1. Is The Three-Body Problem 3 a Good Work of Literature?
I preordered a copy from Science Fiction World’s online store before The Three-Body Problem 3 even went on sale, so among ordinary readers I was probably among the first to finish it. Afterwards, I had a brief exchange about our impressions with my friend Li Xiaofei, who finished it at about the same time. We saw The Three-Body Problem 3 in much the same way: as hard science fiction, it was still top-tier, but as literature, compared with the first two books, it was quite unsatisfying.
(1) Top-Tier Science-Fiction Ideas That Got Wasted
From the standpoint of hard science fiction, the Three-Body series is one climax after another. The Three-Body Problem 3 maintains that top-tier standard. Dimensional strikes, black domains, curvature ships, the Staircase Project, hiding from the universe’s collapse inside a pocket universe… every one of these is a ridiculously awesome idea. Xiaofei said that you could take any one of them and write a short story around it, and it would be a classic.
But somehow, when all these ideas are combined, reading them doesn’t quite deliver the same satisfying rush as the first two books.
Quite a few passages, judged against the standard Cixin Liu had demonstrated in his earlier work, simply failed to produce the effect they should have. I still remember the ‘Sophon Shield Room,’ for example. The book describes Cheng Xin’s surprise and shock. I can imagine that shock by filling in the blanks myself, but unfortunately the prose itself never quite conveys the emotion. Maybe Cixin Liu stuffed too many ideas into The Three-Body Problem 3: apart from a few major ideas that receive lavish treatment, the others seem not to have received enough attention to be properly developed.
I remember that when Wang Shuo announced he was retiring from writing, he said he had originally had several very good ideas, but had absentmindedly used them in a few novellas and short stories (he was referring to works such as Fierce Animals, completed before that retirement). He seemed rather depressed about it, and so simply quit writing.
The Three-Body Problem 3 has a bit of that feeling too: without meaning to, it crammed too many good ideas into one long novel. That’s really rather wasteful.
(2) The Three-Body Problem 3 Feels Too Short
Many passages feel hurried because the plot of The Three-Body Problem 3 covers such an enormous span of time. Although it is already the longest book in the series, to explain a story stretching so far, it actually needed to be longer still.
That huge span not only leaves many details insufficiently polished; more seriously, the author never found a clear through line to carry the entire work.
I agree with Professor Yan Feng’s view in the preface to The Three-Body Problem 3: the strongest book in the Three-Body series, literarily speaking, should be The Dark Forest. Compared with The Three-Body Problem 3 in particular, the second book’s plot is far tighter and clearer, because it has the Wallfacer Project running through it from beginning to end. Even if you strip away the hard-science-fiction core and look only at its suspense, schemes, psychological warfare, and ethical conflicts, every stage of the Wallfacer Project holds its own against any excellent wuxia, suspense, or detective novel. No wonder Xiaofei calls Cixin Liu the Jin Yong of science fiction. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.
Unfortunately, while the plot of The Three-Body Problem 3 is certainly full of twists, no clear thread or concentrated dramatic conflict ever connects all its events. If there is one, Cheng Xin and Yun Tianming’s love story should be the most important.
That love story is itself a very cool science-fiction idea. On a physical scale, Yun Tianming’s love for Cheng Xin reaches a romantic extreme. At the imperial level, the most love a person can give a lover is still, at most, toppling an empire for a beauty and ‘giving away’ a country. Who gives a lover an entire star system, or even a pocket universe, the way Yun Tianming does?
But Cixin Liu does not spend much time depicting this love story directly. Most of the time it remains hidden behind the plot. Whenever one plot segment ends, it surfaces, pushes the story into the next segment, and then disappears again. So unlike the Wallfacer Project, it never stays at the core of the plot and never develops the power to unify it.
So, since The Three-Body Problem 3 has been stuffed with so much material, I think it should simply have been written as two or three much longer novels, each with a more focused plot. Maybe expanding the current Three-Body trilogy into five or six books would have made it possible to fill in more of the details.
