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Review: Liu Cixin (劉慈欣) - The Three Body Problem (三體) (2008, Translated in 2014 by Ken Liu)
This was a really interesting book. I don't even know where to begin.
The story was solid. I had started this book expecting the science part of the science fiction to be difficult to grasp, but I think that overall, the scientific writing in this book didn't really impede my ability to enjoy the story.
The fiction part of the science fiction was really creative. A little creepy, but creative nonetheless. As for the story itself, I found it very thrilling.
I liked the complexity of the characters. For many of the main characters, we saw both their strengths and weaknesses, and it was interesting to see how their thoughts and actions affected one another.
I am really excited to dive into the next book in the series, The Dark Forest.
Spoilers.
Story
What I really liked about this story was how it combined the complicated science fiction with the implications on the real world and humans. Sometimes the science fiction would get complicated, but Liu Cixin would always balance it out with explaining how it affected our main characters.
I won't summarize the story here as it'd take too much time, but I found it utterly fascinating.
The past plot line followed Ye Wenjie, a physics professor who became jaded by the Cultural Revolution, and doomed the entire human race by sending a reply to a message from Trisolaris.
The current timeline followed Wang Miao, a nanomaterials scientist who started seeing a strange countdown in his vision and was recruited by authorities to investigate the suicides of several scientists.
The book began with Ye Wenjie's story, and it cut in the middle to introduce us to Wang Miao. After introducing Wang Miao, the book continued to reveal the rest of Ye Wenjie's story.
While revealing the rest of Ye Wenjie's story, a third plot line was added, one following Trisolaris, and their actions as they prepared to invade Earth.
As I mentioned, I really like how this story combined abstract science fiction with a more tangible thriller involving the humans and their conflicts over the correct path for humanity to take.
Originally, there was an air of mystery in the story. Wang Miao seeing the countdown in the camera and his vision was incredibly eerie, as was the string of suicides by scientists. At the end, we found out that these were set in motion by Trisolaris and the sophons. At first, I thought that that was a bit of a copout to the very interesting mystery. "It was the aliens!" seemed like a very simple answer to such an eerie question. But I realized that I couldn't just write this answer off as a copout. Instead, now I interpet it as the author moving the direction of the story from physics on earth, to extraterrestrial issues.
This story did end on a cliffhanger, which caught me by surprise. I guess the climax of the story was technically revealing how the Trisolarans were going to take over earth.
I want to focus on the endings for our two main characters, Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao.
Throughout the entire book, Ye Wenjie's approach to life was to go with the flow, and to do whatever was necessary to survive. Her last words were something along the lines of wondering whether this would be the end of humanity, but she said it with an air of neutrality, which is very befitting of her character. No matter what happens, Ye Wenjie will do what she can to stay alive, but if it's time to go, she can accept that too.
Wang Miao originally had a rather nihilistic take on the matter. Since humanity would be no more, Wang Miao and Ding Yi decided to get drunk and live on decadence to the end of their days. Considering the Trisolarans called them bugs, Wang Miao felt they had no chance of surviving the Trisolarans. An annoyed Shi Qiang took Wang Miao and Ding Yi to the country side to look at a field ravaged by locusts, basically telling them that bugs are not incapable of taking down humans, and if humans are the bugs, shouldn't the same apply?
In any case, I am very pumped for the Dark Forest.
Writing
I liked that the writing was presented in a number of different formats. A lot of the story was presented in narrative form, but we also saw a lot of the story presented in interview logs and scientific reports. I don't think that Liu Cixin had included a variety of media for the sake of variety, but because those were the best ways in which to communicate information.
The reports in particular were good for communicating more dense and concentrated facts, scientific or others. And the interviews were great at focusing on dialogue.
I also have huge respect for the translator Ken Liu. I was looking forward to reading his translation because I'd read some good things about him as a translator. And he did a great job with this translation.
In his translator's excerpt, Ken Liu noted that his job wasn't to translate the book literally. I'm paraphrasing, but his interpretation was that his goal in translating this book was to make us, as the English reader, feel like we were immersed in Chinese culture, whether in the way people speak, act, or the interpret the world around them.
According to Liu Cixin's excerpt, Ken Liu translated the first and third book, and the second book was translated by Joel Martinsen, so I'm wondering whether there will be any noticeable differences in style. That doesn't affect my excitement to read the second book though.
Characters
Ye Wenjie
Ye Wenjie was our first main character. The book started with her as a physics professor at Tsinghua, watching her father, also a professor, being interrogated by the Red Guards for his scientific teachings. Her father, Ye Zhetai, doubled down on his teachings and was beaten to death. On the other hand, Ye Wenjie's mother, Shao Lin, another professor, had basically defected and renounced the old ways. I'll talk about Ye Wenjie's parents a bit more below, but this event likely had a very profound impact on her.
Ye Wenjie was moved from camp to camp, where she did her best to keep her head down and not make any trouble. As a physics professor, she was massively underutilized, but she was content as long as no one would bother her. When offered a position at the Red Coast, she jumped at the chance, and she was resigned to spend the rest of her life atop that lonely mountain. This was kind of what got me thinking that she would be fine as long as nobody would bother her. I think her goal was survival over everything, not even happiness or reproduction.
After the time skip, we learned more about what happened with Ye at the Red Coast. She'd made the decision to respond to the alien message, telling the aliens to come. At the time, Ye had no hope for humanity, likely from seeing how the Cultural Revolution played out. She'd hoped that with the alien invasion, humanity would be reformed. While I understood Ye's intentions, I personally think she made a rash decision without considering things more deeply. I think she was more motivated by emotion than anything else.
I truly felt like that might've been the first time in a long time that Ye had made a selfish decision. Ever since the Cultural Revolution, Ye had only been making decisions to ensure survival. Answering the alien message was the first time she ignored orders, but it was a grave decision. And to cover up her tracks, she murdered two people, including her husband. Though she had no love for her husband, he was still the father of her child. Whatever happens to humanity after the Trisolarans arrive, Ye was pretty much single-handedly responsible.
After the time skip, we found Ye as a kindly old grandmother looking after the children in her apartment block. This was a stark difference from the Ye we knew from before. The Cultural Revolution had definitely hardened her, but I think that as she came into contact with everyday people again, she softened. Ye even told Wang Miao that she regretted how she'd parented her daughter Yang Dong, introducing her to science too quickly. On the other hand, we saw that Ye indulged the children of her block, praising them for their pictures and doting on them.
Ye was also part of the ETO, the Earth-Trisolaran Organization. At the time of the novel, there were two main factions, the Adventists and the Redemptionists. The Adventists wanted the Trisolarans to wipe out humanity, whereas the Redemptionists had a more abstract interpretation of the Trisolarans as deities. Ye didn't feel strongly towards either group, but instead, she was more concerned with the stability of the organization as a whole.
I thought Ye was a very interesting character. She was smart, but she had stubborn ideals about life, particularly about what it means to be a woman, and about humanity.
