The Three-Body Problem | A Sci-Fi Book Review 👾🕹️

A review of the first book in the Remembrance of Earth's Past series, The Three-Body Problem. This is an extremely popular series and one could say that I'm tardy to the party...but at least I showed up! AND I beat the TV series release, so I think I'm winning.
Spoiler section begins at 08:16

[@katsnoveladventures1863]

I’m okay with spoilers! 😊 Not sure I’ll read this one; seems complicated. 😂 Terrific review, Alex…as always.

[@alexfrankfiction]

It's definitely hard sci-fi so if that's not your jam then I wouldn't probably recommend this. And that's totally okay! I'm just a giant nerd 🤓 Thanks for watching, Kat!!

[@Faye_L]

I'm a big ol' nerd - I read it! 🤣🤓 This scenario seemed scarily plausible to me. There are totally people in the world who (SPOILERS AHEAD) would eagerly invite aliens to wipe us all out. I agree about the sudden info-dump feeling out of place. I zoned out. I don't know if any of it made sense, so explaining it in minute detail really wasn't necessary. But I really enjoyed the rest of it. I hope to read the rest of the series at some point!

[@alexfrankfiction]

I'm glad you read it and had similar thoughts to me! I'll be sure to post a video about "The Dark Forest" after I get through that one as well.

[@Marjoleeein]

Ahhh, I am so happy you had such a good time reading it! I think I should definitely re-read it before I move on to the Dark Forest because the things you mentioned in the spoiler section made me go like "????".

[@alexfrankfiction]

That cracks me up! And yes thank you for the recommendation! The first book rocked! Appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment 😊

[@Johanna_reads]

Excellent review! I just found your channel. My uncle approached me this past Christmas unable to stop talking about this book. He loved it so much and brought up the Fermi Paradox. I have so much sci-fi I need to read, but I hope to eventually get to this series!

[@alexfrankfiction]

Hi Johanna! 👋 Welcome and lovely to meet you! Your uncle was right to talk about the Fermi Paradox! One of the things most discussed in the book is the question of why we have not found other life and other life has not found us. The story has an interesting way to "solve" for this problem using the sun, but I won't say more than that 😄 Hope you are up to reading it at some point!

[@Tetsujin-28]

Great review. Completely different take on every other review that I've seen. I have wanted to read this for awhile, but my TBR is longer than my life span and I'm far behind on recommendations so I'll just watch the show (which will be 87% different). Older SciFi: I wish I could read more of it, but many stories have no science fiction element and/or it's like they speak a different language. Great content.

[@alexfrankfiction]

I hope to be known for at least having original opinions, so your comment made me happy. Thanks, Rob! I haven't seen any other reviews, so it's easy to be different, I guess 🤣 I agree that the TV show will probably be quite different from the book, but who knows! Maybe it'll be great! Thanks for watching as always 😊 P.S. some old sci-fi really was written in a different language. It's a form of English people don't speak anymore and it's always weird to me too

[@Tetsujin-28]

@@alexfrankfiction I think Rachel really liked it (Shades of Orange), Whitney must have reviewed it (Secret Sauce of Storycraft) and I know Matt hated it (Book pilled).

[@noteworthyfiction]

Not watching the spoilers because you've convinced me to add it to my TBR!

[@alexfrankfiction]

Well I hope you enjoy it! It's a book that definitely divided people, but I'm one of the lucky ones who enjoyed it! Funny enough I had not read or watched any reviews before reading the book so I didn't know what anyone else was saying about it when I made this video 🤣 Thanks for watching, Nicole!

[@ThisKiwi03]

Nerdy rabbit hole incoming…. This low key sounds soooo good! Have not watched the spoiler section because if i read it, i want to be surprised. Not going to lie, the maths part of it scares the crap out of me but yolo, i’ll give it a go. The cover of this gives me vibes of like warehouse 13… don’t know why because it is probably not anything to do with finding artefacts haha

[@ThisKiwi03]

That quote convinced me. Oh boy…

[@alexfrankfiction]

My hope is that if you decide to read this that you will enjoy it! Fingers crossed!

[@GwenCooper-l1b]

Fabulous review, I definitely need to read this! Thanks so much!

[@alexfrankfiction]

Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

[@justink5000]

Would you be interested in doing a video where you break down why you didn't like the Expanse TV show? I'm just starting with the novel series, I absolutely devoured Leviathan Wakes, and Calibans War is on its way to me. I watched the first episode (I had to stop after realising that the first season contains spoilers for the second book already), but I was amazed with the aesthetics, how well they presented the storyline on a visual medium, and how well they characterised the main characters in just a few scenes. I'm really curious to find out what you thought about it, since I share your taste in a lot of stuff according to the videos of yours that I've seen so far :)

[@alexfrankfiction]

Hey there @justink5000! Thanks so much for your incredibly kind comment 😊 Gosh it's been a hot minute since I dipped my toe into The Expanse TV show, but I remember my visceral reaction to it. I think I got somewhere around the 3rd episode of the first season before deciding I couldn't watch anymore. The show in itself was not necessarily the issue and I know many people love the show having never read any of the books! I may even have loved it had I not known what it was based on. The problem for me was how quickly the plot diverges and/or things happen to characters that don't happen in the first novel. Funny enough, I also need to read Caliban's War and plan to this year 😊 I'll be rereading Leviathan Wakes as well! I ended up checking online when I stopped watching the show and it confirmed that there are plot elements in the show that do not appear in the book series. There are also plot elements in the book series that don't appear in the show but they are considered "broadly" the same. Which is a shame given how thorough and interesting the novels are. Some changes will always be made in adaptations, though, and I recognize that as well. Given it's been so long, perhaps I should try to watch the show again? You've got me wondering 🤔

[@heidi6281]

Alex great review! I am going to watch season one the tv show and if I love it, I will pick up the book.

