Cixin Liu’s Science-Fiction Trilogy is Deeply Moving and Introspective
These three books are a big reading commitment, but the payoff is huge
I picked up Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem during a Kindle sale a few months ago, and subsequently read all three books in the trilogy over the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019. The books are long, and it took a little while for me to fully sink in them. After I finally sunk into these books though, I couldn’t put them down.
Simply put, this trilogy is fantastic, for reasons I’ll lay out below. The scale of the plot is awe-inspiring, the characters are inspiring, and the philosophical underpinnings of it all are deeply interesting as well. It’s difficult to explain too much of this trilogy’s greatness without spoiling much of the plot, but these books are some of the best reasons to read science fiction as a genre.
Please note: this section includes minor spoilers for book one in the series, The Three Body-Problem.
Like the series, the first book starts small and builds out to a dramatic conclusion. It begins out with the Cultural Revolution in China, then turns to Chinese and American characters who are disillusioned with humanity (either because of greed, cruelty, or both). As some of these people try to reach out to alien life, they start a conflict on earth and in the stars that will decide the fate of humanity.
The best part of the book is how tightly-crafted each element of it is. Liu builds characters that feel real, even when they do things that should push the boundaries of belief. The book’s big twist near the end, consequently, feels like the natural conclusion of everything that came before it.
Liu also deserves credit for how he writes about hope and despair. Some of his characters are cynical, others are optimistic, but they are all believable in their motivations. When some of them face tragedy and defeat at the end of the novel, their reactions in the face of it are some of the most memorable parts of the story. Liu’s story covers the fate of human civilization spanning generations, but it’s always through the lens of a handful of well-realized characters.
The Three-Body Problem is the best of the three books, but they’re all excellent, and the trilogy they create has (by far) the most impressive scope of any series I’ve read. There’s a hard, scientific backdrop to each one of the fictional elements that grants a sense of authority to Liu’s prose. The events he writes about are fantastical and almost supernatural, but they always feel real and possible. Like I wrote above, the human reactions to every twist and turn in the plot give emotional weight to everything that happens.
My recommendation of this trilogy comes with a few caveats. The first is that these books are long. If you don’t like reading novels that are more than 400 or 500 pages, this may not be the series for you. This trilogy is also a little difficult to sink into, at first. The plot develops slowly, and those without patience might struggle to see it all the way through.
But with these minor concerns out of the way, I give Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy a full and complete recommendation. I’ve developed a stronger taste for science fiction lately, and these books are some of the best I’ve read. The big plot points are often jaw dropping and stunning, but the human characters tie everything together. From beginning to end, this is a journey worth taking.