Shao Lin's defection undoubtedly had a huge effect on Ye and her means of staying alive. Post time skip, she even told Wang Miao that a woman was supposed to be fluid, able to mold herself around any situation that comes her way.
In terms of humanity, I did feel that Ye made an emotionally-driven decision to respond to the Trisolarans. If given the choice again, however, I think that Ye still would've made that choice. Because when it comes to humanity as a whole, she just can't think clearly. The Cultural Revolution broke her too much in that regard.
After she returned to teach at Tsinghua, Ye had visited her mother, with her daughter in tow. Her mother had remarried another man. The whole reunion was a bit awkward, with the elephant in the room, but both Ye and her mother were very good at not bringing up unwelcome topics. After their visit, Shao Lin's new husband told Ye not to pursue old debts with Ye. Ye snapped when he mentioned Ye's father, and the husband insisted he was only passing on a message from Shao Lin. Obviously that hit a sore spot, and Ye never saw her mother again.
While Ye had a complicated relationship with her mother, I think her admiration for her father was very straightforward. I think she admired his idealistic ways of thinking. The only reasons he wasn't as ideal as he was was because in addition to her idealistic view of the world, she had idealistic views of what a women should be like.
As mentioned, Ye also had a strange relationship with her daughter. Ye became pregnant when she was still at Red Coast, and she had only returned to Tsinghua after having her daughter. Ye regretted introducing her daughter to science so early, and basically depriving her of the childhood that she should've had. Ye was also disappointed that her daughter had committed suicide, because she felt that women should be able to overcome any issue. The problem was that Ye had built a life for Yang Dong in which science was everything, and when that science was challenged, Yang couldn't find any reason to live anymore.
As mentioned, I felt that Ye was ready for the arrival of the Trisolarans with a very neutral mindset. She'd do whatever she had to do to survive, but she's hardly idealistic about the whole situation. My predictions can only be vague right now as we don't know what options are before us with regards to the Trisolaran invasion. But I really look forward to seeing what decisions she will make as a key player in the event.
Wang Miao
Wang Miao was our second main character of the book, but unlike Ye Wenjie, he wasn't really a driver of the events, but the vehicle through which the reader learned about the events of the novel.
Wang Miao studied nanomaterials, whereas Ye studied astrophysics. Nanomaterials can be considered more applicable to real life, whereas astrophysics is abstract and literally out of this world. And I think these differences were reflected in Wang and Ye's personalities as well. Wang Miao seemed more in touch with real life, as in the everyday mundane things that allow humans to enjoy the world around them. On the other hand, Ye was more idealistic, and often thought about humanity on a grand scale, rather than the lives of common people. It was only after she left the Red Coast that she started getting a sense for what being human was like, but I think she'll never shake off that old part of her.
A good chunk of Wang Miao's story was spent playing the Three Body video game. This VR-type game was very immersive and very bizarre and interesting. Later we found out it was just a recruitment tool developed by the Redemptionists. But it also gave us an idea of what the Redemptionists thought of Trisolaris.
As I explained, Wang Miao briefly had a very nihilistic view of the world. Since Trisolarans were going to invade the Earth in 450 years, and the sophons had already blocked off any chances of scientific advancement, Wang Miao had no reason to hope for any future, not in his personal life, not in his career. It was only when Shi Qiang dragged him out to the field of locusts, that Wang Miao understood that just because they were bugs compared to the Trisolarans didn't mean that they couldn't destroy them, just as locusts could destroy humans' crops.
That last scene really pumped me up. I'm really excited to see what role(s) Wang will have for the future. As he gets more involved with the ETO, I wonder how his views of the Trisolarans will change.
Ye family
Ye Zhetai and Shao Lin were both professors at Tsinghua. They had two daughters, Ye Wenjie, and Ye Wenxue.
Ye Zhetai was interrogated by the Red Guards, forced to admit his wrongdoings in the way he taught his science. He refused to back down, saying that science was science. For that, he was killed. I think that Ye Wenjie idolized her father in a complicated way. In her eyes, he was a martyr, and since he was dead, nothing could change how she felt about him.
Shao Lin, on the other hand, renounced her teachings and sided with the Red Guard. As he was interrogated, Ye Zhetai understood that his wife was too good at going with the flow. He noticed that she'd been updating her teachings to be more in line with the rising Communist ideals, and so when the Cultural Revolution hit, she was in a better position to be forgiven and accepted.
The meeting between Ye Wenjie and Shao Lin after Ye Wenjie's return from the Red Coast was really jarring to me. Shao Lin had moved on from the Cultural Revolution so easily, and had married a high ranking official. When Ye brought Yang Dong over, it was like nothing had happened, like Ye Wenjie and Shao Lin hadn't watched Ye Zhetai being beaten to death years ago.
Whether Shao Lin's husband was really passing on a message from Shao Lin to not bring up the past, or whether it was his own message, it was already a sign that Shao Lin had moved on. In addition to feeling angry that Shao Lin's husband brought up Ye Zhetai's supposed faults, Ye Wenjie understood that Shao Lin being the kindly wife of this official was her current way of survival. After all, Shao Lin had married him when he was still a lowly persecuted official, and the book implied that she'd done so for strategic reasons rather than for love. I don't think Ye Wenjie hated Shao Lin (that much). I think she understood that this was what Shao Lin needed to do to stay alive. Nonetheless, I still found it heartbreaking that they never crossed paths again (because I'm sensitive to mother/daughter relationships).
Ye Wenxue was Ye Wenjie's younger sister. As a high school student, she'd join the Red Guard, and she'd died amid the violence.
It really is jarring to see how this family of four had such different political ideals. Ye Zhetai and Ye Wenxue were obviously on opposite sides of the spectrum, and Shao Lin and Ye Wenjie were firmly in the middle, bending whichever way was needed. In the end, they are the only two alive.
Bai Mulin
Bai Mulin was a journalist that Ye met at a lumber camp while she was to perform hard labour. He introduced her to Silent Spring, and she had helped him write a letter to the government drawing attention to environmental issues. Bai Mulin betrayed Ye by saying that the letter was hers, and it wasn't so difficult to do that because it was in her writing.
While it was shitty, I don't think that Ye was angry at him. I think she was more resigned than anything. She understood that Bai did what he had to do to survive, but at her expense.
Lei Zhicheng
Lei Zhicheng was the political commissar at the Red Coast Base. He recruited Ye because of her knowledge of astrophysics. At first, he gave her a fake story about what they really were doing at the base, and only later was he forced to reveal that they were in fact working on extraterrestrial communications.
I thought it was really interesting how touched Ye felt when she thought that Lei really was telling her the truth about what they did at the base. When she'd walked into the meeting (that would later reveal to her about the extraterrestrial research), Ye thought that Lei was in trouble, and she decided she'd lay her life on the line for him. Ye had never felt so strongly about another human up until this point, not even her parents during the struggle session, and that surprised me. During the meeting, however, she found out that Lei had been lying to her, and her feelings towards Lei cooled off very quickly.
