Greetings to fans of modern science fiction and presenting to you the book Chinese writer Liu Cixin (劉慈欣): “The Three-Body Problem (三体),” which I contributed to the translation.
Until recently, Liu Cixin was virtually unknown in the West, but extremely popular in China. He is 52 years old and the author of several short stories and novels. He is best known for the trilogy “Memory of the Earth’s Past,” which includes: “The Three-Body Problem” (2007), “ Dark forest(2008) and The End of Death (2010). In 2014, he was noticed by the American publishing house Tor Books and released the first book of the trilogy, entitled “The Three-Body Problem,” which was translated by Chinese science fiction writer and translator Ken Liu, who lives in the United States. The novel immediately attracted the attention of critics and already in 2015 received the most prestigious book prize"Hugo" as the best fantasy novel of the year. In the same year, a translation into English of his second book was published and the third part will be published this year. The title of the book is taken from the famous problem of celestial mechanics, according to the calculation gravitational interaction three bodies: ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_body Problem, which is directly related to its plot.
It is no secret to many that the publishing industry in Russia is in decline and readers cannot wait for translations of many bright new foreign science fiction titles for a long time, and sometimes do not receive them at all. Then amateur translators get down to business, enthusiasts who do not expect material reward (although they do not refuse it), who translate solely out of love for art, no matter how pretentious it may sound. It is worth noting that they are “amateurs” only because they do not earn money from it, but the quality of the translation itself is in no way inferior to a professional one. And when (if) the book is officially published, the comparison is very often not in favor of the publisher.
The same thing happened with the Three-Body Problem. According to insiders, the publishers had no plans to translate and release this book, but it deserves it. An experienced amateur translator, sonate10, who has already written more than two dozen books, decided to get down to business. And although this was her first experience translating hard science fiction, she coped with this task remarkably well, despite all the difficulties, and there were many of them. Firstly, sonate10 does not know Chinese and the translation is double - from English to Russian; secondly, the novel contains a lot of scientific and computer terminology; and thirdly, there are many features of Chinese life that are incomprehensible to the ordinary Russian person. That's why I was working on the book the whole team: actual translation and final editing - sonate10, the last word always remains with her - this is her style of work; literary editor and specialist in computer terminology - vconst, your humble servant; scientific editor - Dmitry from Flibusta, his help was invaluable in describing the characteristics of the radio telescope and other scientific subtleties; Chinese language consultant - Albert Krisskoy from the Eastern Hemisphere forum, helped a lot in solving controversial issues, comparing the English and Russian texts with the Chinese original, did a lot of work to ensure that the translation differed as little as possible from Chinese text. We present the result of this work for your consideration.
The novel, for the modern reader, spoiled by the luminaries of Western science fiction, is ambiguous. On the one hand, it is somewhat naive, on the other, you can find moments in it that may seem secondary and borrowed. All this can be explained by the fact that Chinese and European cultures, for a long time were mutually isolated from each other by the most various reasons, not in last resort because of language barrier, because of this, Chinese readers and writers did not have such a rich selection of translated Western fiction as we do. Therefore, the novel is somewhat similar to the science fiction of the 70-80s, although it contains modern computer technology, MMORPG, a virtual reality and string theory. Another feature of the novel, I would say, is that the plot plays too dominant a role in it. The idea is primary, and the characters are secondary; in “The Three Body Problem” even the main characters are written somewhat simply, the characters are outlined in broad strokes, without detailed study. There are almost no bright characters and therefore, most of all I remember the rude, but very insightful policeman, and not the scientists. And there are still many characters whom we would like to know better, but the writer deprived us of this opportunity. Also in the novel there are some stretches, from the point of view of the scientific nature of what is happening, but this does not spoil it, in the end, this is fantasy, not scientific work. On the other hand, the merits of the novel include how vividly and in detail it describes the “Cultural Revolution,” a topic close and painful for many Chinese, but not very well known outside its borders. And this is not just an episode, the “Cultural Revolution” plays a very important role in the book.
The translation process was extremely exciting for everyone. I left detailed comments in the editorial text about the operation of computer technology or explanations as to why this word or sentence was edited in this particular way and not otherwise, in mail correspondence we discussed Chinese life, we “walked” along the streets where the action of some chapters took place, in Chinese analogue of Google Street, they argued a lot about the characters and plot moves, they broke a lot of copies over translation options for this or that expression or paragraph. There were also funny moments, for example, a discussion of how to call a woman involved in science: *There is such a joke, not a joke - I don’t know what to call it. Those who call a woman doctor a doctor say: “a woman doctor is also a doctor, and a doctor is a doctor’s wife.” The poetess is the poet's wife, the cook is the cook's wife. A scientist is a dog, and a woman is a scientist.*
Sometimes sonat10 produced absolutely hilarious gems, due to the fact that she was tired and her eyes were very blurry, for example:
*Two boys, dressed very lightly, were colder than the others - they took off their dokhas to cover their burden. In the room they unrolled the dohas. Beneath them was a large pot, from which steam rose, full of sauerkraut and dumplings with pork.*
Or when I got stupid, mixed up the time of action and decided that the description of modern computer equipment actually dates back to the sixties. It was extremely exciting and very hard work, I'm glad to have this experience and meet you interesting people.
