Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Made in China: Three body problem

Republished with modification.

Cixin Liu's "The Three-Body Problem" is nominated for this year Hugo award and it may win it too. It is an amalgam of Chinese history, ecological desolation, human courage or lack of it.

This is a sci-fi novel with a unique plot. It is the story of a woman, Ye Wenje, whose life was permanently shattered by cultural revolution that was raging in China in 1960s. Really ugly period in modern Chinese history. Wenje witnesses the death of her father by school girls brainwashed by revolution. In fact, it was her mother herself who denounced her husband to the authorities. This episode of Chinese history is not well known to the large audience. It has some similarity to the Red Terror of 1930s in Soviet Russia or Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime in 1970s.

As novel progresses and main plot unfolds one can see how Chinese society is returning to "normality". However, it is too late. Alien race is coming towards Earth thanks to Ye Wenje and other human "traitors" who believe that human race's self-destructive tendencies should be checked by superior Alien race, whose societal structure resembles typical dictatorship.

Strangely, as novel suggests there are pacifists among Aliens who do not believe that they should take Earth away from humans.

I would recommend anyone reading it. It is very original.

posted by David Usharauli   

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