Book Review -- The Three-Body Problem

Star Wars or Star Trek? Science fiction aficionados immediately understand the question and are ready with their response. Mine -- I like them both but definitely prefer Star Trek. I'm very particular about science fiction and typically only enjoy books, series, and movies with a fairly strong "cultural anthropology" bent. I cut my teeth on Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy and Poul Anderson's Boat of a Million Years. Actually, my interest started much earlier than that -- A Wrinkle in Time was a sensation when I was exactly the right age. The idea of other worlds and an entire different race of people fascinated me.

The book cover of The Three-Body Problem has a reviewer's summary: "The best kind of science fiction, familiar but strange at the same time."  Exactly. It's rooted in recent history, particularly in China. It's built on current theoretical science exploration. At least I think it is -- a lot of the physics and mathematics is way behind my ability to comprehend. And a role-playing video game is a key component of the story. All familiar until the author gradually reveals that the video game is real and the players' reactions to real-world events have set in motion a clash of different worlds.

Good historical fiction helps us understand the past in a way that history books don't. Understanding the people and how they experienced the events is far more effective than simply and factually describing the events. Similarly, science fiction enables us to envision a possible future and its implications much more powerfully than an article in a scientific journal. 

The central theme of The Three-Body Problem is the existence of another intelligence "out there" and what it might mean for us. To author Cixin Liu, it's critically important to examine this possibility and what it means for our world. In his postscript of the English edition, he writes:

I've always felt that extraterrestrial intelligence will be the greatest source of uncertainty for humanity's future. Other great shifts, such as climate change and ecological disasters, have a certain progression and built-in adjustment periods, but contact between humankind and aliens can occur at any time. Perhaps in ten thousand years, the starry sky that humankind gazes upon will remain empty and silent, but perhaps tomorrow we'll wake up and find an alien spaceship the size of the moon parked in orbit. The appearance of extraterrestrial intelligence will force humanity to confront an Other. Before then, humanity as a whole will never have had an external counterpart. The appearance of this Other, or mere knowledge of its existence, will impact our civilization in unpredictable ways.

 There's a strange contradiction revealed by the naivete and kindness demonstrated by humanity when faced with the universe: On Earth, humankind can step onto another continent, and without a thought, destroy the kindred civilizations found there through warfare and disease. But when they gaze up at the stars, they turn sentimental and believe that if extraterrestrial intelligences exist, they must be civilizations bound by universal, noble, moral constraints, as if cherishing and loving different forms of life are parts of a self-evident universal code of conduct.

I've occasionally imagined that our world -- our universe -- is a small sphere in a much bigger universe. We're a crumb being pushed along by an ant in that much-larger universe, until someone thoughtlessly steps on the ant. In Three-Body Problem, the psychological warfare conducted by the Other before they arrive on Earth includes a chilling message: You're bugs!

I'm looking forward to reading the second book in this trilogy.