I’ll tell you a secret that work is currently underway on a Russian amateur translation of the second part of the trilogy, but I’m no longer involved in this project. Follow the news!
Book page on the Fantlab website: fantlab.ru/work602234
And on Flibusta: flibusta.is/b/441861
For lovers of warm and lamp paper, the small-circulation publishing house plans to release a couple of dozen printed copies: fantlab.ru/edition172822
Translator group on VKontakte: [Translations sonate10/rosekinn](https://vk.com/club83926979)
Afterwards, an article by MagisterLudi, which prompted me to finally write this note: (https://habrahabr.ru/company/edison/blog/282804/)
A quick note about the anonymity of the team working on the book. According to modern legislation, no matter how ridiculous it may sound, such transfers are illegal. The translator's nickname is easy to Google and finding her contacts is not difficult, but I ask you not to raise this topic in the comments, just so that once again not to tease the geese, especially since she had already received complaints in the form of: “Well, now that the translation has gone viral, the publishing houses will definitely not publish the book...”.
For those who have already read the book, please refrain from spoilers; please write to me about errors and typos.
Happy reading!
Much has already been said here about the positive aspects of the novel, so I will focus exclusively on the negative aspects. And, unfortunately, there are enough of them, and they relate to the logic of the main plot, so that the reader will not be able to avoid them even if he wants to. Of course, I hide all criticism in a spoiler.
Spoiler (plot reveal)
While the novel tells about dramatic twists and turns earthly history And mysterious game, there is nothing to complain about, but as soon as aliens appear on the stage, dry out your oars, as they say. The first thing that catches your eye is the cardboard nature of the Trisolarians. Of course, in a simple Hollywood film adaptation they will look great, but from a civilization millions of years old you expect something more complex. Even more perplexing is their science, which is capable of subjugating higher dimensions (up to the eleventh) and creating a self-propelled artificial intelligence inside a single proton. At the same time, they don’t have the slightest good orbital telescope, which at once would find a lot of planets suitable for habitation, and even the same Earth, located only four light years away? And this is taking into account that the question of searching for other planets for Trisolarans is a matter of life and death, and not as for humanity - simple curiosity (which, however, has already discovered “the planet Alpha Centauri B b with a mass close to Earth’s in orbit around α Centauri B"!). And this is taking into account that the scientific and technological progress of the Trisolarans does not develop at an explosive exponential rate, as on Earth, but smoothly, evenly, that is, it takes a lot of time - hundreds, thousands of years, during which it is not only possible to find new worlds, but also to fly on them for the purpose of exploration and preparation for settlement. Trisolarians, instead active search, have surrounded their planet with a bunch of radios and are waiting for someone to make themselves known. (Despite the fact that they, in general, do not need a planet with intelligent life, they simply need a new home, that is, a planet suitable for life, and one, of course, is much easier to discover than one inhabited by intelligent creatures, which, in addition, will have to also clean up). For a super-civilization that is threatened by imminent destruction, this is super-unforgivable stupidity.
Another absurdity: their superproton. Invisible, invulnerable, practically omnipotent, in instant communication with his home planet - and how is it used? Like a cannon shooting at sparrows (or even mosquitoes). They didn’t come up with anything better than to scare Chinese scientists by exposing them to photographic film!!! Flash with relict radiation! Hang around in synchrophasotrons! Allegedly, this will not allow earthly scientists to advance basic science to such an extent as to meet the alien fleet arriving four hundred years later fully armed. But excuse me: after all, your miracle proton can unfold as a two-dimensional sphere around an entire planet, completely blocking it solar energy! So do it around the Earth. Can you imagine what kind of civilizational collapse will come when the temperature under this sphere drops to cosmic zero, the oceans freeze, the atmosphere turns into liquid state, flora and fauna will die, etc.?! Even if the earthlings manage to fire rockets towards the sphere in order to break it, it doesn’t matter: let the proton fold up each time, letting the rockets through, and then turn around again. After all, he does it instantly. People will only empty their entire combat reserve. One proton is enough to plunge humanity into a new stone Age, or even completely sterilize the Earth (after all, we have not yet learned how to use heat any effectively earth's core). The fleet arriving in half a millennium will only have to launch restoration and terraforming programs for its own needs, while they themselves dehydrate while patiently waiting. Surely they know how to wait patiently. At this time, starting from the sterilization of the Earth, the Trisolarans would have set up enough ships to transport the entire population to a new place, and not wait for the completion of the campaign of only their first fleet (By the way, for good measure, Mars would have been enough for them - according to Compared to their native “hell”, this is a completely friendly little world, requiring only a small effort, which does not seem excessive from a supercivilization that controls eleven dimensions).
