8 ms·

Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, aka Three Body Problem. Explored existential topics in a way I've never encountered anywhere else. I truly believe that dec

by Jkol 7y ago

Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, aka Three Body Problem. Explored existential topics in a way I've never encountered anywhere else. I truly believe that decades from now this series will be viewed as the LOTR of our time. I've recently been reading the Foundation series, and have found the concept of The Mule character to be incredibly eye opening. I can't say directly it's had a positive impact on my life but it's definitely changing my outlook and I feel its expanded my horizons.

rsync 7y ago
Agreed. I don't put it on-par with Dune, but there are definitely concepts in the TBP trilogy that are simultaneously difficult and mind-opening. Some of them are quite haunting, actually. Most of the deeper exploration of these ideas takes place in the third book.
- ravoori 7y ago
  I'm amazed these are being spoken of in the same breath. IMO Dune is vastly overrated
  - zaphod12 7y ago
    Ok, but I'm also amazed, because I found TBP to be vastly overrated... To each his/her/their own.
    - BenjiWiebe 7y ago
      And I love both of them.
- dahdum 7y ago
  Dune was my favorite series until TBP. Dune degrades quickly after the first book while I thought each TBP was better than the last.
  - caconym_ 7y ago
    Dune holds up way better if you pretend it's just one book (the first one). It stands alone very well and IMO is completely worthy of its status in the classic sci-fi pantheon. On the other hand, I finished TBP, but I disliked it enough that I didn't go back to the other two volumes. What makes them better than the first, in your opinion? (purely for my own curiosity re: whether I should go back and read them)
    - skim1420 7y ago
      I recommend you read books 2 and 3 in the REP series. TBP is comparatively really slow (IMO necessarily), but the series really picks up in 2 and 3 in a way that makes you appreciate the foundation that book 1 laid.
      - awwaiid 7y ago
        After reading all three, I often think back on book-2, sometimes on book-3, never on book-1.
    - dahdum 7y ago
      The first book is more character driven and the plot moves slowly, glacially compared to the next two. I don’t want to ruin the plot, but I‘d say they exceed Dune’s vastness without the long grinds. The author described how he approached the series as wanting to write about the “the worst possible universe”.
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    The first book’s the best one but there’s an arc that carries through to its conclusion in God Emperor that kinda completes the whole thing. I did read 5 and got about a third of the way through 6 before stopping and I still don’t know why either book exists. The previous story was over, and the new stuff’s muddled and not compelling.
    - bllguo 7y ago
      5 and 6 are bizarre; not only do they read like action thrillers, they almost seem to contradict the whole message behind the Golden Path. The series should absolutely have ended with God Emperor (my personal favorite, followed by the original)
afriend4lyfe 7y ago
It makes me sad that I can't read these books for the first time again. I reread them often. Surprisingly enough, my favorite book of the series was The Redemption of Time, a fourth book written by a fan with the blessing of Liu Cixin. If you haven't read it yet and you enjoyed TBP then you're one lucky sumbitch.
- AlexCoventry 7y ago
  Cool. The ending to Cixin's trilogy was a little disappointing, compared to the rest of the story. (I thought the best book was the second one.)
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation, I just bought it on Audible. I really enjoyed the Three Body Problem trilogy, haven't listened to them a second time yet, but I plan on it. I really like to travel, really the only material thing I care about is being able to travel. Sometimes reading great literature from other countries gives me the same feeling that the earth is a small place and we are all in this together.
madsohm 7y ago
I read it for my bookclub together with a bunch of physicists. While I thought it was quite entertaining (but not more than that) they were all dismayed because of the amount of technobabble. Also, not to spoil it, but the title is wrong. It's a four body problem.
- jcelerier 7y ago
  > It's a four body problem. I don't think so, Trisolaris's mass is negligble relative to its suns ; they were only trying to model the motion of the suns.
weavejester 7y ago
I bounced pretty hard off that trilogy. I couldn't get past the weird motivations and interactions between characters, and usually I don't mind books by authors who focus more on the situation than the people in it. I thought the novels had a dreamlike quality to them, with people behaving in ways that don't make entirely sense, but approximate a semblence of normality that can be accepted if you don't look too closely.
- triceratops 7y ago
  Oh interesting, I didn't have that experience at all. Can you give some examples of what you mean?
  - weavejester 7y ago
    It's been a while since I read it, and I only completed the first two books, but there are a few issues I recall having. Spoilers ahead, obviously. The most glaring issue I remember was how the countries of Earth were essentially a united front for 450 years. They came up with a single plan - and a very strange one at that - and then carried it out for the next half-millenia with little dissent or deviation. Given the author of the book is Chinese, this struck like a plot element that's ideological in nature - the ruling class can't be seen as bickering or divided. The only people opposed to this were effectively a death cult dedicated to wiping out humanity in the strange hope that a race of genocidal aliens would somehow be better custodians of our planet. While I imagine that there would be some people who felt this way, it strained belief that the alien sympathisers would be so organised and competant. I'm usually pretty forgiving of novels with weak characterisation but interesting situations, but I didn't think the Three Body Problem succeeded in this aspect either. Obvious solutions were passed up or not discussed, for example, if there are only a few sophons on Earth and they can't travel faster than the speed of light, why not build many particle accelerators and perform experiments simultaneously? The final twist was also pretty heavily hinted at throughout the novels, so the latter half of the second book was just a case of waiting when it would be revealed. Frankly it could have been carried a lot sooner as well - why wait a century for verification when it costs nothing to call the alien's bluff immediately? The books felt like the author had an idea that would have worked well for a short story that was expanded to the length of two novels. In a short story a lot of the details could have been glossed over, but when expanded out the author was forced to explain the intermediate steps.
metroholografix 7y ago
I found all 3 books to be vastly overrated and mediocre at best. I would bet money that in 10 years, few will even remember them. The translation doesn't help, but the issues with the books go beyond it. It's obvious that Cixin Liu is not a good writer. The characters in TBP are cardboard cutouts and his pacing and framing of ideas awful. I feel that there is merit in his imagination but it'd be better presented in a different format than science fiction. To truly see how bad he is as a writer, compare him to the greats: Stanislaw Lem, Gene Wolfe, Iain Banks (Culture Series), Strugatsky brothers, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Heinlein, J.G. Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, William Gibson ... Since Dune was mentioned in this thread, I find the first two books to be absolutely in a different league than TBP as they're complex socio-political SciFi masterpieces that have stood the test of time. I've read Dune more than 9-10 times already (as I've read and re-read most of the books by the greats I previously mentioned). Can you imagine doing that with any of the TBP books?
- virgil_disgr4ce 7y ago
  I'm glad to know I'm not alone. I genuinely can't figure out the enthusiasm for TBP.
- eatwater123 7y ago
  Counterpoint: I can absolutely imagine myself re-reading TBP series multiple times; I've already re-read it once since reading it a year and a bit ago.
  - psychometry 7y ago
    Read some better fiction and you'll lose that urge quickly enough.
  - BenjiWiebe 7y ago
    I read and reread a lot of books, largely scifi. My favorite is probably Dune, and I've reread it maybe 6 times. Thing is, I also really like TBP, and am actually reading it for the 4th or so time right now.
- fossuser 7y ago
zumu 7y ago
What specific existential topics? I did find not TBP particularly deep. It felt like a Hollywood movie, but set in China.
pchristensen 7y ago
I read all three of those books, plus Ball Lightning by the same author. I found them very difficult reading, partly because I wasn't familiar with Chinese names and had trouble keeping them straight. Also, the material was dense and required a lot of background. But the ideas and some of the images stand out more than dozens of other books I've read over the time period. For each book, it took me about 3 months to get through the first 40%, then 3 days to get through the other 60%, once I had bootstrapped enough to get into them. Not easy, but highly recommended.

