2006 TheThreeBodyProblem

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Subject Headings: Science Fiction Novel; Hard Science Fiction; Simple Life; Chinese Novel.

Notes

Cited By

2020

  1. Clute, John, "Yinhe Award" , Science Fiction Encyclopedia, 3rd edition. Accessed 21 Nov. 2017
  2. "Three Body.” Ken Liu Official Website. Retrieved on July 29, 2015.
  3. Chen, Andrea. “Out of this world: Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin is Asia's first writer to win Hugo award for best novel.” South China Morning Post. Monday 24 August 2015. Retrieved on 27 August 2015.

2019

  • https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war-of-the-worlds
    • QUOTE: ... Much of the books’ resonance, however, comes from the fact that they also offer a faithful portrait of China’s stringently hierarchical bureaucracy, that labyrinthine product of Communism. August Cole, a co-author of “Ghost Fleet,” a techno-thriller about a war between the U.S. and China, told me that, for him, Liu’s work was crucial to understanding contemporary China, “because it synthesizes multiple angles of looking at the country, from the anthropological to the political to the social.” Although physics furnishes the novels’ premises, it is politics that drives the plots. At every turn, the characters are forced to make brutal calculations in which moral absolutism is pitted against the greater good. In their pursuit of survival, men and women employ Machiavellian game theory and adopt a bleak consequentialism. In Liu’s fictional universe, idealism is fatal and kindness an exorbitant luxury. As one general says in the trilogy, “In a time of war, we can’t afford to be too scrupulous.” Indeed, it is usually when people do not play by the rules of Realpolitik that the most lives are lost.

Quotes

... No, emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is a type of existence. You must use this existential emptiness to fill yourself. …

... It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race. …

... To effectively contain a civilization’s development and disarm it across such a long span of time, there is only one way: kill its science. …

... Is it possible that the relationship between humanity and evil is similar to the relationship between the ocean and an iceberg floating on its surface? Both the ocean and the iceberg are made of the same material. That the iceberg seems separate is only because it is in a different form. In reality, it is but a part of the vast ocean. …

... Your lack of fear is based on your ignorance. …

... In the shooter hypothesis, a good marksman shoots at a target, creating a hole every ten centimeters. Now suppose the surface of the target is inhabited by intelligent, two-dimensional creatures. Their scientists, after observing the universe, discover a great law: “There exists a hole in the universe every ten centimeters.” They have mistaken the result of the marksman’s momentary whim for an unalterable law of the universe. The farmer hypothesis, on the other hand, has the flavor of a horror story: Every morning on a turkey farm, the farmer comes to feed the turkeys. A scientist turkey, having observed this pattern to hold without change for almost a year, makes the following discovery: “Every morning at eleven, food arrives.” On the morning of Thanksgiving, the scientist announces this law to the other turkeys. But that morning at eleven, food doesn’t arrive; instead, the farmer comes and kills the entire flock. …

... I’m a simple man without a lot of complicated twists and turns. Look down my throat and you can see out my ass. …

... Every era puts invisible shackles on those who have lived through it, and I can only dance in my chains. …

... In the face of madness, rationality was powerless. …

... In China, any idea that dared to take flight would only crash back to the ground. The gravity of reality is too strong. …

... By the time you’re my age, you’ll realize that everything you once thought mattered so much turns out to mean very little. …

... Sometimes I thought life was precious, and everything was so important; but other times I thought humans were insignificant, and nothing was worthwhile. Anyway, my life passed day after day accompanied by this strange feeling, and before I knew it, I was old. …

... Even if God were here, it wouldn’t do any good. The entire human race has reached the point where no one is listening to their prayers. …

... Take those frauds who practice pseudoscience - do you know who they're most afraid of? …

... No. Many of the best scientists can be fooled by pseudoscience and sometimes devote their lives to it. But pseudoscience is afraid of one particular type of people who are very hard to fool: stage magicians. In fact, many pseudoscience hoaxes were exposed by stage magicians. …

... A woman should be like water, able to flow over and around anything. …

References

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 AuthorvolumeDate ValuetitletypejournaltitleUrldoinoteyear
2006 TheThreeBodyProblemLiu CixinThe Three-Body Problem2006