The initial formulation of the Trisolarian problem is also puzzling. Firstly, strictly speaking, we are talking about a system of four bodies, because in addition to the three suns, the planet Trisolaris itself also participates in the movement, so this is a “problem of four bodies” (or even then a “problem of three suns”). Secondly, the triple system of Alpha Centauri has completely normal, stable, computable orbits, and not the unpredictable chaos that the author portrays to us. Thirdly, it is absolutely impossible to believe that after those terrible cataclysms that tore Trisolaris from time to time (so that the crust melted, “the red-hot substance of the core flowed out,” and the planet itself somehow even tore in two), there were at least some “ archival records" from previous lost civilizations. I really can’t believe that after such a Disruption it took only ninety million years for life not only to start sprouting again, but also to appear. new civilization(even though the Ages of Chaos continue to happen). This is already from the category of unscientific fiction!
Thus, the mentioned logical errors and miscalculations greatly reduce general impression from the novel, relegating it to the category of very naive and superficial pseudoscientific reading, something like “The Da Vinci Code.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the upcoming film adaptation turns out to be the same soulless piece of work as the film with the once very talented Tom Hanks. And the real one science fiction writes Peter Watts.
Rating: 4
Chinese SF is now at a stage of development similar to the Western Golden Age, and it too is developing its own instant classics; most a prominent representative Liu's novel deserves to be considered for it, as its impact on Chinese fandom is comparable to Dune in America in the 1960s. Liu admits that he wrote the trilogy without much hope of continuous sales from the first to last book and was quite surprised when the third novel in the series, “Immortality in Death,” where the action is practically divorced from earthly China and jumps to the most remote corners of the universe on the eve of the heat death of the Universe, gained the greatest popularity in the sinosphere and actually forced readers to rediscover the two works that preceded it .
Personally, The Three Body Problem reminded me in style of Theranesia and, to a lesser extent, Diaspora. On the other hand, TTT itself is more like Ender's Game. The problem here is rather that the setting is rather dubious with scientific point vision. To begin with, the original invader system is stable. We can see this from Earth, fortunately it’s not far away. And in general, if you want to talk about the interweaving of Contact with genocide in this system (in in this case this is the Cultural Revolution and the cutting down of relict forest... and the name for the forest and the world, as shown in the second novel of the series, is one), better than the early Harrison (“Device from the Centauri”), since it was recently translated into Russian.
But! If only for the sake of the original explanation of the Fermi Paradox, Liu is worth reading (comparisons with “The Rose and the Worm” are inevitable here, but they are strained; the primary source of Ibatullin’s work is, suddenly, Wright with his “Count to a Trillion”; these authors are quite niche, especially Ibatullin, and Liu wrote before both of them and gained popularity in China comparable to Martin’s). However, if you don't like Egan, then most likely you won't like Liu, his Chinese equivalent: the novel is more similar to the works of Egan, and not to Wright’s cycle about Menelaus Montrose.
The reason for the phenomenal popularity of the Three-Body Problem is not as obvious as one might think. This is not just a landmark work in a new genre for Chinese literature, solid, tightly knit, based on current and promising scientific ideas fiction. This is also an encyclopedic collection of Easter eggs, winking sky lanterns at Euro-Atlantic classics (for example, the way aliens are integrated into the plot is an undisguised, purposeful reference to Card with his fantasy virtual game in Battle School). And the value of the proposed solution to the Fermi paradox lies mainly in how well it fits into the Chinese model of expansion into the Euro-Atlantic world and competition with local brands. It is no coincidence that Weibo is full of accounts of Chinese IT specialists with the names of characters in the novel, and a famous Chinese scientist wrote a book specifically dedicated to the setting of the “Three Body Problem” in the light of modern physics and mathematical economics.
