Tag: The Three Body Problem

Book Review: The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu.

Cover Art for ‘The dark Forest’ (Credit: China Underground)

‘The Dark Forest’ is the second novel in the science fiction trilogy by China’s best-known SF writer, the Hugo aware winning Cixin Liu. Starting with ‘The Three Body Problem’, which I reviewed in my post of 30Aug17,  the series will conclude with ‘Death’s End’. For the sake of those who haven’t read ‘The Three Body Problem’ let me give a brief summary of it before I go on to ‘The Dark Forest’. (Although you could just read my review, hint, hint). The image below shows Cixin Liu.

Author Cixin Liu (Credit: Los Angeles Times)

In the ‘Three Body Problem’ a Chinese astrophysicist named Ye Zhetai has seen her father murdered and was herself tortured during her country’s cultural revolution of the 1960s. Forced to work for a super secret military program Madam Ye makes contact with an alien civilization called the Trisolarians, living on a planet orbiting the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system. Hating her own species for the things that were done to her Madam Ye gives the Trisolarians the information they need to launch an invasion fleet against Earth. The Trisolarian fleet is traveling at one percent of the speed of light so it will take more than 400 years for the aliens to arrive in our solar system. ‘The Three Body Problem’ ends with the governments of the world becoming aware of the alien threat.

Cover Art for ‘The Three Body Problem’ (Credit: Goodreads)

In ‘The Dark Forest’ humanity is now faced with the task of trying to work together to develop a defense against the technologically superior Trisolarian invasion fleet, even if it’s not going to reach Earth for 400 years. To make matters worse the Trisolarians have succeeded in sending sub-atomic probes called sophons to Earth that are not only keeping mankind under constant surveillance but are even able to interfere with the results of experiments probing the fundamental laws of the Universe, CERN, LIGO, etc. Because of the sophons humanity cannot advance in new knowledge but only improve the technology we have that is based on already established physics, which leaves us in a perpetual technical disadvantage relative to the Trisolarians.

Faced with this continuous surveillance and the blocking of our scientific advance the UN Security Council responds with the Wallfacer program. Four men are selected to develop strategies to defeat the Trisolarians, strategies that they will keep entirely to themselves, telling no one at all in an effort to keep the sophons from figuring it out.

The Wallfacers are given total control over the entire resources of mankind; they get whatever they need to carry out their plans. Three of the Wallfacers are men of achievement and renown, men with military, political and scientific credentials. The fourth is Luo Ji, an irresponsible, self-centered, perpetual student but he’s also the only man that the Trisolarians want dead.

Luo Ji’s importance stems from a conversation he had with Ye Zhetai that is in fact the first scene of the novel so pay attention as you read it. Much of ‘The Dark Forest’ is concerned with Luo Ji’s trying to figure out why the Trisolarians are so afraid of what he and Madam Ye talked about.

While Luo Ji is the main focus of the novel there are subplots and complications galore. With the other three Wallfacers along with people who feel that humanity’s only hope is to escape into intergalactic space before the Trisolarians get here, the story has more than enough twists and turns to keep you guessing as to what’s gonna happen next!

I don’t want to give away too much but I do want to admit to having made an incorrect guess in the first novel. In the ‘The Three Body Problem’ Madam’s Ye’s daughter Yang Dong has committed suicide before the story even starts and I predicted that she wasn’t really dead yet. Well as it turned out she didn’t show up in ‘The Dark Forrest’ so I suppose I was wrong. Of course there is still ‘Death’s End’, which I plan on reading quite soon.

Cover Art for ‘Death’s End’ (Credit :Amazon)

Book Review: The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Cixin Liu is the most popular science fiction author in China today and his books are finally becoming available in English translations and having just finished ‘The Three Body Problem’ I think that’s a good thing! ‘The Three Body Problem’ was the most intriguing novel I’ve read in quite a while and I’m looking forward to reading more of Mister Cixin’s work. The first installment in a three part series ‘The Three Body Problem’ is being published by Tor books here in the United States along with ‘The Dark Forest’ and ‘Death’s End’. The pictures below show the novel’s front cover for the original Chinese edition by Chongqing Press along with the edition by Tor Books.

Cover The Three Body Problem (Credit: Chongqing Press)
Cover The Three Body Problem (Credit: Tor Books)

The novel begins during the ‘Cultural Revolution’ in China, the violent suppression of all opposition that Mao Zedong used to reassert his absolute rule in China. The main character of the novel, Ye Zhetai is an astrophysicist and the daughter of China’s most famous physicist. When her father is beaten to death during one of the ‘struggle sessions’ Madam Ye is sent to a labour camp only to be denounced herself and left to die in a prison cell. She is rescued when her special knowledge is needed for a top secret military program, the ‘Red Coast Project’.

The novel bounces back and forth between China in the 60’s and 70’s and modern times but the changes are handled smoothly. This way we learn some of the consequences of Madam Ye’s before we discover just what exactly it is that she has done.

Now the Three Body Problem of the title is the famous gravitational problem still unsolved from Newton’s time. Using the calculus he developed Sir Isaac was able to find an exact, closed, analytic solution for the motion of two bodies under their mutual gravitational attraction. However, as soon as a third body is added to the problem there is in general no exact solution, only approximate, numerical solutions that require a great deal of arithmetic to solve. (It should be acknowledged however that with modern computers those numerical solutions can yield fantastically accurate results as demonstrated by the recent eclipse across the USA.)

Now the three bodies that make up the problem in the novel are three suns around which an alien planet orbits. The civilization on this planet has progressed through periods of stable orbits, and suffered through periods of chaotic orbits when their planet is either baked or frozen by being pulled too near or too far from one of its suns. Because of the harsh conditions these creatures have endured for millions of years the only creed by which they live is survival, the only goal they possess is to find a new world to inhabit.

I suppose you can guess that the plot of ‘The Three Body Problem’ is the trite old story of aliens from a dying world coming to conquer Earth but Cixin Liu really manages to inject a lot of fresh ideas into his version. One of the most interesting ideas is a virtual reality game developed here on Earth that simulates human cultures trying to survive on the alien’s world.

Now ‘The Three Body Problem’ is only the first part of the trilogy, I’m certainly looking forward to the rest of the story. Before I leave however I think I’m going to go out on a limb a little bit. At the front of the book there’s a list of characters; one of whom is Yang Dong, the daughter of Ye Zhetai and a string theorist! The problem is that Yang Dong has committed suicide before the modern day part of the story begins and although she is mentioned several times, and appears as a baby in the past sections, she never says a word! What is it that makes me think she’s not quite dead yet!

I’ll let you know if I’m right after I read ‘The Dark Forest’.