2. Is the Dark Forest Theory Plausible?
Compared with the natural-science fantasies in the books, the social-science fantasies in the Three-Body series, beginning with the ‘dark forest’ theory in The Dark Forest, are much closer to the heart of the story. The core of The Dark Forest is not built on those natural-science fantasies, but on this imagined social-science theory. And The Three-Body Problem 3 is an expanded and upgraded version of the dark forest.
The dark forest theory goes roughly like this:
The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter, moving stealthily through the trees like a ghost, gently brushing aside branches in its path and doing everything possible not to make a sound. Even breathing must be done with care. It has to be cautious, because the forest is full of hunters moving just like it. If it discovers another life-form, it can do only one thing: shoot and destroy it. In this forest, other people are hell, an eternal threat. Any life-form that exposes its existence will soon be destroyed. This is the landscape of cosmic civilization.
The dark forest situation is derived in the book from the following so-called four axioms of cosmic sociology. Let’s examine them one by one and see whether they hold up.
The Four Axioms of Cosmic Sociology
- First axiom: Survival is the primary need of civilization.
- Living things instinctively seek survival, and survival is their primary need—this is a defensible claim. This first axiom is really treating civilization as a human or animal: like living organisms, civilizations possess a survival instinct. Once a civilization perceives a threat from another civilization, it is easy for it to destroy the other side in self-defense. This forms the first force driving the dark forest.
Even on close inspection, this analogy may not really hold, but let’s grant that it does, because the axioms and assumptions that follow are much more problematic.
- Second axiom: Civilization grows and expands continuously, while the total amount of matter in the universe remains constant.
- If civilizations expand uncontrollably while resources are limited, then civilizations must inevitably go to war. This forms the second force driving the dark forest.
Perhaps the current stage of population explosion makes the author expect that civilizations cannot control the size of their populations: they can only keep expanding until the environment reaches its limit, and then strike a terrifying balance with that limit. But even with humanity’s modest intelligence, we have already begun to understand how to control our population size (though we are still far from succeeding). Surely the far more intelligent civilizations in the universe could think of more sophisticated ways to control population size?
In fact, Cixin Liu himself once had an optimistic expectation about this. In Taking Her Eyes, humanity implements strict population control and environmental protection, and Earth’s deserts have turned into oases in the future. If the expansion of civilization does not presuppose resource scarcity, then when two civilizations meet, there should be far more room for accommodation than the dark forest theory allows.
- Third axiom: The chain of suspicion.
- One civilization cannot determine whether another civilization is benevolent or malevolent;
one civilization cannot determine whether another civilization considers it benevolent or malevolent;
one civilization cannot determine whether another civilization will attack it;
one civilization cannot determine whether another civilization means it goodwill or ill will;
one civilization cannot determine whether another civilization considers it well-intentioned or ill-intentioned;
one civilization cannot determine whether another civilization believes that its own attitude toward that civilization is benevolent or malevolent.
- One civilization cannot determine whether another civilization is benevolent or malevolent;
The book says: ‘The common species, similar cultures, shared interdependent ecosystem, and close distance of humanity mean that, in such an environment, the chain of suspicion can extend only one or two levels before communication dissolves it. But in space, the chain of suspicion may extend a very long way, and before communication can dissolve it, something like the Dark Forest Battle has already happened.’
The chain of suspicion becomes another major force driving the dark forest because communication between civilizations is extraordinarily difficult on the scale of light-years. So compared with mutual suspicion among civilizations on the same planet, civilizations in the universe will almost certainly assume the worst of one another. The more you think about it, the more wrong it feels—so why not strike first and wipe out the other side?
But this point has actually already been disproved by Cixin Liu himself, because the book contains ‘Sophon’ technology. The chain of suspicion is so severe because the distances are too vast and communication between civilizations is extremely difficult. But Sophon technology is precisely instant communication technology across space and time.
If even the Trisolarian civilization, which appears not to be the most advanced civilization in the Milky Way, has mastered Sophon technology, then other civilizations at roughly the same level or more advanced should also have mastered this kind of ‘instant communication tool’ across light-year distances. That greatly reduces the possibility of the chain of suspicion extending indefinitely. It’s like all the veteran hunters in the forest being equipped with walkie-talkies: when they notice something stirring, saying hello should be more reasonable than shooting first.
