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January 9, 2024 3:31 PM Subscribe
New Three Body Problem trailer appears. Netflix posted a longer trailer for their upcoming series, adapted from Liu Cixin's novel.
There's a Chinese version of this book, Three-Body. It's streaming on Amazon Prime right now.
posted by SPrintF at 3:59 PM on January 9 [8 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 3:59 PM on January 9 [8 favorites]
Yay. I liked the trilogy, and didn't find the English translation a problem. (or I adapted fast).
posted by Artful Codger at 4:03 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
posted by Artful Codger at 4:03 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
caviar2d2, the third book is well worth it.
posted by doctornemo at 4:09 PM on January 9 [3 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 4:09 PM on January 9 [3 favorites]
To me, the title of this always makes me think of a polyamorous version of the academic two body problem. I know intellectually it isn't, but that is my first association with the phrase.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:11 PM on January 9 [9 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 4:11 PM on January 9 [9 favorites]
People hate the GoT guys but they could trim these books and improve the characters enough to make it a show > book scenario.
When they were working on adapting existing books, Game of Thrones was firing on all cylinders. I wouldn't trust Benioff and Weiss to outline a school play, but I think it's clear they know how to adapt existing work. I'm fairly optimistic since at least this trilogy is actually complete.
posted by tclark at 4:11 PM on January 9 [5 favorites]
When they were working on adapting existing books, Game of Thrones was firing on all cylinders. I wouldn't trust Benioff and Weiss to outline a school play, but I think it's clear they know how to adapt existing work. I'm fairly optimistic since at least this trilogy is actually complete.
posted by tclark at 4:11 PM on January 9 [5 favorites]
SPrintF, I missed that! How is it?
posted by doctornemo at 4:11 PM on January 9
posted by doctornemo at 4:11 PM on January 9
I laughed out loud when i recognised the radiohead cover
posted by Sebmojo at 4:12 PM on January 9 [12 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 4:12 PM on January 9 [12 favorites]
I liked the beginning of TBT but it's an intensely silly and tendentious series with characters that aspire to one day become cardboard in some kind of happy, better-written future
posted by Sebmojo at 4:14 PM on January 9 [20 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 4:14 PM on January 9 [20 favorites]
I think this is the most brilliant SF book series I've read in the past decade. (it won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel). I especially liked the translation, that it definitely felt like it was conceived in Mandarin then translated into English - it gives it a sense of place and culture that you wouldn't get otherwise.
For background - the "Three Body Problem" is an ancient classical mechanics problem. In 1687, Isaac Newton had discovered how gravity works, and explained the mathematics of how it applies to two planets, varying according to the distance between them. This allowed them to predict the motions of the planets and moons and confirm the model works.
But what happens if you add a third "body" to the mix? Could you predict the future path of their orbits? All attempts at simulation seemed to show complete and utter chaos, with no repeating patterns at all, and thus no ability to predict what comes next. If you can't make predictions and confirm them through observation, is this science at all?
King Oscar II of Sweden offered a prize in 1889 to any scientist who could come up with a solution to this "Three Body Problem".
Mathematician Henri Poincaré won the prize by explaining that there was no solution - at least none at the time.
This represented an explosively controversial departure from classical science at the time, which assumed a deterministic universe - if you could measure the initial conditions with enough precision you could always predict the final outcome. This crisis opened up a new field of study, Chaos Theory, the study of systems that seem to be completely random and have no repeating patterns.
Then they go, as the best SF does - what if science was once again plunged into a crisis of faith by new discoveries that made us question the fundamental laws of the universe?
And setting that against the juxtaposition of the cultural backdrop of the Cultural Revolution - where the government purged intellectuals (sciencists, professors, etc) - just amazing.
posted by xdvesper at 4:17 PM on January 9 [31 favorites]
For background - the "Three Body Problem" is an ancient classical mechanics problem. In 1687, Isaac Newton had discovered how gravity works, and explained the mathematics of how it applies to two planets, varying according to the distance between them. This allowed them to predict the motions of the planets and moons and confirm the model works.
But what happens if you add a third "body" to the mix? Could you predict the future path of their orbits? All attempts at simulation seemed to show complete and utter chaos, with no repeating patterns at all, and thus no ability to predict what comes next. If you can't make predictions and confirm them through observation, is this science at all?
King Oscar II of Sweden offered a prize in 1889 to any scientist who could come up with a solution to this "Three Body Problem".
Mathematician Henri Poincaré won the prize by explaining that there was no solution - at least none at the time.
This represented an explosively controversial departure from classical science at the time, which assumed a deterministic universe - if you could measure the initial conditions with enough precision you could always predict the final outcome. This crisis opened up a new field of study, Chaos Theory, the study of systems that seem to be completely random and have no repeating patterns.
Then they go, as the best SF does - what if science was once again plunged into a crisis of faith by new discoveries that made us question the fundamental laws of the universe?
And setting that against the juxtaposition of the cultural backdrop of the Cultural Revolution - where the government purged intellectuals (sciencists, professors, etc) - just amazing.
posted by xdvesper at 4:17 PM on January 9 [31 favorites]
Unfortunately, the astrophysical system referred to in by title is an example of the four-body problem. So that title is invalid.
Revise and resubmit.
posted by The Tensor at 4:28 PM on January 9 [10 favorites]
Revise and resubmit.
posted by The Tensor at 4:28 PM on January 9 [10 favorites]
I am excited about this and the trailer looks really amazing. The second book is a bit of a slog but it is really worth it and the third book is amazing. I'm contemplating a reread before this launches.
posted by supermedusa at 4:29 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by supermedusa at 4:29 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
...characters that aspire to one day become cardboard...
After reading the third book, this comment is funny
posted by NoMich at 4:35 PM on January 9 [21 favorites]
After reading the third book, this comment is funny
posted by NoMich at 4:35 PM on January 9 [21 favorites]
Asimov’s work had similarly limited characterization, and my phrase for it was “the characters aspire to two-dimensionality”.
posted by notoriety public at 4:40 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 4:40 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
SPrintF, I missed that! How is it?
posted by doctornemo
Not SPrintF but I watched the Chinese series.
Culturally, I think Ye Wenjie in Three-Body is the "ideal" Chinese character. Stoic, diligent and industrious, careful and thoughtful, concealing her true feelings, subtle, always able to perceive and consider multiple meanings and perspectives and consequences before speaking and acting.
You can see this contrast in the portrayal of Mulan in the Chinese made Mulan: Rise of a Warrior (2009) who is wholly different to the Mulan portrayed in the Disney live action (2020). So I'm really interested to see how they will write the characters in the Netflix version of Three Body. To be clear I'm not saying one is necessarily better than the other, it's just interesting to get different cultural takes on the same topic.
It's also a very slow burn, with 30 episodes for book 1 (typical Western adaptions will use 10 episodes per book).
Interestingly, the structure of the story changed a fair bit across the different adaptations.
It was originally written in a serialized form, and the author put Ye Wenjie's story about her family's persecution during the Cultural Revolution in the beginning.
But the publishers were afraid that if they led the story with the most controversial topic first, it could get instantly banned by the CCP. So they made him switch it to the middle when it was published in China. **
When translating Three-Body into English, the translator said, well not only was this the original intent, but since Westerners aren't familiar with the Cultural Revolution and just how much violence and suffering was inflicted, this is really going to hook them into Ye Wenjie's story and make them want to read the rest of the book. So the English version of the book has Ye Wenjie at the start.
Then when they made the Chinese TV series, they led with the SF stuff and put the Ye Wenjie back in the middle - everyone in China already knows about the Cultural Revolution so they would only bore readers and watchers by putting it first anyway.
So I have no idea what the Netflix series is going to do, haha.
** Coincidentally, there was a change in CCP policy at the time where they were concerned the West was overtaking them in technology (Apple, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, etc). They interviewed many top engineers and scientists and found they grew up reading science fiction as an inspiration to go into STEM. CCP prior to that point had a policy of actually discouraging science fiction.
"SF was considered suspicious and counter-revolutionary, because you could write a story set in a giant ant colony in the future, when people were becoming ants, but nobody was quite sure: was this really a commentary on the state? As such, it was very, very dodgy." - Neil Gaiman
According to what a Party member told Gaiman, the CCP did an about-turn, and officially endorsed SF. So that's how the SF parts got told first in the written version published in China, and the Cultural Revolution stuff got told in the middle.
posted by xdvesper at 4:49 PM on January 9 [25 favorites]
posted by doctornemo
Not SPrintF but I watched the Chinese series.
