During China's Cultural Revolution, young physicist Ye Wenjie witnesses the death of her father, also an academic, who refused to renounce his scientific beliefs. Amidst the terror and uncertainty of the Cultural Revolution, Ye eventually finds refuge working at the mysterious, secretive Red Coast military base. In the present time, Wang Miao is a scientist working on developing nanomaterial technology. He has a seemingly normal life, living with his wife and young son, and indulging in his photography hobby. This is until the military enlists him to infiltrate a secretive, international group of scientists. All the military knows is that this group is somehow linked to the mysterious spate of suicides amongst elite academics. Wang discovers a mysterious video game named Three Body, set in a strange, barren world, controlled by the seemingly patternless movement of three suns. This game holds the secrets to the suicides, and other strange phenomenon that has been happening in the scientific world. Wang must play through this game to find the truth, and to save humanity. -- The Three Body Problem is a Chinese sci-fi novel that has been translated into English for western audiences. It is quite different to western sci-fi, but I actually really, really enjoyed it. There is a lot of science-y things, but the footnotes are pretty good at explaining what they mean. There are overlapping plots that, at first, seem unconnected until they are carefully woven together, often in unexpected ways. I really recommend reading it! Even if you aren't a sci-fi fan (which I'm not really), it's still absolutely amazing. It also makes you think a lot about human nature, and how we treat each other and our planet, so I really recommend it! Also, the title is a reference to an actual physics problem called the three-body problem, which I am not knowledgeable enough about physics to properly understand, but it's very interesting nonetheless. There's also two follow up books, The Dark Forest and Death's End. Which I am going to try and buy on the weekend, as I finished The Three Body Problem yesterday. If you've read any of the books, what did you think? Please put your comments in under spoilers!
OK i am resurrecting this thread now yes let's go back in february i read the three body problem (it was actually thanks to your recommendation in the discord, @a tiny mushroom ! so thanks!!) and it turned out my dad also had the dark forest so i started a read of that too only i got distracted by my asoue reread. SO i only just yesterday picked the dark forest back up again and hoooooly shit man.... that got intense. my thoughts: Spoiler: the three body problem spoilers oh man, i loved the three body problem - pretty sure i stayed up til 5 am reading it. i loved the game world - that was super cool - and i goddamn cried over the story of the trisolaran listener who tried to warn earth. "But it gave Earth civilization such a chance." Spoiler: the dark forest spoilers the first bit of the dark forest didn't draw me in as much as the three body problem did, but that ended up improving exponentially - it got compelling quickly, and then the last chunk of the book was "holy shit what have you done to my emotions." i was crying through a lot of the climax, and i was overjoyed at the very end, when the trisolaran listener was able to talk to luo ji. though i did have to stop reading for a little bit in the middle, because. well. international fleet.... HOW COULD YOU BE SO STUPID?? "let's not only bring our entire fleet out to meet the probe, let's also go out there in a real tight formation!! nothing could go wrong!!" like WHAT THE FUCK Y'ALL. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. in general though i definitely loved the dark forest as well, especially the hope at the very end. i don't have access to death's end yet - the copies we have of the first two books are in paperback, so my dad wants to also get a paperback edition of death's end so it will match, but as far as i can tell the paperback edition of death's end isn't out yet, all that's out is hardcover. so i turned to the library, but everything's checked out so i placed a hold. i'm #6 in line though so for all i know the paperback edition will come out before i get my hands on a copy from the library. still!! i am definitely a big fan of this series so thanks again for the recommendation! more people should definitely read these bc they are so good omg.
I have the paperback of Death's End so it's definitely out! Where do you live? I will reply to more things when I get home aha
HRM in that case, 1) Amazon LIED to me, 2) tomorrow i can drag my dad with me to the bookstore assuming he doesn't have work (he usually has thursdays off but he had today off so idk if that was instead of thursday) i live in texas!