- Fourth axiom: Technological explosion.
- The book says that the speed and acceleration of civilizational progress need not be consistent. A weak civilization may well overtake a powerful one in a short time, triggered by internal or external factors (such as communication among cosmic civilizations).
The possibility of a technological explosion is therefore another important factor behind the emergence of the dark forest: if I cannot be sure that you won’t vastly surpass me in the near future, then I should strike first while I still have the ability to kill you.
If we consider technological explosion against the background that ‘Sophon technology is commonly mastered by advanced civilizations,’ it may not necessarily lead to the emergence of the dark forest either. Because communication is so convenient, the universe’s spatial scale is effectively shrunk enormously, and the game between different civilizations begins to look a bit like relations among civilizations on the same planet. So let’s look at the games among civilizations on Earth. Locally, dark-forest situations can indeed arise—advanced civilizations may want to eliminate less advanced ones. But that will not be the only way civilizations relate to one another.
3.BUG
Most of the analysis above is, of course, my own reasoning. But the chain of suspicion can be called an unquestionable serious bug in The Dark Forest. Because Sophons exist, the chain of suspicion is greatly shortened. The dark forest theory’s plausibility takes a serious hit.
Whether Liu Cixin had planned for this from the start or only realized the bug existed later, by the time he wrote The Three-Body Problem 3, he somehow managed to patch it with astonishing force! The Three-Body Problem 3 says that the Trisolarans once sent a sophon farther out into the universe, but after traveling only a few light-years, it lost contact with Trisolaris. It may have hit a higher-dimensional fragment, but even more likely, it ran into a trap or roadblock set by another advanced civilization—and into a black domain.
But in fact, this still cannot make up for the irrationality of the chain of suspicion as the theoretical foundation of the “Dark Forest” theory. Technologies such as black domains and dimensional-attack weapons seem to be harder to develop than sophons, so they presumably should have been invented only after sophons. In this vast universe, is it really impossible that during the interval between some civilization inventing sophons and inventing dimensional-attack weapons, it might use sophons to establish non-hostile relations and then develop them into an alliance?
Actually, it is impossible for the plot logic of a long novel to be one hundred percent airtight. In a long novel, bugs live forever. But as long as those bugs do not threaten the core logic of the plot, they are harmless. If a bug is serious enough to directly negate the plot’s core logic, though, it is a fatal bug. I think the existence of the “sophon” is a fatal bug.
Unfortunately, I think The Three-Body Problem 3 has fatal bugs like that too.
The Three-Body Problem 3’s Fatal Bug 1: Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales
The first fatal bug is Yun Tianming’s fairy tales.
Starting with The Three-Body Problem 2, one premise in the story has been questioned: Trisolarans are not good at trickery and schemes. In The Three-Body Problem 2, this is one of the premises that makes the Wallfacer Project possible (the second being that sophons cannot see “thought”); in The Three-Body Problem 3, it becomes the sole premise that allows Yun Tianming’s fairy tales to be transmitted successfully. Although the riddles in the fairy tales are hard to solve, the intention to convey information is extremely obvious. Preserving the information-containing tales in advance in a collection of fairy tales does disguise that intention to some extent, but the purpose behind his conversation with Cheng Xin is far too clear. Anyone on Earth who had read a few detective or suspense novels could guess what Yun Tianming was up to, yet Trisolaris does not become suspicious in the slightest.
In Liu Cixin’s design, “trickery” seems to be something rather like art. Someone who had spent their whole life looking only at Chinese paintings would naturally be baffled on suddenly seeing a Western oil painting, with no idea how to appreciate it—that is easy to understand. But would thought or “trickery” work the same way? Thought and “trickery” both follow some kind of logic: once you know A, you can follow the logic to B. Thought or “trickery” centered on logic is actually more like mathematics than art. So with enough intelligence, one ought to be able to learn to understand thought or “trickery,” regardless of whether Trisolarans themselves originally liked doing such things.
Even with the pitifully crude psychology humans have today, we can understand and even predict human behavior to some extent. Given the brilliance of Trisolaran intelligence, plus their centuries of dealing with humanity, they could hardly have been unable to see through such a simple trick.