He had a scientific background but was a bureaucrat at this point. Ye deduced that he was invested in her work because he wanted to take credit for it. Having the scientific background would make it believable, and it would be impressive enough to move him up in politics.
I think Ye was indifferent towards Lei taking the credit for her work, but she just wanted the opportunity to carry out her work.
Ultimately, Ye decided to kill Lei as she'd responded to the Trisolaran message without letting him know.
Yang Weining
Yang Weining was a graduate student of Ye Zhetai, and later was a chief engineer at the Red Coast Base.
At first, Ye thought that Yang didn't like that she was getting more knowledge about their operations at the base, but it was later revealed that he didn't like that Lei was lying to her about what they really did. Since Ye was his mentor's daughter, I think that Yang felt some protectiveness over her.
However, it was clear that Ye never felt any love for Yang. She said that she'd married him out of gratitude. In the end, Ye even killed Yang as collateral damage of her trying to kill Lei. It truly was jarring. Ye had tried to warn Yang away by telling him to climb down another rope (and not use the rope that Ye was going to cut loose), but Yang had insisted it was fine. In the end, she was very resolute in her decision that since Lei had to go, Yang had no choice as well.
Shi Qiang
Shi Qiang took me completely by surprise. He was a great character not in the sense that I would like him, but in the sense that he is completely different from every other character in the book. Shi Qiang was a cop, but it's implied that he's the kind of mean cop who does whatever he needs to do to get the job done. He's rough, rude, and uncivilized. It's easy to see why he'd be disliked by a lot of people, especially since most of the characters in the book are academics.
At first, Shi Qiang was just kind of annoying. When he came to pick up Wang, he was painted as mostly disliked by everyone around him. And when Wang was at the meeting with him, he was kind of annoying as well.
But because of his non-academic background and his job as a cop, Shi was a lot more grounded than all of the other characters in the book (who were mostly scientists). He didn't care about whether aliens were going to invade, he was more concerned with paying rent and providing for his kids.
Shi proved to be pretty clever at times as well. He was the one who came with the idea to use the nanomaterial blades to slice Judgment Day (the ship). He was very crafty and also a bit smug, but the scientists couldn't deny that he did add value to their endeavours.
And it was because of his more grounded take on life that he could convince Wang Miao and Ding Yi that they had reason to not give up yet. Scientists like Wang and Ding think in such abstract terms, whereas Shi always looked at things from a very ground level. When the Trisolarans called humans bugs, Shi's mind went one step further and thought about how bugs could be great nuisances to humans.
I'm really interested to read about Shi Qiang in the next book. He likely won't be a leader, but will remain part of the brain trust, but I'm really interested to see how his grounded takes will help the scientists.
Yang Dong
Yang Dong was Ye Wenjie's daughter with Yang Weining. When she was first introduced in the book, we found out that she was the latest death in a string of scientists suicides. It was only later in the book that we found out Yang Dong was Ye Wenjie's daughter.
Ye Wenjie was pregnant when she'd killed Lei Zhicheng and Yang Weining at the Red Coast base, so she'd raised Yang Dong all on her own. After she'd given birth, Ye had stayed in a small town for a little while before being asked to return to Tsinghua.
When Wang visited Ye Wenjie, she was a kindly old lady, who was very sweet and gentle with the kids in the apartment that she was taking care of. Ye admitted to Wang that she'd regretted the way that she'd raised Yang Dong. She had introduced her to science far too early in her life, and as a youngster, her mind was filled with thoughts of how math and science were perfect.
It's implied that because Yang Dong was too inflexible in her beliefs about how math and science were perfect, that drove her to commit suicide when the sophons were messing with the science in our world.
However, Ye ended their conversation by saying that she was disappointed because women should be fluid and flexible. So I don't think that Ye was guilty about not giving Yang Dong a proper childhood, as she was guilty about raising Yang to be the kind of person who can't handle challenges to her status quo, like Ye Wenjie or Shao Lin.
Ding Yi
Ding Yi was Yang Dong's boyfriend. Wang Miao had visited Ding Yi after the suicide, and Ding Yi had suggested to Wang Miao that he visited Yang Dong's mother. Ding Yi didn't have a huge role in the book but he still was a scientists, like most other characters.
At the end of the book, Wang and Ding got drunk because of how hopeless they felt about the future of the earth, but Shi Qiang convinced them both with locust analogy that humanity still had a chance.
Shen Yufei
Shen Yufei was a Japanese physicist of Chinese descent. She was Wang's main contact to talk about the Three Body video game, though she was still very cryptic in what he told him.
Her husband was Wei Cheng, a mathematical genius she bumped into at a temple. She found his work on the Three Body Problem and recruited him to come back with her. They had a working relationship and even married, but it more for convenience and administrative reasons than out of love. Wei Cheng suspected that Shen wouldn't even care if he brought home another woman.
Shen was found dead in her house. It was later revealed that Pan Han had killed her. Shen was a Redemptionist, and Pan Han was an Adventist who felt she was threatening the ETO's position with her extremist views. As I mentioned, the Three Body video game was developed by the Redemptionists, so it made sense that she was playing it so much.
Wei Cheng
Wei Cheng was Shen Yufei's husband ("husband"). He was a mathematical genius, but he was lazy. In particular, becuase he was a genius, he was not very good at teaching and was one of the first to be booted when his workplace couldn't afford to hire so many professors.
He ended up at a temple because apparently that was the best place for people who struggled to see meaning in life. He'd started working on the Three Body Problem there when he bumped into Shen, who recruited him by telling him that she'd give him all of the tools he needed for his research, including a high powered computer which we later saw at their house.
Pan Han
Pan Han was an environmentalist who worked for the ETO. He was the recruiter at the event for those who'd gotten very far in the Three Body video game.
He was also the one who'd killed Shen Yufei because he himself was an Adventist and his did not approve of Shen's Redemptionists views. When Ye Wenjie (as a leader in the ETO) found out about Pan Han's crime, she was nonchalant about Pan Han killed Shen Yufei, but was more concerned with the stability of the ETO, and Pan Han had violated their code of conduct (whatever that was). What's more was that Pan Han wanted Ye Wenjie to declare her status as an Advntist.
Before the situation furthered, Ye Wenjie had Pan Han killed. For what reason Ye Wenjie killed Pan Han is not crystal clear, but I interpreted it as the fact that he was driving a wedge between the Adventists and the Redemptionists when instead the ETO should be one united organization.
Mike Evans
Mike Evans was the rich son of an oil magnate who was horrified by the environmental damage that his father's company had done. Ye first met him when he'd moved to a secluded part of China to try to grow a forest. He became hopeless when villagers from all around came to cut down his trees for lumber because they were not protected by the law. At that point it was clear that Mike Evans had no hope for the human race.
Mike Evans and Ye had bonded a bit over their disappointment in humans, but Ye claimed that only later did she understand that he wanted to wipe out humans entirely. It was Evans who funded Judgment Day, and he seemed to be the leader of the Adventists.
But as a main funder of the ETO, Ye could not do with him entirely, so her only role for now is to handle him.
