Tenshot: The Three Body Problem Trilogy

Pawnbroker symbol by Stannerd

I recently read this trilogy by Chinese science fiction author Cixin Liu:

1. It is actually called the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, but I’ve never heard anyone call it that.  Instead it is referred to by the name of the first book.
2. While the term “out of context problem” was coined by Iain M Banks, this series does a better job of describing one from the sharp end than any other I have read.
3. This is one of the hardest sci-fi series I have read in a long time. There is a lot of physics in these books, and it explores science concepts I haven’t seen in other works of sci-fi before.
4. It also covers a lot of social science concepts – game theory and collective action problems play an important part in the series.
5. The characters are a lot thinner than you tend to get in modern sci-fi, they’re mostly archetypes that help drive the plot along.
6. Points 3 to 5 make this series feel more like the work of Clarke or Asimov than a modern author.
7. This series is dark. The Chinese Cultural Revolution is a big part of book one (that’s not a spoiler, this will become obvious immediately), and it gets darker from there.
8. The series has a cynical view of most people – portraying them as either fickle, stupid or compassionate in a profoundly unhelpful way.
9. The most heroic (or at least effective) characters in the series are those who see the world very differently to everyone else – people who are seen as immoral or even crazy by those around them.
10. All said, I heartily recommend this series to fans of science fiction, or idea-oriented fiction in general.

Image Credit: Traditional Pawnbroker symbol by Stannerd (Public Domain Image)