Culturally, I think Ye Wenjie in Three-Body is the "ideal" Chinese character. Stoic, diligent and industrious, careful and thoughtful, concealing her true feelings, subtle, always able to perceive and consider multiple meanings and perspectives and consequences before speaking and acting.
You can see this contrast in the portrayal of Mulan in the Chinese made Mulan: Rise of a Warrior (2009) who is wholly different to the Mulan portrayed in the Disney live action (2020). So I'm really interested to see how they will write the characters in the Netflix version of Three Body. To be clear I'm not saying one is necessarily better than the other, it's just interesting to get different cultural takes on the same topic.
It's also a very slow burn, with 30 episodes for book 1 (typical Western adaptions will use 10 episodes per book).
Interestingly, the structure of the story changed a fair bit across the different adaptations.
It was originally written in a serialized form, and the author put Ye Wenjie's story about her family's persecution during the Cultural Revolution in the beginning.
But the publishers were afraid that if they led the story with the most controversial topic first, it could get instantly banned by the CCP. So they made him switch it to the middle when it was published in China. **
When translating Three-Body into English, the translator said, well not only was this the original intent, but since Westerners aren't familiar with the Cultural Revolution and just how much violence and suffering was inflicted, this is really going to hook them into Ye Wenjie's story and make them want to read the rest of the book. So the English version of the book has Ye Wenjie at the start.
Then when they made the Chinese TV series, they led with the SF stuff and put the Ye Wenjie back in the middle - everyone in China already knows about the Cultural Revolution so they would only bore readers and watchers by putting it first anyway.
So I have no idea what the Netflix series is going to do, haha.
** Coincidentally, there was a change in CCP policy at the time where they were concerned the West was overtaking them in technology (Apple, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, etc). They interviewed many top engineers and scientists and found they grew up reading science fiction as an inspiration to go into STEM. CCP prior to that point had a policy of actually discouraging science fiction.
"SF was considered suspicious and counter-revolutionary, because you could write a story set in a giant ant colony in the future, when people were becoming ants, but nobody was quite sure: was this really a commentary on the state? As such, it was very, very dodgy." - Neil Gaiman
According to what a Party member told Gaiman, the CCP did an about-turn, and officially endorsed SF. So that's how the SF parts got told first in the written version published in China, and the Cultural Revolution stuff got told in the middle.
posted by xdvesper at 4:49 PM on January 9 [25 favorites]
The blatant misogyny later in the English version of the books means this series will probably be a "pass" from me. After you see it in the third book, it's hard not to wonder what weird things you missed in the first. I've heard (but can't confirm) that the sexism was softened in translation to English, too.
posted by jmhodges at 4:59 PM on January 9 [5 favorites]
posted by jmhodges at 4:59 PM on January 9 [5 favorites]
<>There's a Chinese version of this book, Three-Body. It's streaming on Amazon Prime right now.
Also on Viki, for free. Crowdsourced subs.
posted by meehawl at 5:07 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Also on Viki, for free. Crowdsourced subs.
posted by meehawl at 5:07 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I'm contemplating a reread before this launches.
I just got done re-reading it. Being familiar with the story arc(s), it comes off as extremely stiff, but still worth the effort to be reminded of what happened. Regarding the last book, Cheng Xin makes all of the wrong decisions, but they were at their core human decisions and her decisions turned out to be the correct ones all along.
posted by NoMich at 5:13 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I just got done re-reading it. Being familiar with the story arc(s), it comes off as extremely stiff, but still worth the effort to be reminded of what happened. Regarding the last book, Cheng Xin makes all of the wrong decisions, but they were at their core human decisions and her decisions turned out to be the correct ones all along.
posted by NoMich at 5:13 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I liked the first book quite a lot, but I stopped reading the second book because it was making me depressed. I couldn't say exactly why, but I think the foreboding doom in the story at that point was just too dark.
posted by oddman at 5:42 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
posted by oddman at 5:42 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
I've not yet read these books because I am not a sci-fi fan, but are they too dense for the casual reader?
posted by Kitteh at 5:54 PM on January 9
posted by Kitteh at 5:54 PM on January 9
Guess I'm gonna have to read the second and third books now. They've been collecting dust on my shelf.
posted by Chuffy at 6:42 PM on January 9
posted by Chuffy at 6:42 PM on January 9
I really enjoyed the first book. It is filled with audacious ideas and reads like a love letter to American science fiction of the 50s and 60s. The second and third books are polarizing - I thought they were a slog with some cool concepts but actively annoying characters. Some people obviously enjoy them though.
posted by AndrewStephens at 6:45 PM on January 9
posted by AndrewStephens at 6:45 PM on January 9
I read them, and yep, first was amazing and the second was hard. The third was sloggier for me till the end. Like Infinite Jest, I only remember a fraction of it but was changed by the effort. The premise is given to us right up front then it is hammered home forever. I do remember that humans were suffering, I’d have to review to get the misogyny levels. Making a series could maybe improve things?
posted by drowsy at 6:50 PM on January 9
posted by drowsy at 6:50 PM on January 9
I've not yet read these books because I am not a sci-fi fan, but are they too dense for the casual reader?
It's magic instead of science. I don't think anybody would have a hard time following the science part of these books because they're not really rooted in reality at all. They exist as a medium to express the author's beliefs, which I'm afraid that I can't accurately interpret in any meaningful way. That's the problem I think most Westerners will encounter when they read these books: they are about the Cultural Revolution more than anything else.
I have read all three and I really liked the way that the story was told, but I'm a 27-year old White girl. I am almost entirely ignorant about Chinese history, and so I struggle to say anything else.
posted by Johnny Lawn and Garden at 7:08 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
It's magic instead of science. I don't think anybody would have a hard time following the science part of these books because they're not really rooted in reality at all. They exist as a medium to express the author's beliefs, which I'm afraid that I can't accurately interpret in any meaningful way. That's the problem I think most Westerners will encounter when they read these books: they are about the Cultural Revolution more than anything else.
I have read all three and I really liked the way that the story was told, but I'm a 27-year old White girl. I am almost entirely ignorant about Chinese history, and so I struggle to say anything else.
posted by Johnny Lawn and Garden at 7:08 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
"I stopped reading the second book because it was making me depressed"
Just wait for the end of that volume, which is *dark*.
posted by doctornemo at 7:12 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Just wait for the end of that volume, which is *dark*.
posted by doctornemo at 7:12 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
xdvesper When translating Three-Body into English, the translator said, well not only was this the original intent, but since Westerners aren't familiar with the Cultural Revolution and just how much violence and suffering was inflicted, this is really going to hook them into Ye Wenjie's story and make them want to read the rest of the book. So the English version of the book has Ye Wenjie at the start.
Wow, I didn't know the book had been rearranged for translation. And the translator was right. The Cultural Revolution storyline totally hooked me. It was far and away the most human part of the book. The present-day storyline felt like a vehicle for exploration of cool sci-fi concepts, with cardboard characters as props.
I'm bracing myself for the Netflix version to be a total hack job. There's absolutely no way general American audiences have the patience to sit through all the nerdy science history lectures, and there's no way the people that brought us GoT have any respect for or interest in that part of the source material. So they're going to cherry-pick the parts that have cool CGI potential or interpersonal drama, and cut so much of the rest that it becomes incomprehensible.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:18 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Wow, I didn't know the book had been rearranged for translation. And the translator was right. The Cultural Revolution storyline totally hooked me. It was far and away the most human part of the book. The present-day storyline felt like a vehicle for exploration of cool sci-fi concepts, with cardboard characters as props.
I'm bracing myself for the Netflix version to be a total hack job. There's absolutely no way general American audiences have the patience to sit through all the nerdy science history lectures, and there's no way the people that brought us GoT have any respect for or interest in that part of the source material. So they're going to cherry-pick the parts that have cool CGI potential or interpersonal drama, and cut so much of the rest that it becomes incomprehensible.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:18 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I'm bracing myself for the Netflix version to be a total hack job.