by Jkol 7y ago

rsync 7y ago

Agreed. I don't put it on-par with Dune, but there are definitely concepts in the TBP trilogy that are simultaneously difficult and mind-opening. Some of them are quite haunting, actually. Most of the deeper exploration of these ideas takes place in the third book.

ravoori 7y ago
I'm amazed these are being spoken of in the same breath. IMO Dune is vastly overrated
- zaphod12 7y ago
  Ok, but I'm also amazed, because I found TBP to be vastly overrated... To each his/her/their own.
  - BenjiWiebe 7y ago
    And I love both of them.
dahdum 7y ago
Dune was my favorite series until TBP. Dune degrades quickly after the first book while I thought each TBP was better than the last.
- caconym_ 7y ago
  Dune holds up way better if you pretend it's just one book (the first one). It stands alone very well and IMO is completely worthy of its status in the classic sci-fi pantheon. On the other hand, I finished TBP, but I disliked it enough that I didn't go back to the other two volumes. What makes them better than the first, in your opinion? (purely for my own curiosity re: whether I should go back and read them)
  - skim1420 7y ago
    I recommend you read books 2 and 3 in the REP series. TBP is comparatively really slow (IMO necessarily), but the series really picks up in 2 and 3 in a way that makes you appreciate the foundation that book 1 laid.
    - awwaiid 7y ago
      After reading all three, I often think back on book-2, sometimes on book-3, never on book-1.
  - dahdum 7y ago
    The first book is more character driven and the plot moves slowly, glacially compared to the next two. I don’t want to ruin the plot, but I‘d say they exceed Dune’s vastness without the long grinds. The author described how he approached the series as wanting to write about the “the worst possible universe”.
- karatestomp 7y ago
  The first book’s the best one but there’s an arc that carries through to its conclusion in God Emperor that kinda completes the whole thing. I did read 5 and got about a third of the way through 6 before stopping and I still don’t know why either book exists. The previous story was over, and the new stuff’s muddled and not compelling.
  - bllguo 7y ago
    5 and 6 are bizarre; not only do they read like action thrillers, they almost seem to contradict the whole message behind the Golden Path. The series should absolutely have ended with God Emperor (my personal favorite, followed by the original)

afriend4lyfe 7y ago

It makes me sad that I can't read these books for the first time again. I reread them often. Surprisingly enough, my favorite book of the series was The Redemption of Time, a fourth book written by a fan with the blessing of Liu Cixin. If you haven't read it yet and you enjoyed TBP then you're one lucky sumbitch.