In fact, since The Three-Body Problem 3 explicitly says that the Droplet launches its attack without hesitation as soon as Cheng Xin becomes the Swordholder, that precisely shows that Trisolaris understands human psychology and behavior quite deeply. Yun Tianming’s simple intention should not have escaped them.
The Three-Body Problem 3’s Fatal Bug 2: Black Domains
The second fatal bug is the safety declaration—the black domain.
The second bug is even more fatal. I think one of the most brilliant ideas in The Three-Body Problem 3 is the “safety declaration.” This premise should have been a perfect showcase for Liu Cixin’s astonishing ability to design plots.
When I read the part where Luo Ji asks whether safety declarations exist, I was so excited I nearly shouted. Who would have thought that besides a “suicide declaration,” there could also be a “safety declaration” that guaranteed one’s own safety? It breaks open the survival structure of weak civilizations under the “Dark Forest” that had been established since the second book. As for the “safety declaration,” the answer eventually revealed was originally very convincing too—Liu Cixin had actually thought of creating a black domain by lowering the speed of light!
Unfortunately, the “safety declaration” is not actually safe. Its safety is effortlessly demolished by a bug.
The black domain is “safe” because no object within it can ever escape, and everything inside it is absolutely isolated from everything outside, posing no threat to the outside world. Only then would an advanced civilization let you off, because in theory you have already been cut off from the world and can never pose any further threat to them. In one sentence: once you enter a black domain, you can never get out.
But in the novel, someone plainly does get out of a black domain. Guan Yifan and Cheng Xin fall into one, and eventually reappear in the universe. The method of escaping is absurdly simple!—all you need is to carry the entrance to a mini-universe with you. Once you fall into a black domain, open the door, enter the mini-universe, and, just as the sophon does in the mini-universe in the book, direct the door from inside to search for a suitable location. Open the door, and you are back in the universe.
As a result, escaping a black domain turns out to be something Trisolaris can do with ease. So for other “weak civilizations” roughly comparable to Trisolaris, inventing a way out should be no great challenge either.
So as a safety declaration, the black domain is completely useless.
As a defensive weapon, the black domain is basically useless too. Since Trisolaris can manufacture mini-universes, the more advanced civilizations in the universe should naturally have no trouble doing so. All they need to do is carry an entrance to a mini-universe with them, and they can withstand black-domain traps. Advanced-civilization starships that accidentally enter a black domain need only activate some emergency equipment, then open the door to a mini-universe and escape through it, just as Guan Yifan and Cheng Xin do.
I think this is The Three-Body Problem 3’s most fatal bug, a bug that shakes the novel’s core logic.
And so, the two brilliant ideas in The Three-Body Problem 3—the safety declaration and the mini-universe—end up killing each other.
Hopefully this is just a mistake in my understanding.
Still, when all is said and done, “wrecking the vibe” is just one of my obsessive-compulsive symptoms. So what if it has fatal bugs? The Three-Body Problem is still one of the greatest science-fiction novels I have ever read. Han Han once said that we are always trying to export Chinese culture to foreigners, but what we actually do is chase girls around while telling them that our “ancestors” were rich—that is useless. We spend all day abroad throwing money around to build Confucius Institutes and promote Dream of the Red Chamber, then complain that foreigners are blind and cannot understand Chinese culture; meanwhile, we casually leave a priceless living treasure like Liu Cixin off to one side. We are the blind ones.
If truly godlike civilizations exist in the heavens—gods above, if you are watching over us, please grant Liu Cixin a healthy body and a full measure of years, so that this brain-dead superfan can have a few more chances, while still alive, to follow his imagination and let my soul take flight.
People often say The Three-Body Problem is as grand as an epic, but really, that is just because we lack the words. An epic is actually far too small; it is nowhere near enough to describe the scale of the universe and light. Borrowing from Arthur C. Clarke and Liu Cixin’s fondness for naming eras, humanity may still be living in the “Epic Age,” which is why we describe everything as epic. One day, when humanity enters the “Science-Fiction Age,” we will say: “This epic is so magnificent, like reading a science-fiction novel.”
Space and time are infinite; I roam wherever I please.
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