You might be right, you're probably right, but I kind of want to see it anyway. I don't normally enjoy TV adaptations of books I like, and I did enjoy TBP, but frankly I'd be happy to see an adaptation that reduced the misogyny that a couple other people in this thread have pointed out. Nearly every female character in that series is treacherous, one-dimensional, or a shallow male fantasy, or some combination of the above, and it became really REALLY irritating by the third book.
posted by daisystomper at 7:35 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
You might be right, you're probably right, but I kind of want to see it anyway. I don't normally enjoy TV adaptations of books I like, and I did enjoy TBP, but frankly I'd be happy to see an adaptation that reduced the misogyny that a couple other people in this thread have pointed out. Nearly every female character in that series is treacherous, one-dimensional, or a shallow male fantasy, or some combination of the above, and it became really REALLY irritating by the third book.
posted by daisystomper at 7:35 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I liked the first book but lost interest in the second two as the science moved from plausible to based-on-someone’s-pet-theory mode. Also as new technologies were introduced they had enormous potential that was constantly underused and that was getting a bit tiring too.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:43 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:43 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Okay, so I know nothing about this book series other than what I've learned on the excellent YouTube channel Quinn's Ideas, which is where I first heard of these books. I recommend his channel if you like topical synopses of science fiction things, like encyclopedia entries. He's good.
Anyway, I watched the trailer linked in the FPP and all I could think about while watching was is this a metaphor for climate change? That and, wow, this is so incredibly bleak I'm not sure I can watch this.
Also, I'm glad big bold science fiction stories are being told on television these days, even if they aren't necessarily for me.
posted by hippybear at 8:13 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
Anyway, I watched the trailer linked in the FPP and all I could think about while watching was is this a metaphor for climate change? That and, wow, this is so incredibly bleak I'm not sure I can watch this.
Also, I'm glad big bold science fiction stories are being told on television these days, even if they aren't necessarily for me.
posted by hippybear at 8:13 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
There's also an anlme adaptation of the second book. I was enjoying it but kept running into technical playback issues unrelated to the series itself and stopped around the fourth episode. Probably about time to try and watch it again.
posted by evilDoug at 8:48 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by evilDoug at 8:48 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Mind-blowing trilogy. So many amazing ideas in these books. Really hoping the adaptation smooths out some of the rough edges and showcases the quality of the ideas and the storytelling. There are extended portions of the second novel, in particular, that could easily be excised to produce a superior narrative.
posted by sid at 9:13 PM on January 9
posted by sid at 9:13 PM on January 9
It's magic instead of science. I don't think anybody would have a hard time following the science part of these books because they're not really rooted in reality at all. They exist as a medium to express the author's beliefs, which I'm afraid that I can't accurately interpret in any meaningful way. That's the problem I think most Westerners will encounter when they read these books: they are about the Cultural Revolution more than anything else.
This is a very interesting take, and one that I had not considered.
To me, TBP was all about exploding the reader's idea of what is possible, about shattering their notions of what might be contained in the universe. It is definitely not an American work, though, the humans are all incredibly flawed and the universe in general is not a welcoming place. I think of it as the polar opposite of Star Trek.
Love the idea that it is rooted in Chinese history, will explore this more.
posted by sid at 9:23 PM on January 9 [3 favorites]
This is a very interesting take, and one that I had not considered.
To me, TBP was all about exploding the reader's idea of what is possible, about shattering their notions of what might be contained in the universe. It is definitely not an American work, though, the humans are all incredibly flawed and the universe in general is not a welcoming place. I think of it as the polar opposite of Star Trek.
Love the idea that it is rooted in Chinese history, will explore this more.
posted by sid at 9:23 PM on January 9 [3 favorites]
It's magic instead of science. I don't think anybody would have a hard time following the science part of these books because they're not really rooted in reality at all. They exist as a medium to express the author's beliefs, which I'm afraid that I can't accurately interpret in any meaningful way. That's the problem I think most Westerners will encounter when they read these books: they are about the Cultural Revolution more than anything else.
I respectfully disagree quite a bit with this sentiment. Also in general I think this is sort of an annoying sentiment...I get what it is trying to do, "ah, I am but a white person, what can I say about this." But I think it sort of actually ends up being exactly what you're trying to avoid, as if what he was writing was so specifically "Chinese" that only Chinese people could possibly have anything to say about it. I dunno. I find this a supremely reductive way to approach media. It's one thing to admit you don't know much about the cultural revolution, but it's another to say that there is something so essentially foreign about the work that you couldn't hope to say anything about it.
You know who else doesn't really know that much about the cultural revolution? The vast majority of the readers of the book! Including Chinese readers.
As an aside, just for some of the other comments I've seen here...ironically, the prose in the English text is considered to be much better than the Chinese prose. I listened to the first book in Mandarin and then switched to English, just because the Chinese audiobooks weren't available yet. I thought both were fine, but I can understand people not finding the prose in either inspired lol.
But on the topic of things he has to say, I strongly disagree with the idea that the vast majority of what he has to say is about the cultural revolution. I agree that there are likely contours to his worldview that make a lot more sense if you know a lot more about the cultural revolution...but again, lots of Chinese people in China do not know that much, beyond a sort of culturally mythologized series of events. Some people know a lot more! But a lot also don't.
To me, the book is a lot more about...a certain type of Chinese nationalist's take on lots of different things (the cultural revolution certainly being one of them!). I think you get a very strong sense of his views on quite a lot of things (the nature of politics, of humanity, of women, of society, and on and on). He's a pretty hardcore nationalist Of A Certain Age and it definitely shows.
posted by wooh at 9:43 PM on January 9 [6 favorites]
I respectfully disagree quite a bit with this sentiment. Also in general I think this is sort of an annoying sentiment...I get what it is trying to do, "ah, I am but a white person, what can I say about this." But I think it sort of actually ends up being exactly what you're trying to avoid, as if what he was writing was so specifically "Chinese" that only Chinese people could possibly have anything to say about it. I dunno. I find this a supremely reductive way to approach media. It's one thing to admit you don't know much about the cultural revolution, but it's another to say that there is something so essentially foreign about the work that you couldn't hope to say anything about it.
You know who else doesn't really know that much about the cultural revolution? The vast majority of the readers of the book! Including Chinese readers.
As an aside, just for some of the other comments I've seen here...ironically, the prose in the English text is considered to be much better than the Chinese prose. I listened to the first book in Mandarin and then switched to English, just because the Chinese audiobooks weren't available yet. I thought both were fine, but I can understand people not finding the prose in either inspired lol.
But on the topic of things he has to say, I strongly disagree with the idea that the vast majority of what he has to say is about the cultural revolution. I agree that there are likely contours to his worldview that make a lot more sense if you know a lot more about the cultural revolution...but again, lots of Chinese people in China do not know that much, beyond a sort of culturally mythologized series of events. Some people know a lot more! But a lot also don't.
To me, the book is a lot more about...a certain type of Chinese nationalist's take on lots of different things (the cultural revolution certainly being one of them!). I think you get a very strong sense of his views on quite a lot of things (the nature of politics, of humanity, of women, of society, and on and on). He's a pretty hardcore nationalist Of A Certain Age and it definitely shows.
posted by wooh at 9:43 PM on January 9 [6 favorites]
I love the second novel for the titular idea. As far as I know it’s the first time anyone’s gone quite that categorically bleak with First Contact, and it makes a horrifying kind of sense. I can’t say I found it delightful but unlike the third book I’m very glad I stuck with it for the second.
The first novel was extremely interesting to me because I didn’t know much about the Cultural Revolution. The sci-fi aspects were pure bullshit - and not Star Trek bullshit which has at least some kind of actual physics-based sense to the technobabble even if the constants and magnitude of the forces are all wildly off. Yes, The Three Body Problem “explodes the reader's idea of what is possible” but it is very obviously pure magic bullshit in open violation of high school physics.
To be honest I’m looking forward to the Cultural Revolution bits getting an adaptation, and in seeing how everyone reacts to the thesis of the second novel since this will give it a bigger audience, but I’d rather skip what’s between the two.
posted by Ryvar at 11:36 PM on January 9
The first novel was extremely interesting to me because I didn’t know much about the Cultural Revolution. The sci-fi aspects were pure bullshit - and not Star Trek bullshit which has at least some kind of actual physics-based sense to the technobabble even if the constants and magnitude of the forces are all wildly off. Yes, The Three Body Problem “explodes the reader's idea of what is possible” but it is very obviously pure magic bullshit in open violation of high school physics.
