⚠️ SPOILER WARNING

This review is for the entire trilogy:

• The Three-Body Problem
• The Dark Forest
• Death’s End

This review contains heavy spoilers. You have been warned.

Review

The Three-Body Problem is a grand tale that spans eighteen million years and concerns the fate of the entire universe. Beginning in the unassuming backdrop of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, we meet Ye Wenjie, and discover her motivations for sending humanity’s first message to an alien civillisation, the Trisolarans. Cixin Liu develops the story through the eyes of Wang Miao, who slowly uncovers the enormous conspiracy of the ETO and eventually, the incoming Trisolaran invasion. The Dark Forest kicks it up a notch, with a new main character, Luo Ji, and Wang Miao being notably absent. This book covers humanity’s response to the incoming Trisolaran invasion, and the eventual establishment of ‘Dark Forest Deterrence’. Death’s End is easily my favourite of the three. It absolutely goes off the rails, using the first two books as a launchpad to explore concepts such as higher-dimensionality, relativistic time, and ends with the eventual implied destruction of the entire universe.

Throughout the book, Cixin Liu nevers failed to keep the reader immersed. He’s not afraid to throw a photoid at the story, leaving the reader wondering how humanity is going to recover before presenting brilliant displays of human ingenuity that leave us in shock. A brilliant example is the end of The Dark Forest. When humanity’s only means of defense is blocked, re-establishing it through the Film Bombs is something I never could have thought of.

I was also impressed by Liu’s ability to steadily increase the scope and complexity of the story. One of my favourite examples of this is Zhang Beihai. Cixin Liu convinces us, along with the rest of humanity, that Zhang Beihai is a traitor to humanity. But slowly, as the arrogance of humanity becomes apparent, Zhang Beihai becomes a saving grace. The concept of Escapism added a whole layer of depth and complexity to the story that made it all the more immersive.

On the topic of Escapism, throughout the book I appreciated Liu’s views on how the human social and political structure might develop in the face of an existential threat. For example, the development of nation-states into the Fleet International, the different cities during the Bunker Project, and my favourite, the concept of the ETO, which had the further factions of Adventists, Redemptionists, and Survivors. Combined with the internal fights among humanity, such as the Battle of Darkness, I felt that these represented a great commentary of how, even in the face of an powerful common enemy, we still squabble amongst ourselves.

Throughout the book, I felt that the use of scientific concepts to reinforce the plausibility of the story was well-tuned. Many might complain that for a hard sci-fi book, the concepts explored were only surface level, and thus many concepts, such as the Sophons, were still akin to magic. This is true, although personally I feel that Liu got a good balance right. Sticking too rigidly to science concepts makes the story inflexible, without room to explore the truly mind-bending concepts that Liu presents. It would also make the prose dense, and difficult to read. The trilogy isn’t meant to be a science textbook, but seems like a book meant to satisfy those with an intense curiosity of space and what’s out there, who might have a little bit of STEM background. And I think it does that perfectly.

Of course, the book isn’t without flaws. One common criticism is that the characters in the book are extremely flat, dull and boring. Personally, I understand why Liu just used the characters as vessels for the story, but developing the characters further would have added another layer to an already great book. Another common one is the poor treatment of female characters throughout the series. This is one that I definitely agree with. For example, the existence of Zhuang Yan is quite strange and she clearly serves no purpose other than to be an accessory to Luo Ji, and represent his hedonistic desires at the beginning of the Wallfacer Programme. But even outside of this, female characters are always described as soft and slender, and have no variation like the men do. It’s hard to believe that the original Chinese text was actually worse for this, as I understand that the translators actually cut out quite a lot of this content to cater to western readers.

Overall, I feel that this was a fantastic read. It’s an absolute page-turner, and has so many interesting topics to read about and research. Especially in Death’s End, it felt like I was putting down the book every 10 minutes just to take in awe the ideas presented. It’s the only book that I can think of in recent memory that I actually stayed up late at night to read, and I’m someone who prioritises sleep. Liu has totally changed my outlook on the universe. Before, watching LEMMiNO’s videos, I was always excited for the prospect of first contact, and was always left wondering if I would see it in my lifetime. But now, the concept of contacting a civillisation about whom we cannot predict the behaviour of leaves me quite afraid.

Rating: 5/5