Trisolaran leaders
Towards the end of the book, we read more narrative from the perspectives of the Trisolaran leaders. It was more to do with how they interpreted humanity and its relation to science, and later, their research on the sophons.
The leaders were very angry with they found out the listener had sent a message warning humans not to reply, but in the end, everything worked out for them.
Trisolaran listener
I really liked reading the bit of narrative from the Trisolaran listener, basically someone whose job was to wait for message and signals from outside of Trisolaris.
The listener was similarly disenchanted with Trisolaran civilization as a whole, and they didn't want earth to be ruined by what Trisolarans wanted to do to them and their planet. So he'd sent the warning message to Ye telling her not to respond.
It struck me how similar the listener and Ye were in their views on their respective civilizations. Both felt hopeless and that their civilizations were no good. It contrasted with how opposite their actions were, the listener not wanting Trisolaris to invade and Ye wanting them to invade. But the listener was meant to show to us that everywhere, people are the same.
Themes
Theory vs. application
There was a brief discussion about the merits of theory vs. ideology. Ye Zhetai said that theory was the foundation of application, but Yang Weining, his graduate student, was worried because he felt that it was easy to make ideological mistakes in theory.
In the context of science, I think Yang Weining was worried that if he made a wrong theoretical statement, it would trickle down to incorrect applications of science.
My interpretation of this brief conversation was to explain that theory may not be universal. Science is supposed to be a universal truth but in this book we have seen several instances in which science was inconsistent.
Many scientists had committed suicide because they'd found inconsistencies in what they thought was universal science, and it drove them to question their whole existence. We later found out that scientific data was being tampered with by the sophons, but for people like Ye Zhetai, who were so inflexible, they would even be able to survive such challenges to their universal truths.
On the political side, we also saw instances of science being distorted by politics. At the beginning, Ye Zhetai was forced to denounce his teachings as reactionary, but he did not budge. On the other hand, Shao Lin had given herself over completely. I didn't fully understand the meaning of reactionary science, but the book mentioned how Shao Lin was slowly updating her science with changes in what terms she used, and that led her to safety during the Cultural Revolution. So in this case, it wasn't necessarily universal theory, but the universal interpretation of theory that was subject to being bent.
Scale
There was a brief discussion about the shooter and farmer theories about how people would interpret the discovery of other sentient life in the universe, if we did find it.
In Liu Cixin's words at the end of the book, he mentioned that he'd always been good at imagining scale, even when it came to units of measurement like light years, which are unfathomable to many humans.
I liked that he did try to make the science fiction in the book realistic by including such ideas, such as how the messages from Trisolaris took 8 years for a round trip, or how it would take 450 years for them to arrive taking into account the mass of their ships, etc.
In real life, if we were ever to find extraterrestrial life, I think it'd take even longer for messages and objects to move around, but I appreciate that Liu Cixin still made an effort to include scales of time and space to remind us that we really were dealing with space units of measurement.
Feminism
Ye believed that women should be able to overcome anything. In history, women have gotten the short end of the stick often, and unfortunately, they were forced to just tough it out.
Ye survived the Cultural Revolution by doing what she was told, and only doing what would help her protect herself.
She probably learned this from her mother, who'd carried out this idea to a higher degree. Shao Lin had gone so far as to denounce her teachings completely, and then marrying a person who would become a high level official. Shao Lin was able to carve out a cushy life for herself by going with the flow to the extreme.
Ye herself didn't come out of the Cultural Revolution with no scratches or bruises, but she survived, and that was thanks to her willingness to give up part of herself to go with the flow.
On the other hand, Ye was disappointed that she couldn't teach this to her daughter, and she attributed it to the fact that she'd taught science to her at too young of an age, and it convinced Yang Dong that everything in life was perfect and immobile.
Ye and Shao's perspectives probably do come from more traditional views, of how women must be seen and not heard, how women must always attend to the men around them, etc. I don't think they are misogynists, but I think that they understood that you have to do what you have to do to survive, even if it means giving up your dignity. On the other hand, many younger people would be more willing to give up their lives to stay true to their ideologies.
Civilization
After reading about how the Trisolaran listener tried to warn Ye not to respond, I really felt that civilization was the same everywhere. And everywhere in the universe, where there was sentient life, there were people who didn't like the things their kind had done. It's only natural, as it's impossible for people to agree with every single thing their brethren do.
I feel that Ye and the listener felt like they were alone in their thoughts of hatred against their own kind, and those extreme thoughts drove them to want to doom their own civilizations.
However, for the average person, when we see things our fellow people do that we don't agree with, we usually just let them go. Not because we approve of them, but because we don't feel as strongly about our civilization as a whole.
Like Ye, the listener, probably also had very idealistic views about what civilization would be like, and acted on those, without thinking too far ahead about its effect on everyday people.
Invasion and colonization
This was obviously a big theme of the book, considering the impending invasion of the Trisolarans. As of the end of the book, we still aren't totally sure what will happen when they arrive, but judging by the fact that they called humans bugs, they seemed to be looking towards complete annihilation, which would be in agreement with the Adventists' hopes (and the Trisolaran listener's worries).
When Ye had sent the message responding to the Trisolaran warning, she was likely hoping that by coming to earth, Trisolarans would help reform humanity by conquering them (and probably enslaving them).
The Adventists wished for Trisolarans to wipe out humanity completely, which was not aligned with Ye's views, but she had to tolerate it as Evans was a main funder of the ETO.
At the first meetup for high level players of the Three Body video game, there was a discussion of how people felt about invasion of an extraterrestrial race. There were a couple who didn't like the idea, and they were asked to leave the meetup, and would be blocked from playing Three Body as well. At this point in the story, Wang was still investigating the scientist suicides so he agreed with the majority, who were not entirely opposed to invasion.
One of the examples discussed during the meetup was the Aztec civilization being invaded by the Conquistadors. Some of the participants felt that the Aztec civilization was gruesome and dark and that the Conquistadors enlightened them. Others felt that the situation wasn't so simple, that civilization doesn't just "become better" like that. What's to say that the Conquistadors were a better civilization than the Aztecs? Both were with their strengths and faults, and people at different times just valued different things.
I don't have a lot to say about this topic yet because it was introduced later in the book, and there is still quite some uncertainty with regards to how the arrival of Trisolarans on earth will play out. We still don't know whether they intend to invade or colonize so I feel it's hard for me to say too much.
We just know that Trisolaris finds life on their planet difficult, as the three suns makes it hard for them to predict their weather and climate. Earth is much more stable from a climate perspective, and that is one of the main reasons they want to go there. So I don't think their main goal is to colonize, but to find a suitable home. But if they have to wipe out the humans to have this home, I think they'd be open to doing that.
Overall
This was a really interesting book. I'm a bit annoyed that it ended on a cliffhanger because I personally don't like cliffhangers, but the entire Three Body Trilogy feels like one book anyway.
I'm really interested to know what happens when Trisolarans finally arrive on earth. How will the battle play out? (If there is a battle?)