To be honest I’m looking forward to the Cultural Revolution bits getting an adaptation, and in seeing how everyone reacts to the thesis of the second novel since this will give it a bigger audience, but I’d rather skip what’s between the two.
posted by Ryvar at 11:36 PM on January 9
Because of all the praise heaped on the book, I've tried reading it three times now. Maybe it's the translation or something else, but I just can't make it past Part 1/the first three chapters. It's not gripping me in character, content or form.
I'm debating a fourth attempt as I have very little faith in Netflix and their generic content extrusion process.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:15 AM on January 10
I'm debating a fourth attempt as I have very little faith in Netflix and their generic content extrusion process.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:15 AM on January 10
I would say the book isn't about the Cultural Revolution, which mostly gives Ye Wenjie a reason to do what she does. The heart of it is the Dark Forest concept, which I think resonates with the history of China in the modern world. If you think about what the West and Japan did to China, plus what it did to itself, an extremely bleak view of the cosmos is understandable.
I read an interview with Liu where he said that most Chinese sf is dystopian, and he's considered an optimist...
For those considering the first book, I'd say it starts out slow, but it comes together in a rush. The first chapters are a whole Chekhov's armory of things that become important later.
posted by zompist at 3:05 AM on January 10 [9 favorites]
I read an interview with Liu where he said that most Chinese sf is dystopian, and he's considered an optimist...
For those considering the first book, I'd say it starts out slow, but it comes together in a rush. The first chapters are a whole Chekhov's armory of things that become important later.
posted by zompist at 3:05 AM on January 10 [9 favorites]
I was really excited to read the first book, but it was just like hitting a brick wall to me. I’ve read a fair bit of Chinese history, and I’ve been an avid sf reader most of my life, but it just felt like more work than it should have.
Then, watching the trailer, I was starting to wonder, wait, are they leaving out the game? Then, oh, yeah, the whole end of the trailer.
On the other, other hand, if this is Benioff and Weiss, they at least have a track record of ignoring what the author thinks is the focus, and who knows, maybe they can make it more enjoyable?
In short, shit, I don’t know where I stand. I can’t see myself going back to reread the first book, which I would probably need to do before reading the second book, but even the positive comments here are about how much work that book is.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:22 AM on January 10
Then, watching the trailer, I was starting to wonder, wait, are they leaving out the game? Then, oh, yeah, the whole end of the trailer.
On the other, other hand, if this is Benioff and Weiss, they at least have a track record of ignoring what the author thinks is the focus, and who knows, maybe they can make it more enjoyable?
In short, shit, I don’t know where I stand. I can’t see myself going back to reread the first book, which I would probably need to do before reading the second book, but even the positive comments here are about how much work that book is.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:22 AM on January 10
As far as I know it’s the first time anyone’s gone quite that categorically bleak with First Contact, and it makes a horrifying kind of sense.
Lovecraft
Bear's The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars
Brin's Earth, sort of
Saberhagen's Berserker stories
I tried the Three Body Problem and bounced off. But the whole "Dark Forest" idea seems very wrong to me; stars are distant, actual travel instead of information transfer will be very difficult, and so your neighbors are basically harmless.
Because of all the praise heaped on the book, I've tried reading it three times now. Maybe it's the translation or something else, but I just can't make it past Part 1/the first three chapters. It's not gripping me in character, content or form.
Intending this solely as a "Huh, look how people differ" thing with no claim that I'm on the right side, I've decided it goes in the pile with Lexx as one of those polarizing things that some folks really really like, including knowledgeable longterm genre readers/watchers, even though I don't understand how anyone could possibly like it.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:11 AM on January 10 [5 favorites]
Lovecraft
Bear's The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars
Brin's Earth, sort of
Saberhagen's Berserker stories
I tried the Three Body Problem and bounced off. But the whole "Dark Forest" idea seems very wrong to me; stars are distant, actual travel instead of information transfer will be very difficult, and so your neighbors are basically harmless.
Because of all the praise heaped on the book, I've tried reading it three times now. Maybe it's the translation or something else, but I just can't make it past Part 1/the first three chapters. It's not gripping me in character, content or form.
Intending this solely as a "Huh, look how people differ" thing with no claim that I'm on the right side, I've decided it goes in the pile with Lexx as one of those polarizing things that some folks really really like, including knowledgeable longterm genre readers/watchers, even though I don't understand how anyone could possibly like it.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:11 AM on January 10 [5 favorites]
Wow, this sure is a cornucopia of different opinions on the book(s). I just finished the first one, and while I did find parts of it tough sledding--being unfamiliar with the sheer brutality of the Cultural Revolution, the beginning was difficult to get through for me--but I thought that it was rewarding by the end. Just got the second book, we'll see.
As for the the adaptation, I'm in the "D&D were fine as long as they had solid material to adapt, and even improved on it somewhat; it was only when they ran out of books to work with that it went off the rails." There seemed to be a lot more non-Chinese people compared at least to the first book, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Rosalind Chao and Benedict Wong do.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:40 AM on January 10
As for the the adaptation, I'm in the "D&D were fine as long as they had solid material to adapt, and even improved on it somewhat; it was only when they ran out of books to work with that it went off the rails." There seemed to be a lot more non-Chinese people compared at least to the first book, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Rosalind Chao and Benedict Wong do.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:40 AM on January 10
the prose in the English text is considered to be much better than the Chinese prose
One thing I took away from reading the series was actually an interest in the translator Ken Liu's own writings, which are top-notch.
posted by daisystomper at 5:11 AM on January 10 [5 favorites]
One thing I took away from reading the series was actually an interest in the translator Ken Liu's own writings, which are top-notch.
posted by daisystomper at 5:11 AM on January 10 [5 favorites]
Serious question: what is going on with Liu Cixin and his politics? There was a burst of news in late 2020/early 2021 that he was in support of Uigher genocide, but mostly this seems to have come from US Republican sources when I look for updates now. Is this actually A Thing (which seems important to talk about when discussing artist output) or something that was taken out of context?
posted by curious nu at 5:32 AM on January 10
posted by curious nu at 5:32 AM on January 10
Serious question: what is going on with Liu Cixin and his politics? There was a burst of news in late 2020/early 2021 that he was in support of Uigher genocide, but mostly this seems to have come from US Republican sources when I look for updates now. Is this actually A Thing (which seems important to talk about when discussing artist output) or something that was taken out of context?
IMO impossible to know from what's out there if he personally supports the CCP's treatment of Uyghurs, if he's indifferent to that aspect of CCP policy but generally supports the CCP, or if he's simply too fearful of retribution to do anything but toe the party line.
posted by sid at 7:18 AM on January 10
IMO impossible to know from what's out there if he personally supports the CCP's treatment of Uyghurs, if he's indifferent to that aspect of CCP policy but generally supports the CCP, or if he's simply too fearful of retribution to do anything but toe the party line.
posted by sid at 7:18 AM on January 10
I really don't see how Liu's work is any more / less magical than any other 'hard' sci fi work. Star Trek and TBP both take currently theorized 'scientific' principles and stretch them to the point of incredulity to tell interesting stories and explore interesting ideas. IMO they're both on the side of 'hard' sci fi vs Star Wars, Dune, etc, which make no pretense of being based on any known science.
posted by sid at 7:23 AM on January 10
posted by sid at 7:23 AM on January 10
It occurs to me that Marvel's proposed Kang Dynasty storyline is similar to The Dark Forest. Assuming a relatively infinite number of alternate realities, at least some of those realities will be hostile (ie, "the Nazis won WWII") and so place all the other timelines at risk. This was He Who Remains' argument to Loki. Better one "sacred" timeline watched over by the Time Variance Authority than the endless war and chaos of whole universes at war with one another; a "Dark Multiverse."
posted by SPrintF at 7:47 AM on January 10
posted by SPrintF at 7:47 AM on January 10
I really don't see how Liu's work is any more / less magical than any other 'hard' sci fi work.
It's a great deal more magical than most of what I consider 'hard' sci fi.
2001 is a great example of hard and magic sci-fi pressed together. All of the human science is (in retrospect) directly foreseeable from mainstream human science at the time; the monolith technology is based in theories on the edge of human science which, while mind-bending and eye-opening, don't have to map onto reality in any meaningful way.
