I know nothing about modern China: A review of Cixin Liu’s “The Three Body Problem.” · 3:54am Sep 6th, 2015
TL;DR: A spoiler free review thought piece of the first book in a trilogy of the current most popular Sci-Fi novel in The People's Republic of China.
If you got here via Googling "Three Body Problem fanfic," my MLP story set in the Three Body universe is readable here.
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I'd say "The Three Body Problem" was... pretty good. But I can see a lot of people getting bored halfway through. It suffers from a ridiculous amount of physics (and other science) infodumps. Though the sheer amount of physics should have probably been expected as the title to the novel is about the famous physics conundrum: "The Three Body Problem." Traditional Newtonian physics can do anything with two objects. We can calculate their gravitational force against each other, the orbit they will create, and everything in between. Problems arise, however, when there are three objects in the equation instead of just two. Everything becomes exponentially more complicated and physicists are still working on the problem.
I literally had to do a physics infodump to explain why there are infodumps in this story. 
When I read sci-fi I expect a certain amount of science... and fiction, but I usually don't get a nice dose of culture which is what makes Cixin's novel so refreshing. It's not set in America, but China. It wasn't written in English, but Chinese. It was written on the opposite side of the world from me from a perspective I will never be able to completely understand. And I love that!
I find myself in a society where I am trapped by my language and my culture. I know that mlpaudiobooks.net is predominantly a site for Russian MLP fanfic readings, but I will probably never know what those are like. I know there exists an internet and a world beyond my own in different languages with their own silly memes, culture and drama, but I will never experience all of it as I am limited to English. The other day Anima Draconis translated Everypony Lives into French and I have been attempting to use Google translate to make out a bit of what they're saying in the comments, but it feels like looking at another planet through a telescope.
The global nature of the world astounds me and I want to know much more about it. I know it's crazy to want more when there is so much English content. There are already enough words of English MLP fanfiction alone to last someone a lifetime over, and yet I do want to know more. I want to know as much as I can about everything, everywhere about everyone.
"The Three Body Problem" gave me a glimpse into a foreign world I really haven't given much thought into. I've spent a long time learning about the Japanese language and living in Japan but I have thoroughly neglected the "continent" next to them.
The biggest surprise reading the story was not the hard sci-fi or the physics. It was the fact that a story like that can be published at all in modern China. I had the notion in my head that modern mainland China was a totalitarian communist dictatorship a tiny grade above North Korea in terms of freedoms. But here is a book that, right from the get-go, introduces a scene of the Cultural Revolution. (The Cultural Revolution was the chaotic time when China transitioned to a communist form of government). A physics professor is at the mercy of a mob which order him to denounce things like "The Big Bang Theory" and "General Relativity." His refusal costs him his life.
The death of this character, and the effects this has on his daughter, send shockwaves that alter the fate of the world (at least in the book). It's a direct attack against the actions of the Cultural Revolution. And yet... this novel got published. It's... "okay" to write such things in modern China.
According to the translator, the original Chinese has that prologue jammed into the middle of the book instead of at the beginning. It's also interesting to note that what is broadcasted or spoken on television is much more scrutinized than what is written in a book. In fact, the whole system of censorship works ambiguously. No one is quite sure what is okay to say or not. It's a game of skirting far, far away from the line to be safe, or dancing on it and seeing what happens.
The book made me want to know more, not necessarily about the sci-fi or the story itself, but what is going on in the most populated country in the world? How do people live? And how much of this historical fiction/sci-fi I read was based on fact?
I want more stories like this. What would "the most popular sci-fi novel" of the Middle East look like? How about Africa? South America? Indonesia? Russia? The world isn't made up of people and stories only written from an English speaker's perspective. It's so much richer than that. Hopefully, as more works like these are translated I can catch a glimpse of the unnoticed culture and lifestyles of people around the world.
I am still trying to find a physical copy of this one, but it is proving way harder than I expected. The best option seems to be to pay 50 USD and wait 6 weeks, just for a paperback...
