RaveEntropyLiu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem is one of the most surprising novels I’ve read in recent memory. Not because it’s full of twists and turns (though it is), but because it’s so different from what I’ve come to expect in modern science fiction, in terms of narrative and storytelling techniques. Perhaps most surprising to me is that a novel structured and told in this manner is one of the bestselling novels I’ve ever heard of ... While there’s certainly plenty of plot movement, this is almost an aggressive text in the way it refuses to invite you in. At the same time, it’s extremely readable, digestible, and riveting. It’s very hard sci-fi, which is to say that it’s deeply rooted in actual science, or at least theoretical possibilities ... The Three-Body Problem is a novel of ideas, much like Asimov’s novels. There are characters, and I enjoyed them, but many of them are more shells and shades than fully developed people ... This is a very different literary tradition than the one we’re used to, with very different goals and expectations ... a powerful, sometimes quite funny, sometimes surprisingly emotionally resonant, novel full of enormous ideas and ambition that also seems indifferent to your expectations ... It’s a novel that challenges you to think. Or rather, it demands you think. It demands your attention, and it will reward you for it ...
