The Three Body Problem

What a weird book. This is apparently a major hit in China, where there's not much of a scifi market. It's the first in a (... sigh) trilogy, and only just out in English in the last year. I haven't read much modern chinese literature, but this feels very asian to me, in keeping with the japanese books I've read. Cixin Liu, like Haruku Murakami, never bought into that 'show, don't tell' maxim. They both write in clear, simple sentences - but they definitely tell. 'He saw a frightening scene. This made him feel afraid. He felt afraid for a short time.'

The book begins during the Cultural Revolution, which I am embarrassingly ignorant about, so I wasn't sure how much of the description was historically accurate and how much was dramatically-licensed.

Noted on January 12, 2015