The dominance shifting from the first to the second in the TBP books is why I lost interest midway through the second book. Not to my taste.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:59 AM on January 10
It's a great deal more magical than most of what I consider 'hard' sci fi.
2001 is a great example of hard and magic sci-fi pressed together. All of the human science is (in retrospect) directly foreseeable from mainstream human science at the time; the monolith technology is based in theories on the edge of human science which, while mind-bending and eye-opening, don't have to map onto reality in any meaningful way.
The dominance shifting from the first to the second in the TBP books is why I lost interest midway through the second book. Not to my taste.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:59 AM on January 10
Based just on our own behaviour towards each other (eg colonization), and the way we currently exploit resources, I don't see how anyone could not be in the "Dark Forest" camp regarding alien contact and their intentions.
Of course, if we ever develop the ability to do the interplanetary contacting and traveling (and conquering) ourselves, then it's game on.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:07 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
Of course, if we ever develop the ability to do the interplanetary contacting and traveling (and conquering) ourselves, then it's game on.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:07 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
When I first set to read TBP, Cixin Liu had made some headlines with comments dismissing the oppression of the Uyghurs, and in my circle he was getting cancelled. But that made me want to read it more: to see what kind of situation would cause a brilliant author to show such feet of clay.
While I made sure to pirate his book, I read it, and suffice it to say, the cowardice and cynicism of his characters in the throes of the Cultural Revolution made it perfectly clear why he would be compromised vis a vis the Uyghurs. The book is excellent, and it answered my question about his character quite well
posted by ocschwar at 8:43 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
While I made sure to pirate his book, I read it, and suffice it to say, the cowardice and cynicism of his characters in the throes of the Cultural Revolution made it perfectly clear why he would be compromised vis a vis the Uyghurs. The book is excellent, and it answered my question about his character quite well
posted by ocschwar at 8:43 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
People hate the GoT guys
Yeah, because they took an incredible top-tier series that was having a big cultural moment, and ruined it because they were bored of it and wanted to move on.
I'm not going to touch anything they work on until it's completely done with so that I won't have to worry if they shit the bed with it again when they're ready to move on.
posted by evilangela at 9:30 AM on January 10
Yeah, because they took an incredible top-tier series that was having a big cultural moment, and ruined it because they were bored of it and wanted to move on.
I'm not going to touch anything they work on until it's completely done with so that I won't have to worry if they shit the bed with it again when they're ready to move on.
posted by evilangela at 9:30 AM on January 10
Based just on our own behaviour towards each other (eg colonization), and the way we currently exploit resources, I don't see how anyone could not be in the "Dark Forest" camp regarding alien contact and their intentions.
They can't come here, and we can't go there. Even if interstellar travel were feasible, there's nothing you could get from interstellar colonization that you couldn't get much more easily at home.
The worst a civilization can do to another is mildly annoy their radio astronomers. Why attack for that?
Obviously this isn't true in the universe of that book. Which is fine if Liu wants to do a retelling or parable about colonization, just like it would be fine to have the goblins colonizing the owlbear lands or whatever, but that doesn't seem to be his interest or intent.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:43 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]
They can't come here, and we can't go there. Even if interstellar travel were feasible, there's nothing you could get from interstellar colonization that you couldn't get much more easily at home.
The worst a civilization can do to another is mildly annoy their radio astronomers. Why attack for that?
Obviously this isn't true in the universe of that book. Which is fine if Liu wants to do a retelling or parable about colonization, just like it would be fine to have the goblins colonizing the owlbear lands or whatever, but that doesn't seem to be his interest or intent.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:43 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]
I read the first book, and while I thought it very good, I also found the pacing a bit odd--maybe a bit overlong and repetitive. And depressing; I remember finishing and thinking "Well I won't be reading the rest if this one makes me this down." But I should give them all another try.
posted by zardoz at 10:24 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
posted by zardoz at 10:24 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
They can't come here, and we can't go there. Even if interstellar travel were feasible, there's nothing you could get from interstellar colonization that you couldn't get much more easily at home.
It's an assumption. It's a safe assumption, but an assumption nonetheless.
We still don't know why we have yet to get radio signals from another civilization. Is it because of Dark Forest? Are they too afraid to let us detect them? Is it a Leafy Forest? (Is the interstellar medium harder to get radio signals through than we know?) Is it because of Navel Gazing? (Do civilizations stop making their presence known because they just stop caring?) Is it because of Wifi? (they switch to digital radio protocols for the same reason we did, with lots of encryption, and the generated emissions become impossible for other civilizations to interpret)
My plan for semiretirement is to open a cocktail bar where all the drinks are named after proposed answers to the Fermi Problem. We'll be service a heavy bourbon based Great Filter Ahead, and a light fruity Great Filter Behind. As well as a Dark Forest and others.
posted by ocschwar at 10:25 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
It's an assumption. It's a safe assumption, but an assumption nonetheless.
We still don't know why we have yet to get radio signals from another civilization. Is it because of Dark Forest? Are they too afraid to let us detect them? Is it a Leafy Forest? (Is the interstellar medium harder to get radio signals through than we know?) Is it because of Navel Gazing? (Do civilizations stop making their presence known because they just stop caring?) Is it because of Wifi? (they switch to digital radio protocols for the same reason we did, with lots of encryption, and the generated emissions become impossible for other civilizations to interpret)
My plan for semiretirement is to open a cocktail bar where all the drinks are named after proposed answers to the Fermi Problem. We'll be service a heavy bourbon based Great Filter Ahead, and a light fruity Great Filter Behind. As well as a Dark Forest and others.
posted by ocschwar at 10:25 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
They can't come here, and we can't go there.
That's what everybody says just before the relativistic antineutronium slug pops their planet like a grape.
posted by The Tensor at 10:30 AM on January 10 [8 favorites]
That's what everybody says just before the relativistic antineutronium slug pops their planet like a grape.
posted by The Tensor at 10:30 AM on January 10 [8 favorites]
“Why I am boycotting The Three Body Problem”—Science Fiction with Damien Walter, 21 January 2023
About which, as I alluded to in a comment on that video, I definitely got the feeling that Liu has a deeply reactionary worldview. The idea of the Dark Forest in general and especially what Sophon does to the Earthlings at the end of the Deterrence Era made me think he has a very dim view of human nature. I have questioned myself about that because of the choices Cheng Xin makes over and over again, but maybe that's just a misogynist view of women being "too soft" and not Liu trying to say that choosing love is always correct.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:45 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]
Discussion of plot details vis à vis Liu's politics
About which, as I alluded to in a comment on that video, I definitely got the feeling that Liu has a deeply reactionary worldview. The idea of the Dark Forest in general and especially what Sophon does to the Earthlings at the end of the Deterrence Era made me think he has a very dim view of human nature. I have questioned myself about that because of the choices Cheng Xin makes over and over again, but maybe that's just a misogynist view of women being "too soft" and not Liu trying to say that choosing love is always correct.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:45 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]
“Why I am boycotting The Three Body Problem”—Science Fiction with Damien Walter, 21 January 2023
showing up as 'video unavailable' for me - perhaps a jurisdictional issue? I'm in Canada.
posted by sid at 11:04 AM on January 10
showing up as 'video unavailable' for me - perhaps a jurisdictional issue? I'm in Canada.
posted by sid at 11:04 AM on January 10
I'm bracing myself for the Netflix version to be a total hack job.
As a lifelong sf reader burned by adaptation after adaptation - most recently Apple's horrendous Foundation series - I'm with you. I usually approach movie/tv versions with very low expectations, so I'm pleasantly surprised sometimes.
posted by doctornemo at 12:28 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
As a lifelong sf reader burned by adaptation after adaptation - most recently Apple's horrendous Foundation series - I'm with you. I usually approach movie/tv versions with very low expectations, so I'm pleasantly surprised sometimes.
posted by doctornemo at 12:28 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
evilDoug, thank you for that. I didn't know there was an anime version.
