China - The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin

The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin

This book was a gift from my son who had heard about in one podcast / YouTube channels he watches. I was excited to read a Sci-fi book from China, as China's history and politics is so different from my home country of England. And when a book comes with praise from former President Barack Obama, you're probably in for a treat.

I did find the book a little slow to start, but I found the history of China's cultural revolution an interest backdrop to the characters. But the book really started to gain momentum when the alien civilisation was introduced. The concept of having an alien civilisation, arriving to destroy earth in 400 years was just amazing. I love this simple and more 'believable' concept of an alien invasion.

The book really picks up the pace in the final third of the book, introducing some incredible concepts and ideas. Earths ensuing crises and defense ideas are equally incredible as the alien ones. It's hard to talk about the book without crossing over on to the second and third books as they have started to merge in my memory.

Either way, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Really enjoy the concepts. I can't really comment on the merits of the writting, but I found easy to read and very compelling. One slight distraction was the amount of translator's note, in places these broke up the flow of the story, as I was looking up the foot notes. Don't get me wrong, there were interesting and informative, but didn't always add anything to the story.