In addition, I'm interested to know how the main characters will react to the situation, and what major roles they will play in the future of humanity.
The story was solid. I had started this book expecting the science part of the science fiction to be difficult to grasp, but I think that overall, the scientific writing in this book didn't really impede my ability to enjoy the story.
The fiction part of the science fiction was really creative. A little creepy, but creative nonetheless. As for the story itself, I found it very thrilling.
I liked the complexity of the characters. For many of the main characters, we saw both their strengths and weaknesses, and it was interesting to see how their thoughts and actions affected one another.
I am really excited to dive into the next book in the series, The Dark Forest.
Spoilers.
Story
What I really liked about this story was how it combined the complicated science fiction with the implications on the real world and humans. Sometimes the science fiction would get complicated, but Liu Cixin would always balance it out with explaining how it affected our main characters.
I won't summarize the story here as it'd take too much time, but I found it utterly fascinating.
The past plot line followed Ye Wenjie, a physics professor who became jaded by the Cultural Revolution, and doomed the entire human race by sending a reply to a message from Trisolaris.
The current timeline followed Wang Miao, a nanomaterials scientist who started seeing a strange countdown in his vision and was recruited by authorities to investigate the suicides of several scientists.
The book began with Ye Wenjie's story, and it cut in the middle to introduce us to Wang Miao. After introducing Wang Miao, the book continued to reveal the rest of Ye Wenjie's story.
While revealing the rest of Ye Wenjie's story, a third plot line was added, one following Trisolaris, and their actions as they prepared to invade Earth.
As I mentioned, I really like how this story combined abstract science fiction with a more tangible thriller involving the humans and their conflicts over the correct path for humanity to take.
Originally, there was an air of mystery in the story. Wang Miao seeing the countdown in the camera and his vision was incredibly eerie, as was the string of suicides by scientists. At the end, we found out that these were set in motion by Trisolaris and the sophons. At first, I thought that that was a bit of a copout to the very interesting mystery. "It was the aliens!" seemed like a very simple answer to such an eerie question. But I realized that I couldn't just write this answer off as a copout. Instead, now I interpet it as the author moving the direction of the story from physics on earth, to extraterrestrial issues.
This story did end on a cliffhanger, which caught me by surprise. I guess the climax of the story was technically revealing how the Trisolarans were going to take over earth.
I want to focus on the endings for our two main characters, Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao.
Throughout the entire book, Ye Wenjie's approach to life was to go with the flow, and to do whatever was necessary to survive. Her last words were something along the lines of wondering whether this would be the end of humanity, but she said it with an air of neutrality, which is very befitting of her character. No matter what happens, Ye Wenjie will do what she can to stay alive, but if it's time to go, she can accept that too.
Wang Miao originally had a rather nihilistic take on the matter. Since humanity would be no more, Wang Miao and Ding Yi decided to get drunk and live on decadence to the end of their days. Considering the Trisolarans called them bugs, Wang Miao felt they had no chance of surviving the Trisolarans. An annoyed Shi Qiang took Wang Miao and Ding Yi to the country side to look at a field ravaged by locusts, basically telling them that bugs are not incapable of taking down humans, and if humans are the bugs, shouldn't the same apply?
In any case, I am very pumped for the Dark Forest.
Writing
I liked that the writing was presented in a number of different formats. A lot of the story was presented in narrative form, but we also saw a lot of the story presented in interview logs and scientific reports. I don't think that Liu Cixin had included a variety of media for the sake of variety, but because those were the best ways in which to communicate information.
The reports in particular were good for communicating more dense and concentrated facts, scientific or others. And the interviews were great at focusing on dialogue.
I also have huge respect for the translator Ken Liu. I was looking forward to reading his translation because I'd read some good things about him as a translator. And he did a great job with this translation.
In his translator's excerpt, Ken Liu noted that his job wasn't to translate the book literally. I'm paraphrasing, but his interpretation was that his goal in translating this book was to make us, as the English reader, feel like we were immersed in Chinese culture, whether in the way people speak, act, or the interpret the world around them.
According to Liu Cixin's excerpt, Ken Liu translated the first and third book, and the second book was translated by Joel Martinsen, so I'm wondering whether there will be any noticeable differences in style. That doesn't affect my excitement to read the second book though.
Characters
Ye Wenjie
Ye Wenjie was our first main character. The book started with her as a physics professor at Tsinghua, watching her father, also a professor, being interrogated by the Red Guards for his scientific teachings. Her father, Ye Zhetai, doubled down on his teachings and was beaten to death. On the other hand, Ye Wenjie's mother, Shao Lin, another professor, had basically defected and renounced the old ways. I'll talk about Ye Wenjie's parents a bit more below, but this event likely had a very profound impact on her.
Ye Wenjie was moved from camp to camp, where she did her best to keep her head down and not make any trouble. As a physics professor, she was massively underutilized, but she was content as long as no one would bother her. When offered a position at the Red Coast, she jumped at the chance, and she was resigned to spend the rest of her life atop that lonely mountain. This was kind of what got me thinking that she would be fine as long as nobody would bother her. I think her goal was survival over everything, not even happiness or reproduction.
After the time skip, we learned more about what happened with Ye at the Red Coast. She'd made the decision to respond to the alien message, telling the aliens to come. At the time, Ye had no hope for humanity, likely from seeing how the Cultural Revolution played out. She'd hoped that with the alien invasion, humanity would be reformed. While I understood Ye's intentions, I personally think she made a rash decision without considering things more deeply. I think she was more motivated by emotion than anything else.
I truly felt like that might've been the first time in a long time that Ye had made a selfish decision. Ever since the Cultural Revolution, Ye had only been making decisions to ensure survival. Answering the alien message was the first time she ignored orders, but it was a grave decision. And to cover up her tracks, she murdered two people, including her husband. Though she had no love for her husband, he was still the father of her child. Whatever happens to humanity after the Trisolarans arrive, Ye was pretty much single-handedly responsible.
After the time skip, we found Ye as a kindly old grandmother looking after the children in her apartment block. This was a stark difference from the Ye we knew from before. The Cultural Revolution had definitely hardened her, but I think that as she came into contact with everyday people again, she softened. Ye even told Wang Miao that she regretted how she'd parented her daughter Yang Dong, introducing her to science too quickly. On the other hand, we saw that Ye indulged the children of her block, praising them for their pictures and doting on them.
Ye was also part of the ETO, the Earth-Trisolaran Organization. At the time of the novel, there were two main factions, the Adventists and the Redemptionists. The Adventists wanted the Trisolarans to wipe out humanity, whereas the Redemptionists had a more abstract interpretation of the Trisolarans as deities. Ye didn't feel strongly towards either group, but instead, she was more concerned with the stability of the organization as a whole.
I thought Ye was a very interesting character. She was smart, but she had stubborn ideals about life, particularly about what it means to be a woman, and about humanity.
Shao Lin's defection undoubtedly had a huge effect on Ye and her means of staying alive. Post time skip, she even told Wang Miao that a woman was supposed to be fluid, able to mold herself around any situation that comes her way.