That's three (3) adaptations of the series so far.
posted by doctornemo at 12:34 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
That's three (3) adaptations of the series so far.
posted by doctornemo at 12:34 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
Because of all the praise heaped on the book, I've tried reading it three times now. Maybe it's the translation or something else, but I just can't make it past Part 1/the first three chapters. It's not gripping me in character, content or form.
it's really not good - some clever ideas and setpieces in an absolute slurry of hamfisted dialogue, thinly sketched characters and 1920s style sexism. Intriguingly, the translation had a sensitivity pass to remove sexist expressions, so it's interesting to ponder what the original is like.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:37 PM on January 10
it's really not good - some clever ideas and setpieces in an absolute slurry of hamfisted dialogue, thinly sketched characters and 1920s style sexism. Intriguingly, the translation had a sensitivity pass to remove sexist expressions, so it's interesting to ponder what the original is like.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:37 PM on January 10
I'm not sure how I feel about this trailer. One of the things that made the book feel so unique (and, similarly, the adaptation of another of Cixin Liu's stories into a movie, The Wandering Earth) was just how much the United States was a non-entity and how the rest of the world (and, specifically, China) figured in more.
I'll probably give the series a shot, but there's something to be said about worlds where the US isn't a stand-in for Earth.
posted by i used to be someone else at 5:56 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
I'll probably give the series a shot, but there's something to be said about worlds where the US isn't a stand-in for Earth.
posted by i used to be someone else at 5:56 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
I can't remember the details but I remember the dark forest metaphor in the second book included a description of a hunter in the dark forest basically shooting at whatever moves. But... that's not how hunters hunt. And hunting and colonization are not the same thing. Maybe Liu is telling on himself a bit.
posted by TimidFooting at 7:12 PM on January 10
posted by TimidFooting at 7:12 PM on January 10
Well maybe we can discuss some of the finer details of the books, so, spoilers -
> They can't come here, and we can't go there. Even if interstellar travel were feasible, there's nothing you could get from interstellar colonization that you couldn't get much more easily at home.
Specifically in the case of Trisolarians, they are from the triple star system in the Alpha Centauri system (overly convenient for the plot, right in our backyard). In the book it takes them about 400 years to cover the 4.4 light years, which is rather conservative, actually. In fact one of the human scientists asks them why it took so long to get there, they said it was something to do about harvesting matter / anti-matter with a magnetic ram-scoop which meant their acceleration was constrained by the availability of resources in spaces.
What they couldn't get at home was a habitable planet. The plot being that their civilization had been wiped out several times by the unpredictable cycles of their triple sun, hence the Three Body Problem. They were looking for a nearby habitable planet, and Ye Wenjie gave them an invitation to come directly to Earth.
> I remember the dark forest metaphor in the second book included a description of a hunter in the dark forest basically shooting at whatever moves. But... that's not how hunters hunt.
Luo Ji comes to this conclusion after watching what happened to Zhang Beihai's ship.
Almost the entire human defense space fleet is effortlessly destroyed by a small Trisolarian probe scouting ahead of he main fleet. Zhang Beihai - in his space ship - along with 4 other ships, were on the other side of the Solar System when they witnessed this happening.
The ship captains quickly come to the realization that they cannot return home to earth, and each ship individually does not have enough resources to carry them on a journey to the nearest inhabitable star. The ships open fire on each other with infrasonic weapons, designed to kill all life while leaving the ship intact. Only one ship survives the battle, and manages to collect all the resources, then leaves the solar system.
You could argue that this scenario is unrealistic. If you were the captain, surely you wouldn't do this. Yet there is common saying - dating back over a hundred years -
"Those of us who are well fed, well garmented and well ordered, ought not to forget that necessity makes frequently the root of crime. It is well for us to recollect that even in our own law-abiding, not to say virtuous cases, the only barrier between us and anarchy is the last nine meals we’ve had. It may be taken as axiomatic that a starving man is never a good citizen." - Alfred Henry Lewis, Owensboro Daily Messenger, 1896.
When resources are so scarce as to be an existential threat, it is natural for everyone to prioritize the survival of themselves and their nearest kin, with ever decreasing circles of who "counts" as kin. In this case, the ships captains are duty bound to prioritize the survival of their crew.
Luo Ji talks about the "chain of suspicion" as opposed to a "chain of trust" - in a situation where simultaneous two-way communication cannot happen quickly enough to allay suspicion, the rational choice is to shoot first.
In the case of the ships, it wouldn't matter if two of the five ships chose to hold their fire - they would just have been destroyed first. In the model of Darwinian evolution - at the scale of the universe, over billions of years - they never got to pass on their genes or traits.
In the case of multiple hostile civilizations - destroying another civilization that revealed itself is a trivial task, as merely firing a projectile traveling at a good fraction of the speed of light would render a planet uninhabitable. To defend against such an attack is almost impossible, as we see today - the more advanced the technology, the more difficult it is to defend against (bullets, missiles, nukes). At such distances, it is impossible to determine if another civilization truly bears hostile intention or not, and even if they are not hostile now they might turn hostile in the future, and so the risks far outweigh any benefits.
He imagines it is no different to humans weeding their garden and getting rid of snails - "other" lifeforms that might pose a threat if allowed to grow or advance further.
As always, this is fiction, not reality, but it was a compellingly written theory within the bounds of the story. And as for the ending of this second book - very few fictional stories of "smart" people outsmarting an enemy really truly land for me. They have to describe a problem that seems so insurmountable, that I cannot imagine a solution. In this case, a vastly superior alien civilization that outmatches humanity in every way. The ending of of the first book did make me laugh, where the Trisolarians say humanity is no more than bugs to them. Wang Miao - one of the main characters, a brilliant scientist - is despondent, but Shi Qiang - who is an uneducated peasant turned police officer - cheers him up by taking him to a field infested with locusts and saying despite humanity being so technologically advanced compared to bugs, we have no hope of eradicating them. So how does Luo Ji "save" humanity from the Trisolarians? They actually delivered a rational solution that left me satisfied, so this book gets a tick from me.
I think Shi Qiang and Wang Miao represented contrasting opposites - Shi Qiang the uneducated peasant relying on common sense, intuition and gut feeling - versus Wang Miao the highly educated intellectual and genius scientist. Yet Shi Qiang is the one to offer insights and comfort to Wang Miao.
It seemed the same mirroring was set up between Luo Ji and the other Wallfacers - the other Wallfacers were highly acclaimed geniuses with extremely complex plans to defeat the aliens. Luo Ji didn't even want the job, and the solution he came up with was something simple from observing human behavior from hundreds of years ago.
Is this the author trying to say something? Given the entire story started with the Cultural Revolution and the purge of intellectuals? I don't believe there's really an "answer" or that we even need an answer, but to me an SF book is successful if it opens my mind to new questions.
posted by xdvesper at 1:56 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
> They can't come here, and we can't go there. Even if interstellar travel were feasible, there's nothing you could get from interstellar colonization that you couldn't get much more easily at home.
Specifically in the case of Trisolarians, they are from the triple star system in the Alpha Centauri system (overly convenient for the plot, right in our backyard). In the book it takes them about 400 years to cover the 4.4 light years, which is rather conservative, actually. In fact one of the human scientists asks them why it took so long to get there, they said it was something to do about harvesting matter / anti-matter with a magnetic ram-scoop which meant their acceleration was constrained by the availability of resources in spaces.
What they couldn't get at home was a habitable planet. The plot being that their civilization had been wiped out several times by the unpredictable cycles of their triple sun, hence the Three Body Problem. They were looking for a nearby habitable planet, and Ye Wenjie gave them an invitation to come directly to Earth.
> I remember the dark forest metaphor in the second book included a description of a hunter in the dark forest basically shooting at whatever moves. But... that's not how hunters hunt.
Luo Ji comes to this conclusion after watching what happened to Zhang Beihai's ship.
Almost the entire human defense space fleet is effortlessly destroyed by a small Trisolarian probe scouting ahead of he main fleet. Zhang Beihai - in his space ship - along with 4 other ships, were on the other side of the Solar System when they witnessed this happening.
The ship captains quickly come to the realization that they cannot return home to earth, and each ship individually does not have enough resources to carry them on a journey to the nearest inhabitable star. The ships open fire on each other with infrasonic weapons, designed to kill all life while leaving the ship intact. Only one ship survives the battle, and manages to collect all the resources, then leaves the solar system.
You could argue that this scenario is unrealistic. If you were the captain, surely you wouldn't do this. Yet there is common saying - dating back over a hundred years -
"Those of us who are well fed, well garmented and well ordered, ought not to forget that necessity makes frequently the root of crime. It is well for us to recollect that even in our own law-abiding, not to say virtuous cases, the only barrier between us and anarchy is the last nine meals we’ve had. It may be taken as axiomatic that a starving man is never a good citizen." - Alfred Henry Lewis, Owensboro Daily Messenger, 1896.
