden variables (hidden structure) even if that comes at the cost of apparent (not necessarily real) faster than light communication of information. No inner structure, no hidden variables to very small particles is of course totally not something this book is about, not in the end...


Hirondelle (not getting notifications) Sorry forgot to reply about rural China! It was the little bits in between, yeah the deforestation (which Evans was right, it was poverty I believe) but also the bits where Ye Wangjie stays in that village post partum, the kerosene lamps, something about a heating stove I did not get, sorghum (I think never knowingly ate it on its own), all that. The villager children wanting to be tutored. That was interesting, compelling, I had no idea.


message 15: by CC (new) - rated it 4 stars

CC @Hirondelle sorry for making you write a whole essay on this! Maybe you should really consider writing scifi someday, so we can read about some cool science ideas that do actually work :)

About the heating stove, are you referring to the bed stove? It's a type of sleeping surface they use in the north (or used to use, I'm not sure. I've never seen one in person but my grandparents have used them I think). There's a Wikipedia page for it that I can't link... You can look up "huo kang bed stove" to find it!


Hirondelle (not getting notifications) No, no writing, no whatsoever, but thank you very much! And do not apologize for making me write, it does help to clear concepts in my mind, and I do like, love this.

And yes, precisely those were the stoves, from the translation

>Everything was warm and intense: the heated kang stove-beds lined with thick layers of ura sedge, the Guandong and Mohe tobacco stuffed in copper pipes, the thick and heavy sorghum meal, the sixty-five-proof baijiu distilled from sorghum—all of these blended into a quiet and peaceful life, like the creek at the edge of the village.

>At first, Ye did not like sleeping on the heated kang, and often got sick, but she gradually got used to it. As she slept, she would imagine herself becoming a baby sleeping in someone’s warm lap.

I thought that part fascinating and specially moving because about a real thing, a real culture, so yes. I liked it very much, and noticed it because of novelty value. I did not know of it, though obviously it makes sense it would exist...


message 17: by CC (new) - rated it 4 stars

CC I had a similar moment like that when I read The Bear and the Nightingale (there was even a scene about them sleeping on top of ovens too... and I liked the details like sealing the windows with ice) Real cultures that we don't know enough about are fascinating and beautiful indeed.


message 18: by J (new) - rated it 2 stars

J With your neat, sympathetic review and fascinating discussion of science/sci-if things I can only pretend to “understand” you have rekindled my interest in this novel (which I slightly disliked about as much as CC liked, ironically for basically the same set of strengths and weaknesses that I just weighted differently!) and the whole series… Thanks for what you have written about this!


message 19: by CC (new) - rated it 4 stars

CC @J I suppose the credit for a fascinating discussion was meant for Hirondelle and L :) It was exciting indeed to learn all this cool stuff about advanced physics, even if it's all about where the book got it wrong!

If you feel like giving the series a second chance I guess there's always the netflix adaptation. I'm curious to see what they might do with it.


message 20: by Imme (new)

Imme van Gorp Honestly, this makes a lot of sense to me. I feel like we have different expectations from texts written in different languages; things we might find annoying in English, can suddenly feel normal in our native language


message 21: by CC (new) - rated it 4 stars

CC Imme wrote: "I feel like we have different expectations from texts written in different languages; things we might find annoying in English, can suddenly feel normal in our native language"

It's interesting how that works!


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