The Three Body Problem

 The Three Body Problem

By Cixin Liu

My friend Zach loaned me this book after a party at his house. I think I was talking about trying to read
some science fiction, and he recommended this. It won all sorts of awards, including the Hugo Award. Apparently, it was the first translated book to do so.

The basic plot is that, in the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government set up a secret base with a radio telescope to search for alien life. One day, it receives a message from near the star Alpha Centauri. The scientist who receives the message, Ye Wenjie, tries to keep it under wraps. Then she receives a second message, warning her not to reply to the first one. Doing so, it says, will allow the alien civilization to find earth and conquer it. Wenjie, who just saw her father beaten to death by the Red Guard among other horrors of the Cultural Revolution, has lost faith in humanity. So she replies in the hopes that the invading aliens will not just conquer but also reform human civilization.

Wenjie does not keep her secret to herself. She befriends an heir to an oil company fortune who is spending his time reforesting clear cut sections of the woods in the hopes of saving endangered songbirds. He, too, has lost faith in humanity and welcomes the idea of an alien force not just conquering but destroying humanity in the hopes that it will save other life forms on earth. 

The two form a movement devoted to aiding the aliens, known as the Trisolarians because their planet has three suns (which dooms them to eventual destruction). One of their strategies is to foil human scientists so they cannot develop the technology to repel the invading aliens when the time comes, which, even with the Trisolarians' advanced science, is still 450 years in the future.

Enter Wang Miao. He is a scientist working on nanotechnology that could allow humans to venture farther into space than ever before. He is recruited by a group of generals from multiple nations who have learned of the alien plot and are working to stop it. Wang enters a game called the Three Body Problem, which simulates the Trisolarian's solar system. There are three suns, whose erratic orbit cause unpredictable periods of calm and of either fiery destruction or chilling cold. The point of the game is to help the civilization develop a model to predict these periods. Ultimately, it proves impossible. 

This novel, which is the first in a trilogy, ends with the Trisolarians developing some kind of electron technology that will allow them to reach earth, Wenjie captured and her co-conspirator dead. Is earth doomed? I guess you have to read on to find out.

I can't say I loved this book. I appreciated the plot, but some of the science was over my head. Multiple dimensions folded within a single proton? Huh? I guess I'm not super excited to pick up the next book.