When resources are so scarce as to be an existential threat, it is natural for everyone to prioritize the survival of themselves and their nearest kin, with ever decreasing circles of who "counts" as kin. In this case, the ships captains are duty bound to prioritize the survival of their crew.
Luo Ji talks about the "chain of suspicion" as opposed to a "chain of trust" - in a situation where simultaneous two-way communication cannot happen quickly enough to allay suspicion, the rational choice is to shoot first.
In the case of the ships, it wouldn't matter if two of the five ships chose to hold their fire - they would just have been destroyed first. In the model of Darwinian evolution - at the scale of the universe, over billions of years - they never got to pass on their genes or traits.
In the case of multiple hostile civilizations - destroying another civilization that revealed itself is a trivial task, as merely firing a projectile traveling at a good fraction of the speed of light would render a planet uninhabitable. To defend against such an attack is almost impossible, as we see today - the more advanced the technology, the more difficult it is to defend against (bullets, missiles, nukes). At such distances, it is impossible to determine if another civilization truly bears hostile intention or not, and even if they are not hostile now they might turn hostile in the future, and so the risks far outweigh any benefits.
He imagines it is no different to humans weeding their garden and getting rid of snails - "other" lifeforms that might pose a threat if allowed to grow or advance further.
As always, this is fiction, not reality, but it was a compellingly written theory within the bounds of the story. And as for the ending of this second book - very few fictional stories of "smart" people outsmarting an enemy really truly land for me. They have to describe a problem that seems so insurmountable, that I cannot imagine a solution. In this case, a vastly superior alien civilization that outmatches humanity in every way. The ending of of the first book did make me laugh, where the Trisolarians say humanity is no more than bugs to them. Wang Miao - one of the main characters, a brilliant scientist - is despondent, but Shi Qiang - who is an uneducated peasant turned police officer - cheers him up by taking him to a field infested with locusts and saying despite humanity being so technologically advanced compared to bugs, we have no hope of eradicating them. So how does Luo Ji "save" humanity from the Trisolarians? They actually delivered a rational solution that left me satisfied, so this book gets a tick from me.
I think Shi Qiang and Wang Miao represented contrasting opposites - Shi Qiang the uneducated peasant relying on common sense, intuition and gut feeling - versus Wang Miao the highly educated intellectual and genius scientist. Yet Shi Qiang is the one to offer insights and comfort to Wang Miao.
It seemed the same mirroring was set up between Luo Ji and the other Wallfacers - the other Wallfacers were highly acclaimed geniuses with extremely complex plans to defeat the aliens. Luo Ji didn't even want the job, and the solution he came up with was something simple from observing human behavior from hundreds of years ago.
Is this the author trying to say something? Given the entire story started with the Cultural Revolution and the purge of intellectuals? I don't believe there's really an "answer" or that we even need an answer, but to me an SF book is successful if it opens my mind to new questions.
posted by xdvesper at 1:56 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
The issue for me wasn't that the "science" in The Three Body Problem was complete nonsense. Lots of great SF books have completely impossible science, serving whatever purpose the author needs it to serve.
The issue (among many others) for me was that the nonsense "science" was lovingly described over pages and pages and pages and pages as if we were not only supposed to take it seriously, but as if one of the fundamental points of the book was to painstakingly explore ideas which were, at the most fundamental level, deeply ridiculous.
And yes, it's a problem for me when, say, Star Trek does this, too. It doesn't always, but there are certainly episodes in which the entire point seems to be that a nonsensical problem was solved with a nonsensical solution, and I'm not a fan of those, either.
Once again, I don't mind the presence of ridiculous science. I mind it being treated as if not only is it not ridiculous, but it is in fact deeply meaningful and interesting in and of itself.
posted by kyrademon at 2:25 PM on January 11
The issue (among many others) for me was that the nonsense "science" was lovingly described over pages and pages and pages and pages as if we were not only supposed to take it seriously, but as if one of the fundamental points of the book was to painstakingly explore ideas which were, at the most fundamental level, deeply ridiculous.
And yes, it's a problem for me when, say, Star Trek does this, too. It doesn't always, but there are certainly episodes in which the entire point seems to be that a nonsensical problem was solved with a nonsensical solution, and I'm not a fan of those, either.
Once again, I don't mind the presence of ridiculous science. I mind it being treated as if not only is it not ridiculous, but it is in fact deeply meaningful and interesting in and of itself.
posted by kyrademon at 2:25 PM on January 11
What they couldn't get at home was a habitable planet. The plot being that their civilization had been wiped out several times by the unpredictable cycles of their triple sun, hence the Three Body Problem.
That seems a pretty blatant metaphor for the Chinese idea of the Mandate of Heaven. Am I off base in saying this?
posted by ocschwar at 3:22 PM on January 11
A bit late to this thread but in response to the very first comment saying
I read the first 2 books and quit despite the interesting bits because the translated writing is just too rough for me....I'm surprised no one's pointed out that the second book has a different (and -- to my eye -- clearly inferior) translator than the other two!
(One smallish thing I remember about the second book's translation: characters more than once or twice "pulling a face," which I've since gathered might work as a Britishism, but left me every time wondering what facial expression they were actually pulling.)
Secondly, to add to xdvesper's (non-spoiler) comment about the first book's translation, here's a great NYTimes Magazine longform profile on the translator, Ken Liu. I'd gathered from the article that when Ken Liu made the suggestion to move the Cultural Revolution flashbacks to the front, he had no idea that happened to match Liu Cixin's original intent (and indeed expected to be shot down, as a translator suggesting such structural changes).
posted by nobody at 8:40 PM on January 11
When resources are so scarce as to be an existential threat, it is natural for everyone to prioritize the survival of themselves and their nearest kin, with ever decreasing circles of who "counts" as kin.
This is the scenario written in the book. But this is not a law of nature or even a universal behavioral norm. Some people behave this way, some don't.
The problem with Liu's hunter metaphor is that he conceived of the hunter as being separate from the forest. But an effective hunter understands their own place in the forest. The hunter's life - as is our own existence on this planet - is part of an intricate web of interdependence, which the effective hunter knows they will mess up if they shoot at everything that moves, if they take more than is necessary. The effective hunter knows we are all kin.
I do remember Liu talking about the essentially alien psychology of being in space - how everyone on those ships had some kind of total psychological shift when confronted with the vast emptiness. Who knows? It might be that interdependence is planet-bound.
But then again, our planet depends on the sun and the moon, and we are all made of stardust.
I think for all his mind-bending descriptions of scale, from ants to galaxies, Liu is missing this perspective.
posted by TimidFooting at 8:46 PM on January 11
This is the scenario written in the book. But this is not a law of nature or even a universal behavioral norm. Some people behave this way, some don't.
The problem with Liu's hunter metaphor is that he conceived of the hunter as being separate from the forest. But an effective hunter understands their own place in the forest. The hunter's life - as is our own existence on this planet - is part of an intricate web of interdependence, which the effective hunter knows they will mess up if they shoot at everything that moves, if they take more than is necessary. The effective hunter knows we are all kin.
I do remember Liu talking about the essentially alien psychology of being in space - how everyone on those ships had some kind of total psychological shift when confronted with the vast emptiness. Who knows? It might be that interdependence is planet-bound.
But then again, our planet depends on the sun and the moon, and we are all made of stardust.
I think for all his mind-bending descriptions of scale, from ants to galaxies, Liu is missing this perspective.
posted by TimidFooting at 8:46 PM on January 11
There's a Chinese version of this book, Three-Body. It's streaming on Amazon Prime right now.
posted by SPrintF
Also on YouTube.
posted by Pouteria at 1:45 AM on January 12
posted by SPrintF
Also on YouTube.
posted by Pouteria at 1:45 AM on January 12
>“Why I am boycotting The Three Body Problem”—Science Fiction with Damien Walter, 21 January 2023
showing up as 'video unavailable' for me - perhaps a jurisdictional issue? I'm in Canada.
posted by sid at 4:34
Works for me in Australia.
posted by Pouteria at 1:49 AM on January 12
showing up as 'video unavailable' for me - perhaps a jurisdictional issue? I'm in Canada.
posted by sid at 4:34
Works for me in Australia.
posted by Pouteria at 1:49 AM on January 12
The Chinese language production 3 Body is fascinating. The sequence is back to Cixin Liue's 1st draft, so it doesn't start in the Cultural Revolution but with the first few suicides. The lower production values are just right for this story, since it starts with a beat cop and underpaid academics. I'm loving it.
