Book Review: The Three Body Problem Part 1

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE THREE BODY PROBLEM SERIES

The Three Body Problem is a hard sci fi novel written by Chinese author, Cixin Liu. It's about humanity’s first contact with an alien civilization that resides in the Centauri star system. Due to their system having 3 stars, they are named Trisolarans. After they make contact with the traitor Ye Wienje, they establish their goal of conquering Earth for themselves. Due to their star system having three stars, their civilizations are perpetually in a state of limbo. There are constant Chaotic Era’s that could wipe out their species at any moment. Through the three-body game that was created by the Pan Species Communist faction that Ye Wienje formed, we learn more about the world of the Trisolarans and why they want to conquer Earth through the main character, Wang Miao. 

Wang Miao is a nanomaterials scientist that is affected by the Trisolarans after they try to stop him from continuing his research that will lead to a breakthrough in his field. They care so much about the development of human technology because of the chance that they may be able to defend against the Trisolaran invasion with their exponential growth in technological developments that is unseen in Trisolarn development. They stop the growth of humanity through the use of Sophon’s, ninth dimensional protons that have a supercomputer etched into them. They use the Sophons to flash messages and numbers across people’s eyes, monitor Earth in real time, meddle with particle colliders that would ruin the development of particle physics along with other things. Wang Miao isn’t the only scientist that was forced to stop his research. Many other scientists were also forced to stop their research by terrorist attacks from people from the Human-Trisolaran Movement and a timer flashing before their eyes. We’ll go more in depth with this book review in the next part.