I recently finished Death’s End, the third book of the “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy that starts with The Three Body Problem. The trilogy, written by Chinese author Cixin Liu, enjoyed substantial mainstream popularity (my copy of Death’s End had a blurb by none other than Barack Obama on the cover). Is the hype justified? Yes, it’s good, and most of the grumbling is sheer contrarianism. Don’t worry, anyone “respectable” writing science fiction will continue calling their books something else.
Liu’s style strongly resembles – if it was not directly influenced by – that of Arthur C. Clarke. The glorification of technocracy and technologists, lackluster character development, a strong United Nations, atheism, and a complete unconcern for politics or economics beyond the superficial. Even the striking passages on the Cultural Revolution (which affected Liu’s family when he was a young boy) in The Three Body Problem remind me of Clarke’s surprisingly vivid writing on Sri Lankan history in The Fountains of Paradise. That being said, Liu is no imitator. Several characters in the trilogy resort, righteously and effectively, to violence. Also, one of the central concepts of the trilogy – the “Dark Forest Problem” – is distinctly un-Clarkean. I must mention a standout feature: Yun Tianming’s fables and the circumstances around them. These resemble more the subtle grandness of Gene Wolfe than anything Clarke ever wrote. Liu even adds the flourish of having a minor character remark later on the high quality of Yun’s fables.
Regarding the translation: I recall several instances in The Three Body Problem where the translator seemed to have simply picked the wrong synonym resulting in some awkward phrasing, although I can no longer be specific. Neither of the last two books had this problem.
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