In terms of humanity, I did feel that Ye made an emotionally-driven decision to respond to the Trisolarans. If given the choice again, however, I think that Ye still would've made that choice. Because when it comes to humanity as a whole, she just can't think clearly. The Cultural Revolution broke her too much in that regard.
After she returned to teach at Tsinghua, Ye had visited her mother, with her daughter in tow. Her mother had remarried another man. The whole reunion was a bit awkward, with the elephant in the room, but both Ye and her mother were very good at not bringing up unwelcome topics. After their visit, Shao Lin's new husband told Ye not to pursue old debts with Ye. Ye snapped when he mentioned Ye's father, and the husband insisted he was only passing on a message from Shao Lin. Obviously that hit a sore spot, and Ye never saw her mother again.
While Ye had a complicated relationship with her mother, I think her admiration for her father was very straightforward. I think she admired his idealistic ways of thinking. The only reasons he wasn't as ideal as he was was because in addition to her idealistic view of the world, she had idealistic views of what a women should be like.
As mentioned, Ye also had a strange relationship with her daughter. Ye became pregnant when she was still at Red Coast, and she had only returned to Tsinghua after having her daughter. Ye regretted introducing her daughter to science so early, and basically depriving her of the childhood that she should've had. Ye was also disappointed that her daughter had committed suicide, because she felt that women should be able to overcome any issue. The problem was that Ye had built a life for Yang Dong in which science was everything, and when that science was challenged, Yang couldn't find any reason to live anymore.
As mentioned, I felt that Ye was ready for the arrival of the Trisolarans with a very neutral mindset. She'd do whatever she had to do to survive, but she's hardly idealistic about the whole situation. My predictions can only be vague right now as we don't know what options are before us with regards to the Trisolaran invasion. But I really look forward to seeing what decisions she will make as a key player in the event.
Wang Miao
Wang Miao was our second main character of the book, but unlike Ye Wenjie, he wasn't really a driver of the events, but the vehicle through which the reader learned about the events of the novel.
Wang Miao studied nanomaterials, whereas Ye studied astrophysics. Nanomaterials can be considered more applicable to real life, whereas astrophysics is abstract and literally out of this world. And I think these differences were reflected in Wang and Ye's personalities as well. Wang Miao seemed more in touch with real life, as in the everyday mundane things that allow humans to enjoy the world around them. On the other hand, Ye was more idealistic, and often thought about humanity on a grand scale, rather than the lives of common people. It was only after she left the Red Coast that she started getting a sense for what being human was like, but I think she'll never shake off that old part of her.
A good chunk of Wang Miao's story was spent playing the Three Body video game. This VR-type game was very immersive and very bizarre and interesting. Later we found out it was just a recruitment tool developed by the Redemptionists. But it also gave us an idea of what the Redemptionists thought of Trisolaris.
As I explained, Wang Miao briefly had a very nihilistic view of the world. Since Trisolarans were going to invade the Earth in 450 years, and the sophons had already blocked off any chances of scientific advancement, Wang Miao had no reason to hope for any future, not in his personal life, not in his career. It was only when Shi Qiang dragged him out to the field of locusts, that Wang Miao understood that just because they were bugs compared to the Trisolarans didn't mean that they couldn't destroy them, just as locusts could destroy humans' crops.
That last scene really pumped me up. I'm really excited to see what role(s) Wang will have for the future. As he gets more involved with the ETO, I wonder how his views of the Trisolarans will change.
Ye family
Ye Zhetai and Shao Lin were both professors at Tsinghua. They had two daughters, Ye Wenjie, and Ye Wenxue.
Ye Zhetai was interrogated by the Red Guards, forced to admit his wrongdoings in the way he taught his science. He refused to back down, saying that science was science. For that, he was killed. I think that Ye Wenjie idolized her father in a complicated way. In her eyes, he was a martyr, and since he was dead, nothing could change how she felt about him.
Shao Lin, on the other hand, renounced her teachings and sided with the Red Guard. As he was interrogated, Ye Zhetai understood that his wife was too good at going with the flow. He noticed that she'd been updating her teachings to be more in line with the rising Communist ideals, and so when the Cultural Revolution hit, she was in a better position to be forgiven and accepted.
The meeting between Ye Wenjie and Shao Lin after Ye Wenjie's return from the Red Coast was really jarring to me. Shao Lin had moved on from the Cultural Revolution so easily, and had married a high ranking official. When Ye brought Yang Dong over, it was like nothing had happened, like Ye Wenjie and Shao Lin hadn't watched Ye Zhetai being beaten to death years ago.
Whether Shao Lin's husband was really passing on a message from Shao Lin to not bring up the past, or whether it was his own message, it was already a sign that Shao Lin had moved on. In addition to feeling angry that Shao Lin's husband brought up Ye Zhetai's supposed faults, Ye Wenjie understood that Shao Lin being the kindly wife of this official was her current way of survival. After all, Shao Lin had married him when he was still a lowly persecuted official, and the book implied that she'd done so for strategic reasons rather than for love. I don't think Ye Wenjie hated Shao Lin (that much). I think she understood that this was what Shao Lin needed to do to stay alive. Nonetheless, I still found it heartbreaking that they never crossed paths again (because I'm sensitive to mother/daughter relationships).
Ye Wenxue was Ye Wenjie's younger sister. As a high school student, she'd join the Red Guard, and she'd died amid the violence.
It really is jarring to see how this family of four had such different political ideals. Ye Zhetai and Ye Wenxue were obviously on opposite sides of the spectrum, and Shao Lin and Ye Wenjie were firmly in the middle, bending whichever way was needed. In the end, they are the only two alive.
Bai Mulin
Bai Mulin was a journalist that Ye met at a lumber camp while she was to perform hard labour. He introduced her to Silent Spring, and she had helped him write a letter to the government drawing attention to environmental issues. Bai Mulin betrayed Ye by saying that the letter was hers, and it wasn't so difficult to do that because it was in her writing.
While it was shitty, I don't think that Ye was angry at him. I think she was more resigned than anything. She understood that Bai did what he had to do to survive, but at her expense.
Lei Zhicheng
Lei Zhicheng was the political commissar at the Red Coast Base. He recruited Ye because of her knowledge of astrophysics. At first, he gave her a fake story about what they really were doing at the base, and only later was he forced to reveal that they were in fact working on extraterrestrial communications.
I thought it was really interesting how touched Ye felt when she thought that Lei really was telling her the truth about what they did at the base. When she'd walked into the meeting (that would later reveal to her about the extraterrestrial research), Ye thought that Lei was in trouble, and she decided she'd lay her life on the line for him. Ye had never felt so strongly about another human up until this point, not even her parents during the struggle session, and that surprised me. During the meeting, however, she found out that Lei had been lying to her, and her feelings towards Lei cooled off very quickly.
He had a scientific background but was a bureaucrat at this point. Ye deduced that he was invested in her work because he wanted to take credit for it. Having the scientific background would make it believable, and it would be impressive enough to move him up in politics.