Anyway, China! I had some Chinese friends when I lived in Japan, including some Chinese-Malay and Taiwanese people. From them, I got the impression of a country in transition, trapped between a wish to open to the world culture in general, and maintaining one of the richest cultural heritages you can imagine – all the while trying to heal from that abomination that was the Cultural Revolution.
It also feels weird to generalize about China. When you consider that they have a population as big as all the americas + Western Europe combined, I can't help but imagine that, despite some common national identity, they must have enormous differences inside their country.
Out of curiosity, did you read this because it just won this year's Hugo Award for Best Novel? Or as part of Hugo voter reading? Or because you heard about it some other way?
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I imagine that, since it's now a Hugo winner, it'll get some further printings, but I'm not sure what best to suggest for the impatient.
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You lived in Japan, Soge? That's so cool! Where were you and for how long?
Yeah... I just listened to the audiobook at doublespeed like I do for most books.
Good luck finding a physical copy though!
And yeah... China is HUGE. There's bound to be a million little microcultures in there. The US is famous for having "southern accents" and other language quirks. I can only imagine China having a ton of different "accents" that reflect their physical location as well as the culture of the area. It's astounding to think about.
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I actually didn't know much about it being a part of the Hugo's. I found out about it because it was a book of the week on the Writing Excuses podcast.
3375107 I lived in Tokyo for one year, and then in Kawasaki (A city just to the south of Tokyo) for 1 year and a half.
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That's awesome!
I bounced around various places in Hokkaido for two years.
3375107 They actually speak several different languages, some of which aren't even related to each other.
I can recommend some german films if that interests you.
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Really? I need to go on a Wikipedia binge on this and find out more.
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but I would love to hear some recommendations. 
I may never get around to watching them...
3408599 Start with "languages of China" and move from there. Be carefull though. I've been stuck in a binge through the demographics of all the worlds countries for the last 3/4 year. Once you find out Romania used to have a substantial (and still has a small) german minority, it all goes downhill from there.
I'll rank the movies in order of likelyhood you'll find subtitles/a copy at all:
Das leben der anderen (The lives of others) - You might have even heard of this one. It's about life in the GDR.
Good bye Lenin - A comedy about the ending of the GDR. A son has to predend to his mother that the GDR still exists (because of her health) and goes to increasingly ridiculous lengths to do so. Hilarious to me at least.
Unsere Mütter, Unsere Vater (apparently "generation war" in english) - 3-episode miniseries about the story of five friends during WWII. I haven't personally seen it yet, but my cousin says it's quite good.
Die Welle (The Wave) - Film based on a real world event. A professor tries to demonstrate to his class why the nazis had so many followers by instituting a semi-fascist movement. It all goes downhill from there.
Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei - Film about the question "How far can you go for your ideology?". Pretty good.
There's also a documentary series called "Die Deutschen" about german history, that I find quite good.
Since I'm writing stuff down about my home countries anyway: I don't know any dutch/belgian films, but if you manage to find a copy of Bye, Bye Belgium with english subs, it is worth a watch if you want to learn about other cultures. I'm fairly certain you'll understand exactly none of it though. It was a program aired on Wallonian tv during the height of one of our numerous government crises. It's a fake news program that pretended Flanders had declared independence and shows the results of what would happen.
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'Dat MAP! Man that's a lot of languages. Everyone knows about European language because each country over there practically has it's own language. But China, even though it's one giant country has all those little languages too. Fascinating stuff!
Okay, Good bye Lenin sounds hilarious, I gotta check that one out. I read a book about the GDR once, and I definitely wanna learn more about that time in German history.
And it looks like Unsere Mütter, Unsere Vater is on American Netflix. So that'd be the easiest to see.
Thanks for the recommendations!
3408974 Yeah, that is a pretty awesome map. I mean, it's not quite this one, but it is pretty awesome.
Except they don't. People know the large ones, but they end up forgetting the minority languages: frisian, occitan, breton, sorbian, catalan, galician, basque, rumansch, aromanian, faroeese, ...
You're welcome.
If you ask censorship in China.
We still don’t have a rating system for entertainment 2021.
Historical works are allowed to be written, but they are not allowed to be written in a tongue in cheek way. History must be respected, and China’s censorship of political works is extremely strict.