AlexCoventry 7y ago
Cool. The ending to Cixin's trilogy was a little disappointing, compared to the rest of the story. (I thought the best book was the second one.)
mark_l_watson 7y ago
Thanks for the recommendation, I just bought it on Audible. I really enjoyed the Three Body Problem trilogy, haven't listened to them a second time yet, but I plan on it. I really like to travel, really the only material thing I care about is being able to travel. Sometimes reading great literature from other countries gives me the same feeling that the earth is a small place and we are all in this together.

madsohm 7y ago

I read it for my bookclub together with a bunch of physicists. While I thought it was quite entertaining (but not more than that) they were all dismayed because of the amount of technobabble. Also, not to spoil it, but the title is wrong. It's a four body problem.

jcelerier 7y ago
> It's a four body problem. I don't think so, Trisolaris's mass is negligble relative to its suns ; they were only trying to model the motion of the suns.

weavejester 7y ago

I bounced pretty hard off that trilogy. I couldn't get past the weird motivations and interactions between characters, and usually I don't mind books by authors who focus more on the situation than the people in it. I thought the novels had a dreamlike quality to them, with people behaving in ways that don't make entirely sense, but approximate a semblence of normality that can be accepted if you don't look too closely.

triceratops 7y ago
Oh interesting, I didn't have that experience at all. Can you give some examples of what you mean?
- weavejester 7y ago
  It's been a while since I read it, and I only completed the first two books, but there are a few issues I recall having. Spoilers ahead, obviously. The most glaring issue I remember was how the countries of Earth were essentially a united front for 450 years. They came up with a single plan - and a very strange one at that - and then carried it out for the next half-millenia with little dissent or deviation. Given the author of the book is Chinese, this struck like a plot element that's ideological in nature - the ruling class can't be seen as bickering or divided. The only people opposed to this were effectively a death cult dedicated to wiping out humanity in the strange hope that a race of genocidal aliens would somehow be better custodians of our planet. While I imagine that there would be some people who felt this way, it strained belief that the alien sympathisers would be so organised and competant. I'm usually pretty forgiving of novels with weak characterisation but interesting situations, but I didn't think the Three Body Problem succeeded in this aspect either. Obvious solutions were passed up or not discussed, for example, if there are only a few sophons on Earth and they can't travel faster than the speed of light, why not build many particle accelerators and perform experiments simultaneously? The final twist was also pretty heavily hinted at throughout the novels, so the latter half of the second book was just a case of waiting when it would be revealed. Frankly it could have been carried a lot sooner as well - why wait a century for verification when it costs nothing to call the alien's bluff immediately? The books felt like the author had an idea that would have worked well for a short story that was expanded to the length of two novels. In a short story a lot of the details could have been glossed over, but when expanded out the author was forced to explain the intermediate steps.

metroholografix 7y ago

I found all 3 books to be vastly overrated and mediocre at best. I would bet money that in 10 years, few will even remember them. The translation doesn't help, but the issues with the books go beyond it. It's obvious that Cixin Liu is not a good writer. The characters in TBP are cardboard cutouts and his pacing and framing of ideas awful. I feel that there is merit in his imagination but it'd be better presented in a different format than science fiction. To truly see how bad he is as a writer, compare him to the greats: Stanislaw Lem, Gene Wolfe, Iain Banks (Culture Series), Strugatsky brothers, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Heinlein, J.G. Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, William Gibson ... Since Dune was mentioned in this thread, I find the first two books to be absolutely in a different league than TBP as they're complex socio-political SciFi masterpieces that have stood the test of time. I've read Dune more than 9-10 times already (as I've read and re-read most of the books by the greats I previously mentioned). Can you imagine doing that with any of the TBP books?

virgil_disgr4ce 7y ago
I'm glad to know I'm not alone. I genuinely can't figure out the enthusiasm for TBP.
eatwater123 7y ago
Counterpoint: I can absolutely imagine myself re-reading TBP series multiple times; I've already re-read it once since reading it a year and a bit ago.
- psychometry 7y ago
  Read some better fiction and you'll lose that urge quickly enough.
- BenjiWiebe 7y ago
  I read and reread a lot of books, largely scifi. My favorite is probably Dune, and I've reread it maybe 6 times. Thing is, I also really like TBP, and am actually reading it for the 4th or so time right now.
fossuser 7y ago

zumu 7y ago

What specific existential topics? I did find not TBP particularly deep. It felt like a Hollywood movie, but set in China.

pchristensen 7y ago

I read all three of those books, plus Ball Lightning by the same author. I found them very difficult reading, partly because I wasn't familiar with Chinese names and had trouble keeping them straight. Also, the material was dense and required a lot of background. But the ideas and some of the images stand out more than dozens of other books I've read over the time period. For each book, it took me about 3 months to get through the first 40%, then 3 days to get through the other 60%, once I had bootstrapped enough to get into them. Not easy, but highly recommended.