I think Ye was indifferent towards Lei taking the credit for her work, but she just wanted the opportunity to carry out her work.
Ultimately, Ye decided to kill Lei as she'd responded to the Trisolaran message without letting him know.
Yang Weining
Yang Weining was a graduate student of Ye Zhetai, and later was a chief engineer at the Red Coast Base.
At first, Ye thought that Yang didn't like that she was getting more knowledge about their operations at the base, but it was later revealed that he didn't like that Lei was lying to her about what they really did. Since Ye was his mentor's daughter, I think that Yang felt some protectiveness over her.
However, it was clear that Ye never felt any love for Yang. She said that she'd married him out of gratitude. In the end, Ye even killed Yang as collateral damage of her trying to kill Lei. It truly was jarring. Ye had tried to warn Yang away by telling him to climb down another rope (and not use the rope that Ye was going to cut loose), but Yang had insisted it was fine. In the end, she was very resolute in her decision that since Lei had to go, Yang had no choice as well.
Shi Qiang
Shi Qiang took me completely by surprise. He was a great character not in the sense that I would like him, but in the sense that he is completely different from every other character in the book. Shi Qiang was a cop, but it's implied that he's the kind of mean cop who does whatever he needs to do to get the job done. He's rough, rude, and uncivilized. It's easy to see why he'd be disliked by a lot of people, especially since most of the characters in the book are academics.
At first, Shi Qiang was just kind of annoying. When he came to pick up Wang, he was painted as mostly disliked by everyone around him. And when Wang was at the meeting with him, he was kind of annoying as well.
But because of his non-academic background and his job as a cop, Shi was a lot more grounded than all of the other characters in the book (who were mostly scientists). He didn't care about whether aliens were going to invade, he was more concerned with paying rent and providing for his kids.
Shi proved to be pretty clever at times as well. He was the one who came with the idea to use the nanomaterial blades to slice Judgment Day (the ship). He was very crafty and also a bit smug, but the scientists couldn't deny that he did add value to their endeavours.
And it was because of his more grounded take on life that he could convince Wang Miao and Ding Yi that they had reason to not give up yet. Scientists like Wang and Ding think in such abstract terms, whereas Shi always looked at things from a very ground level. When the Trisolarans called humans bugs, Shi's mind went one step further and thought about how bugs could be great nuisances to humans.
I'm really interested to read about Shi Qiang in the next book. He likely won't be a leader, but will remain part of the brain trust, but I'm really interested to see how his grounded takes will help the scientists.
Yang Dong
Yang Dong was Ye Wenjie's daughter with Yang Weining. When she was first introduced in the book, we found out that she was the latest death in a string of scientists suicides. It was only later in the book that we found out Yang Dong was Ye Wenjie's daughter.
Ye Wenjie was pregnant when she'd killed Lei Zhicheng and Yang Weining at the Red Coast base, so she'd raised Yang Dong all on her own. After she'd given birth, Ye had stayed in a small town for a little while before being asked to return to Tsinghua.
When Wang visited Ye Wenjie, she was a kindly old lady, who was very sweet and gentle with the kids in the apartment that she was taking care of. Ye admitted to Wang that she'd regretted the way that she'd raised Yang Dong. She had introduced her to science far too early in her life, and as a youngster, her mind was filled with thoughts of how math and science were perfect.
It's implied that because Yang Dong was too inflexible in her beliefs about how math and science were perfect, that drove her to commit suicide when the sophons were messing with the science in our world.
However, Ye ended their conversation by saying that she was disappointed because women should be fluid and flexible. So I don't think that Ye was guilty about not giving Yang Dong a proper childhood, as she was guilty about raising Yang to be the kind of person who can't handle challenges to her status quo, like Ye Wenjie or Shao Lin.
Ding Yi
Ding Yi was Yang Dong's boyfriend. Wang Miao had visited Ding Yi after the suicide, and Ding Yi had suggested to Wang Miao that he visited Yang Dong's mother. Ding Yi didn't have a huge role in the book but he still was a scientists, like most other characters.
At the end of the book, Wang and Ding got drunk because of how hopeless they felt about the future of the earth, but Shi Qiang convinced them both with locust analogy that humanity still had a chance.
Shen Yufei
Shen Yufei was a Japanese physicist of Chinese descent. She was Wang's main contact to talk about the Three Body video game, though she was still very cryptic in what he told him.
Her husband was Wei Cheng, a mathematical genius she bumped into at a temple. She found his work on the Three Body Problem and recruited him to come back with her. They had a working relationship and even married, but it more for convenience and administrative reasons than out of love. Wei Cheng suspected that Shen wouldn't even care if he brought home another woman.
Shen was found dead in her house. It was later revealed that Pan Han had killed her. Shen was a Redemptionist, and Pan Han was an Adventist who felt she was threatening the ETO's position with her extremist views. As I mentioned, the Three Body video game was developed by the Redemptionists, so it made sense that she was playing it so much.
Wei Cheng
Wei Cheng was Shen Yufei's husband ("husband"). He was a mathematical genius, but he was lazy. In particular, becuase he was a genius, he was not very good at teaching and was one of the first to be booted when his workplace couldn't afford to hire so many professors.
He ended up at a temple because apparently that was the best place for people who struggled to see meaning in life. He'd started working on the Three Body Problem there when he bumped into Shen, who recruited him by telling him that she'd give him all of the tools he needed for his research, including a high powered computer which we later saw at their house.
Pan Han
Pan Han was an environmentalist who worked for the ETO. He was the recruiter at the event for those who'd gotten very far in the Three Body video game.
He was also the one who'd killed Shen Yufei because he himself was an Adventist and his did not approve of Shen's Redemptionists views. When Ye Wenjie (as a leader in the ETO) found out about Pan Han's crime, she was nonchalant about Pan Han killed Shen Yufei, but was more concerned with the stability of the ETO, and Pan Han had violated their code of conduct (whatever that was). What's more was that Pan Han wanted Ye Wenjie to declare her status as an Advntist.
Before the situation furthered, Ye Wenjie had Pan Han killed. For what reason Ye Wenjie killed Pan Han is not crystal clear, but I interpreted it as the fact that he was driving a wedge between the Adventists and the Redemptionists when instead the ETO should be one united organization.
Mike Evans
Mike Evans was the rich son of an oil magnate who was horrified by the environmental damage that his father's company had done. Ye first met him when he'd moved to a secluded part of China to try to grow a forest. He became hopeless when villagers from all around came to cut down his trees for lumber because they were not protected by the law. At that point it was clear that Mike Evans had no hope for the human race.
Mike Evans and Ye had bonded a bit over their disappointment in humans, but Ye claimed that only later did she understand that he wanted to wipe out humans entirely. It was Evans who funded Judgment Day, and he seemed to be the leader of the Adventists.
But as a main funder of the ETO, Ye could not do with him entirely, so her only role for now is to handle him.