[@alexfrankfiction]

Sounds like a plan, Heidi! Hopefully, the TV show is faithful to the book, but they definitely always have to change some things.

[@heidi6281]

@@alexfrankfiction I just finished the tv show last night! After taking a break from the first episode I binged the rest and absolutely loved it! Those showrunners from GOT are super talented and when they have a script/book to work with! The best parts of the show are in the game, wow for the special effects! The acting pretty good too. My favorite was Will Downing.

[@alexfrankfiction]

@@heidi6281 I love to hear that, Heidi! Makes me excited to watch the show for sure! Appreciate you telling me! ☺️

[@tsukasa1608]

7:12 I believe you mean Netflix, because the one on Prime is the Tencent Chinese adaptation that came out last year and it was extremely faithful to the source material. The Netflix adaptation that will came out this March, took some liberties and changed the characters and background for a more international cast.

[@alexfrankfiction]

Ah! Thank you for that clarification! Yes, I did mean Netflix but I will likely watch the one on Prime then since I would prefer a faithful adaptation. As long as there are subtitles, I can enjoy it!

[@noteworthyfiction]

BTW, since you just read up on the Cultural Revolution, you may want to check out Do Not Say We Have Nothing. I was surprised by how much I ended up loving that book and highly recommend it.

[@alexfrankfiction]

I'd never heard of that, but it looks so good! Thank you for the recommendation! "Do Not Say We Have Nothing" is now on a special wishlist for Powell's when I make it there later this year!

[@avsambart]

This first book was SO GOOD! Are you only gunna watch the netflix show or are you also gunna watch the Chinese one that came out last year? I'm probs gunna watch one ep per show and swap between them 🤣

[@alexfrankfiction]

I plan to watch the one that came out in March after I complete the trilogy! Only because I've heard a lot of good things about it so let me know how you find each! I don't know anything about the Chinese one

[@Alicia-606]

I haven’t read this book, but what I can agree with you on is f@$& calculus.

[@alexfrankfiction]

Alicia, that's the best thing I've heard all day 🤣 Thank you

[@wbebbs]

Great work again, A. I am reticent to comment on the work as a whole as you have not completed the series. I can comment on the translation and writing and such. I do not feel the translation has unduly influenced the quality of Liu's writing. Perhaps it is merely my age (William Gibson is still a new-ish author to me) but I have read scads of tranalated fiction. Great prose and story-telling shine through in, say, The Three Musketeers, or Roadside Picnic or whatever. Having also read his short fiction it seems that ideas are Liu's strong point. His characters seem shallow. They do not really develop or grow but are static and stock. Likewise his politics are rather too obvious and do not enhance the story. I really like reading translated works because the cultural norms are often enlightening. 3BP is just too poorly written to deliver this sense of place and time. I think that's enough until you have fin the series. If you do ...

[@alexfrankfiction]

Hey @bebbs1890! Good to see you again so soon! I didn't use the term "shallow" or "flat" in my review to describe the characters but definitely agree with that statement (hopefully that comes through when I said Liu doesn't focus on the thoughts, feelings, or motivations of the characters). I greatly enjoyed the reminder of the Cultural Revolution since it had been such a long time since I'd considered it. That's really not a topic we look at in the US. While I disagree about the book being poorly written because I personally enjoyed the big ideas Liu had, I can understand why readers may not enjoy the writing style. It's definitely not something that could appeal to everyone nor would I recommend it to everyone. So much so that, honestly, I was surprised to find out this was being turned into a TV show. I know it was a Hugo Award winner, but I didn't realize the draw would be big enough for a whole show. As always, thanks so much for the comment! I'm looking forward to "The Dark Forest" and have my fingers crossed.

[@wbebbs]

@@alexfrankfiction Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps it is also being filmed with the China market in mind?

[@alexfrankfiction]

@bebbs1890 that's a fair point. I just learned that the TV show is being filmed in Chinese with an English dub available on certain streaming services. I'd probably watch with subtitles 😊

[@wbebbs]

@@alexfrankfiction subs > dubs 😸

[@elskuperus4393]

The dark forest is even better.

[@alexfrankfiction]

Love to hear that!!! Woohoo!!

[@CrimesNewRoman]

I really wish i liked this more than I did, and I've read A LOT of science fiction and i think that might be part of the problem. it also might partially be translations not completely getting across intention as well as the original language, which is of course an issue. I didnt like the writing, I thought the characters were basically not characters just means to move the shallow plot along, a lot of things go nowhere (or are resolved in later books which i was not inclined to read after finishing the first one) the aliens were boring, half of it reads like a scientific research paper but not in an interesting way - i have that problem with some golden age writers and people like andy wier who just write science bullshit to sound smart even though it's actively detrimental to the book being more interesting on a character and thematic level. I think concept/plot works over character works CAN be complellng, like Blindsight by Peter Watts or Case of Conscience by Blish, but this wasn't it. i can see why people would like this, i wanted the setting to be interesting, but man i got the same feeling reading an andy wier book without all of the cringey one-liners: it's a cool idea that the writer felt like they put more time into making the concept feel real than actually writing a compelling story and characters.

[@alexfrankfiction]

Hey @CrimesNewRoman, thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, not every book will be for everyone, but at least you gave it a shot. Thanks for those other recommendations I'm looking forward to forming my opinion on Andy Weir's writing. I have a copy of "The Martian" but haven't gotten to it just yet.

[@CrimesNewRoman]

@@alexfrankfiction yeah i always give things an honest shot but sometimes c'est la vie. appreciated the review though!