Has anybody read the Three Body trilogy by Cixin Liu? My bookstore can't keep it in stock it's selling so well right now. I just finished it and mentally I've been kinda living in that world for about three weeks. The story feels a bit like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, an epic that charts, among other things, human sociological change over a great many years. *spoilers* In terms of aliens it feels a bit more like Enders Game, Humans and the Spider Queen race fighting a bizarre war and having a strange co evolving relationship, the balance of power constantly shifting, but the otherness of the alien race always maintained. The characters are primarily engineers, astronomers and physicists, and the laws of physics coupled with the tremendous distances between solar system bound races really are at the core of book. In terms of the Fermi paradox, the story goes with the conclusion that the best sign of advanced alien life is the lack of signs, as a race that 'reveals' itself would be akin to soldier lighting a cigarette in the dark when surrounded by enemy snipers. Even the potentially non aggressive alien races are trapped in a sort of prisoners dilemma with all the other races, unable to communicate (cigarette), it's always better to be the one to shoot first. The low tech world observed in the moment could potentially (do to information travelling at the speed of light) in the moment have far outpaced the observer.
Anyways, though I really enjoyed the old familiar first contact stories like Contact, Annihilation, Close Encounters etc I feel like it's a bit done at this point. They all build to that point and all finish leaving you feeling, ok, so what next? At the same time, Star Trek style utopian fiction, where warp travel puts every race on the doorstep of every other race, seems more like a drama than Sci Fi. 3 Body explores what comes after contact, and puts forward a sound theory of galactic sociology, based on two pretty solid maxims; i The desire to survive is infinite ii The resources of the universe are finite. I like it because, if true, the most fundemental truth of the galaxy is as like to reveal itself to a deep thinker 3000 years ago meditating in a cave, as a genius cutting edge scientist with all his high tech instruments.
Comments
(Short Spike)
Has anybody read the Three Body trilogy by Cixin Liu? My bookstore can't keep it in stock it's selling so well right now. I just finished it and mentally I've been kinda living in that world for about three weeks. The story feels a bit like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, an epic that charts, among other things, human sociological change over a great many years. *spoilers* In terms of aliens it feels a bit more like Enders Game, Humans and the Spider Queen race fighting a bizarre war and having a strange co evolving relationship, the balance of power constantly shifting, but the otherness of the alien race always maintained. The characters are primarily engineers, astronomers and physicists, and the laws of physics coupled with the tremendous distances between solar system bound races really are at the core of book. In terms of the Fermi paradox, the story goes with the conclusion that the best sign of advanced alien life is the lack of signs, as a race that 'reveals' itself would be akin to soldier lighting a cigarette in the dark when surrounded by enemy snipers. Even the potentially non aggressive alien races are trapped in a sort of prisoners dilemma with all the other races, unable to communicate (cigarette), it's always better to be the one to shoot first. The low tech world observed in the moment could potentially (do to information travelling at the speed of light) in the moment have far outpaced the observer.
Anyways, though I really enjoyed the old familiar first contact stories like Contact, Annihilation, Close Encounters etc I feel like it's a bit done at this point. They all build to that point and all finish leaving you feeling, ok, so what next? At the same time, Star Trek style utopian fiction, where warp travel puts every race on the doorstep of every other race, seems more like a drama than Sci Fi. 3 Body explores what comes after contact, and puts forward a sound theory of galactic sociology, based on two pretty solid maxims; i The desire to survive is infinite ii The resources of the universe are finite. I like it because, if true, the most fundemental truth of the galaxy is as like to reveal itself to a deep thinker 3000 years ago meditating in a cave, as a genius cutting edge scientist with all his high tech instruments.
(Old Spike)