Trisolaran leaders
Towards the end of the book, we read more narrative from the perspectives of the Trisolaran leaders. It was more to do with how they interpreted humanity and its relation to science, and later, their research on the sophons.
The leaders were very angry with they found out the listener had sent a message warning humans not to reply, but in the end, everything worked out for them.
Trisolaran listener
I really liked reading the bit of narrative from the Trisolaran listener, basically someone whose job was to wait for message and signals from outside of Trisolaris.
The listener was similarly disenchanted with Trisolaran civilization as a whole, and they didn't want earth to be ruined by what Trisolarans wanted to do to them and their planet. So he'd sent the warning message to Ye telling her not to respond.
It struck me how similar the listener and Ye were in their views on their respective civilizations. Both felt hopeless and that their civilizations were no good. It contrasted with how opposite their actions were, the listener not wanting Trisolaris to invade and Ye wanting them to invade. But the listener was meant to show to us that everywhere, people are the same.
Themes
Theory vs. application
There was a brief discussion about the merits of theory vs. ideology. Ye Zhetai said that theory was the foundation of application, but Yang Weining, his graduate student, was worried because he felt that it was easy to make ideological mistakes in theory.
In the context of science, I think Yang Weining was worried that if he made a wrong theoretical statement, it would trickle down to incorrect applications of science.
My interpretation of this brief conversation was to explain that theory may not be universal. Science is supposed to be a universal truth but in this book we have seen several instances in which science was inconsistent.
Many scientists had committed suicide because they'd found inconsistencies in what they thought was universal science, and it drove them to question their whole existence. We later found out that scientific data was being tampered with by the sophons, but for people like Ye Zhetai, who were so inflexible, they would even be able to survive such challenges to their universal truths.
On the political side, we also saw instances of science being distorted by politics. At the beginning, Ye Zhetai was forced to denounce his teachings as reactionary, but he did not budge. On the other hand, Shao Lin had given herself over completely. I didn't fully understand the meaning of reactionary science, but the book mentioned how Shao Lin was slowly updating her science with changes in what terms she used, and that led her to safety during the Cultural Revolution. So in this case, it wasn't necessarily universal theory, but the universal interpretation of theory that was subject to being bent.
Scale
There was a brief discussion about the shooter and farmer theories about how people would interpret the discovery of other sentient life in the universe, if we did find it.
In Liu Cixin's words at the end of the book, he mentioned that he'd always been good at imagining scale, even when it came to units of measurement like light years, which are unfathomable to many humans.
I liked that he did try to make the science fiction in the book realistic by including such ideas, such as how the messages from Trisolaris took 8 years for a round trip, or how it would take 450 years for them to arrive taking into account the mass of their ships, etc.
In real life, if we were ever to find extraterrestrial life, I think it'd take even longer for messages and objects to move around, but I appreciate that Liu Cixin still made an effort to include scales of time and space to remind us that we really were dealing with space units of measurement.
Feminism
Ye believed that women should be able to overcome anything. In history, women have gotten the short end of the stick often, and unfortunately, they were forced to just tough it out.
Ye survived the Cultural Revolution by doing what she was told, and only doing what would help her protect herself.
She probably learned this from her mother, who'd carried out this idea to a higher degree. Shao Lin had gone so far as to denounce her teachings completely, and then marrying a person who would become a high level official. Shao Lin was able to carve out a cushy life for herself by going with the flow to the extreme.
Ye herself didn't come out of the Cultural Revolution with no scratches or bruises, but she survived, and that was thanks to her willingness to give up part of herself to go with the flow.
On the other hand, Ye was disappointed that she couldn't teach this to her daughter, and she attributed it to the fact that she'd taught science to her at too young of an age, and it convinced Yang Dong that everything in life was perfect and immobile.
Ye and Shao's perspectives probably do come from more traditional views, of how women must be seen and not heard, how women must always attend to the men around them, etc. I don't think they are misogynists, but I think that they understood that you have to do what you have to do to survive, even if it means giving up your dignity. On the other hand, many younger people would be more willing to give up their lives to stay true to their ideologies.
Civilization
After reading about how the Trisolaran listener tried to warn Ye not to respond, I really felt that civilization was the same everywhere. And everywhere in the universe, where there was sentient life, there were people who didn't like the things their kind had done. It's only natural, as it's impossible for people to agree with every single thing their brethren do.
I feel that Ye and the listener felt like they were alone in their thoughts of hatred against their own kind, and those extreme thoughts drove them to want to doom their own civilizations.
However, for the average person, when we see things our fellow people do that we don't agree with, we usually just let them go. Not because we approve of them, but because we don't feel as strongly about our civilization as a whole.
Like Ye, the listener, probably also had very idealistic views about what civilization would be like, and acted on those, without thinking too far ahead about its effect on everyday people.
Invasion and colonization
This was obviously a big theme of the book, considering the impending invasion of the Trisolarans. As of the end of the book, we still aren't totally sure what will happen when they arrive, but judging by the fact that they called humans bugs, they seemed to be looking towards complete annihilation, which would be in agreement with the Adventists' hopes (and the Trisolaran listener's worries).
When Ye had sent the message responding to the Trisolaran warning, she was likely hoping that by coming to earth, Trisolarans would help reform humanity by conquering them (and probably enslaving them).
The Adventists wished for Trisolarans to wipe out humanity completely, which was not aligned with Ye's views, but she had to tolerate it as Evans was a main funder of the ETO.
At the first meetup for high level players of the Three Body video game, there was a discussion of how people felt about invasion of an extraterrestrial race. There were a couple who didn't like the idea, and they were asked to leave the meetup, and would be blocked from playing Three Body as well. At this point in the story, Wang was still investigating the scientist suicides so he agreed with the majority, who were not entirely opposed to invasion.
One of the examples discussed during the meetup was the Aztec civilization being invaded by the Conquistadors. Some of the participants felt that the Aztec civilization was gruesome and dark and that the Conquistadors enlightened them. Others felt that the situation wasn't so simple, that civilization doesn't just "become better" like that. What's to say that the Conquistadors were a better civilization than the Aztecs? Both were with their strengths and faults, and people at different times just valued different things.
I don't have a lot to say about this topic yet because it was introduced later in the book, and there is still quite some uncertainty with regards to how the arrival of Trisolarans on earth will play out. We still don't know whether they intend to invade or colonize so I feel it's hard for me to say too much.
We just know that Trisolaris finds life on their planet difficult, as the three suns makes it hard for them to predict their weather and climate. Earth is much more stable from a climate perspective, and that is one of the main reasons they want to go there. So I don't think their main goal is to colonize, but to find a suitable home. But if they have to wipe out the humans to have this home, I think they'd be open to doing that.
Overall
This was a really interesting book. I'm a bit annoyed that it ended on a cliffhanger because I personally don't like cliffhangers, but the entire Three Body Trilogy feels like one book anyway.
I'm really interested to know what happens when Trisolarans finally arrive on earth. How will the battle play out? (If there is a battle?)
In addition, I'm interested to know how the main characters will react to the situation, and what major roles they will play in the future of humanity.