(And yes, owing to the current Black Mirror dystopia we live in, I think we need more insight into the worldview it's presenting, not less. )
posted by ocschwar at 7:04 PM on January 12 [1 favorite]
(And yes, owing to the current Black Mirror dystopia we live in, I think we need more insight into the worldview it's presenting, not less. )
posted by ocschwar at 7:04 PM on January 12 [1 favorite]
The problem with Liu's hunter metaphor is that he conceived of the hunter as being separate from the forest. But an effective hunter understands their own place in the forest. The hunter's life - as is our own existence on this planet - is part of an intricate web of interdependence, which the effective hunter knows they will mess up if they shoot at everything that moves, if they take more than is necessary. The effective hunter knows we are all kin.
Forgive the pun but I feel like lots of people in this thread are missing the forest for the trees. The Dark Forest theory is an established idea, Liu didn’t come up with it. “Hunter” may not be the most apt word choice, but it’s a thematically appropriate stand-in word for describing the player in the dark forest game theory scenario.
Saying that the author’s metaphor is flawed because it’s not hewing close enough to a hunter’s place in an established ecology is sort of missing the point. He’s explaining game theory, that’s it.
posted by potent_cyprus at 8:52 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
Forgive the pun but I feel like lots of people in this thread are missing the forest for the trees. The Dark Forest theory is an established idea, Liu didn’t come up with it. “Hunter” may not be the most apt word choice, but it’s a thematically appropriate stand-in word for describing the player in the dark forest game theory scenario.
Saying that the author’s metaphor is flawed because it’s not hewing close enough to a hunter’s place in an established ecology is sort of missing the point. He’s explaining game theory, that’s it.
posted by potent_cyprus at 8:52 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
Thanks potent_cyprus, I didn't know that the dark forest theory was its own thing.
Words mean things, though. Especially in novels. Based on that Wikipedia article you linked, people talking about this theory seem to be attached to the forest metaphor. They seem invested in using this metaphor to reach the conclusion that life in the universe is a battle to survive against others, a zero-sum game.
Their metaphor falls apart just as their theory does. Zero-sum thinking harms everyone, and life in the forest/universe is not a game played by "rational agents."
posted by TimidFooting at 9:42 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
Words mean things, though. Especially in novels. Based on that Wikipedia article you linked, people talking about this theory seem to be attached to the forest metaphor. They seem invested in using this metaphor to reach the conclusion that life in the universe is a battle to survive against others, a zero-sum game.
Their metaphor falls apart just as their theory does. Zero-sum thinking harms everyone, and life in the forest/universe is not a game played by "rational agents."
posted by TimidFooting at 9:42 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
Less a battle to survive, more thinking along the lines of
"Anyone I meet might be a dracula in the narrow sense that I have no definitive proof they're not a dracula, therefore I should kill everyone I see to avoid being bloodsucked. But they know that and I know that they know that, so they're going to be expecting me to try to kill them because maybe a dracula, so they're going to try to kill me first because I want to kill them, so I should not only try to kill everyone, I should do my best to hide from everyone too." It's technically rational in the way that Jeff Dahmer was rational.
Except now put every individual on their own little island thousands of miles away from anyone else's island such that it would take hundreds to thousands of years to travel to another island.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:45 AM on January 13
"Anyone I meet might be a dracula in the narrow sense that I have no definitive proof they're not a dracula, therefore I should kill everyone I see to avoid being bloodsucked. But they know that and I know that they know that, so they're going to be expecting me to try to kill them because maybe a dracula, so they're going to try to kill me first because I want to kill them, so I should not only try to kill everyone, I should do my best to hide from everyone too." It's technically rational in the way that Jeff Dahmer was rational.
Except now put every individual on their own little island thousands of miles away from anyone else's island such that it would take hundreds to thousands of years to travel to another island.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:45 AM on January 13
people talking about this theory seem to be attached to the forest metaphor. They seem invested in using this metaphor to reach the conclusion that life in the universe is a battle to survive against others
Respectfully, I think it's you that's taking the forest/hunter metaphor too literally. It's just convenient shorthand for the idea that alien contact is maybe not to be wished for.
As I mentioned, our history of exploitation of foreign cultures and of this planet is proof enough for me that it probably won't be altruism that leads a civilization to come visit other ones they detect. (so, no Culture or Star Trek future, darn)
And yes I accept that our current understanding of physics makes the possibility of useful interstellar travel vanishingly tiny, so The Dark Forest doesn't keep me up at night.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:10 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
Respectfully, I think it's you that's taking the forest/hunter metaphor too literally. It's just convenient shorthand for the idea that alien contact is maybe not to be wished for.
As I mentioned, our history of exploitation of foreign cultures and of this planet is proof enough for me that it probably won't be altruism that leads a civilization to come visit other ones they detect. (so, no Culture or Star Trek future, darn)
And yes I accept that our current understanding of physics makes the possibility of useful interstellar travel vanishingly tiny, so The Dark Forest doesn't keep me up at night.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:10 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
TimidFooting: “ They seem invested in using this metaphor to reach the conclusion that life in the universe is a battle to survive against others, a zero-sum game.”I feel like that's the thesis of the whole series, and maybe philosophy as a whole,. The "rational" thing is to kill everyone you meet just in case, but love makes for a better world. That's kind of what I was getting at when I talked about the choices Cheng Xin makes every time she is forced to decide between love and death.
posted by ob1quixote at 12:13 PM on January 13
“The ‘Three-Body Problem’, the Imperative of Survival, and the Misogyny of Reactionary Rhetoric,” Chenchen Zhang , Made in China Journal, 11 December 2023
Liu Cixin’s the Three-Body Problem book trilogy is one of the world’s bestselling Chinese sci-fi series, being read and endorsed by figures such as George R.R. Martin and Barack Obama. In Chinese public debates, however, critics highlight the series’ social Darwinist, misogynistic, and totalitarian tendencies, raising concerns about how the trilogy has been used by authoritarian-minded techno-nationalists—known as the ‘industrial party’ (工业党, gongye dang) in digital culture—to dismiss morality and delegitimate progressive social change (see, for example, Xu 2019; Cicero by the Sea 2022). Granted, a novel that depicts a world ruled by the law of the jungle does not necessarily equate to a novel that advocates for such a world. After all, no-one would read George Orwell’s 1984 as an endorsement of totalitarianism. It is also beyond a writer’s control how their work is interpreted and used. However, if we take a closer look at the theoretical endeavours and narrative structures of the series, it becomes clear why it holds such appeal for the techno-nationalists, international relations realists, and opponents of social justice struggles.posted by ob1quixote at 7:44 AM on January 16 [4 favorites]
The above article got to the top of my pile this morning and I only just got to it this afternoon. Having just finished it, if you are at all interested in how the embodied politics of the Rememberance series have been interpreted by reactionary people in China and to a lesser extent in the U.S. and Europe, I highly recommend it. Especially noteworthy is the section with explores how Cheng Xin is viewed by Liu himself as well as among the gongye dang 'Industrial Party.'
posted by ob1quixote at 1:18 PM on January 16
Cheng Xin’s character—who is often labelled a baizuo (白左, ‘white left’, a pejorative slang term and rhetorical device used mainly to ridicule progressive liberalism) and a shengmu (圣母, ‘holy mother’, a pejorative slang term used to ridicule those seen as overly compassionate towards the disadvantaged)—is invoked as a particularly convincing case for the argument that ethical concerns and moral values are self-serving and can potentially lead to self-destruction. The widespread denunciation of Cheng overlaps with the anti-baizuo discourse on Chinese social media—a form of reactionary rhetoric similar to the ‘anti-woke’ discourse in the Anglo-American context (Zhang 2020).Very much worth the half hour to take on board.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:18 PM on January 16
“The Dark Forest hypothesis is absurd,” Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 22 January 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 1:17 PM on January 23
It's fun sci-fi but it doesn't make a lot of sense.P.S. The Hacker News discussion of this essay is… interesting.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:17 PM on January 23
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