And finally, this is not the first, but the most successful in Chinese literature information age essay on given topic- requiem for the victims Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. Liu is on the side of the victims of the Maoist regime, but is capable, if the plot so requires, of moving into the skins of young passionaries, thrown onto illusory barricades only to be pushed into a pit with snakes by intellectuals from the opposition by the inertia of a blind weapon. After all, the principle of “Fire and Forget” in China has not yet been replaced by the “Let Others Do” noted by Lem, and when Ye Wenjie tries to use the Sun to amplify the signal, she is stopped by party inquisitors, for whom daylight appears as a celestial counterpart to the galleon symbol of China. Chinese civilization remembers what she had to go through on her way out of the next turn of the Malthusian spiral in an attempt to curb social mechanisms, time after time calling tyrants like Qin Shihuang, Zhu Yuanzhang or Chairman Mao out of the historical abyss. On the other hand, is it really worthy to prefer the tyranny of a man who has done seventy right deeds to thirty mistakes over the domination of xenomorphs, as the fifth column of Trisolarians on Earth believes? In the end, the motives of our race are more or less clear, and what motivates the aliens, wandering in the enchanted forest of the Galaxy, is known only to the servants at the altar of the spirit of Enrico Fermi.
By the way, “The Three-Body Problem” was written in 2007, when for this problem, which is indecomposable in general case for independent equations of less complexity, only three families were known special solutions, ideologically dating back to Euler and Lagrange. On this moment, thanks to the growing capabilities of computer simulators, there are already sixteen of them. http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.0181 True, Sundmann series, which provide an analytical solution, are still of little use in modern level development of computer technology.
Rating: 6
Chinese literary fiction has long had one a big problem. Due to the cheerful legislation and attitude towards censorship in the Celestial Empire, it actually did not exist at all. Even with foreign science fiction there were certain problems; for example, the Party decided that time travel was a pernicious invention of evil capitalists, and learn a foreign language in order to at least become familiar with Wells’ hoary classics.
And here, Chinese fiction, was finally given a chance to raise its head. And how are things going there? As always with something that is essentially just beginning its journey. Mostly not very good.
The “three body problem” is a very weak thing. The techniques of old science fiction, just feeling its way, are combined in it with the idiocy of opuses of our time, when a civilization that has existed for many, many years and seems to have exorbitant capabilities behaves like a bunch of petty dirty tricks and makes plans worthy of third-rate movie villains. One gets the bad feeling that in the West they began to sharply promote the book only because it suddenly became necessary to be friends with the Chinese, and therefore there was a reason to give them some prizes, including in literature. And for this it was necessary to urgently find at least something to which these same awards could somehow be given. And there was nothing better than “Three Bodies”. Or maybe they were just the first to come to hand... In any case, there is absolutely nothing outstanding in this book by modern standards.
I look forward to the time when “Hugo” will need to be given out to, say, Indians. Otherwise, besides the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, I haven’t read anything from them.
Rating: 5
Completely illogical and contradictory assumptions for hard science fiction.
Spoiler (plot reveal) (click on it to see)
An astronomically unreal system. The evolution of complex life in such a system is impossible.
I understand that all this is an allusion to Chinese history, changes of dynasties, periods of chaos between them, shifting of the heavenly mandate. But all this is squeezed out per hour, one teaspoon at a time.
The plot part is very boring, in general there is no plot, anyone can guess how to explain the inexplicable now. If this book had been published in the 70s, then it would have been new and unusual, but now it is a compilation of secondary ideas. The meters said that there should be a secret in the book, but here the Trisolians are a failure.
Judging by the reviews, I was expecting something in the spirit of Greg Egan or Neal Stevenson, but what I got was complete postmodernism.
Rating: 3
Rating: no
Intriguing and unexpected. Perhaps such epithets most accurately describe the “Three-Body Problem.” Starting with a hair-raising scene of the execution of a physics professor at the height of the Cultural Revolution in China in the 60s, the author finds a way to structure the story in such a way as to surprise us every 10-20 pages. As soon as you start turning over science fiction clichés in your mind, trying to guess where the story will take us this time, bam - a completely new thing appears, turning everything upside down. At some point it even begins to seem that there is no system in this. The author is absent-minded, he has a lot of thoughts and he thinks them chaotically, confusing both himself and us.
But then, somewhere in the middle of the book, something more suddenly begins to emerge behind everything that has already been said. The author turns an invisible switch, gravity appears, and all these incoherent pieces drift towards each other, coming together. And I must say - this is real magic. When glimpses of an Idea appear between the lines even before it is spoken. Magic and talent.
Here, perhaps, we could talk more about the heroes. There are certain subgenres of fiction (hard science, usually) where characters turn into functions (Greg Egan, for example, writes this way). In principle, there is nothing wrong with this. This is the world of research, the world of experiment. Human factor is abolished as unnecessary, introducing only interference and errors. Liu’s book doesn’t exactly belong to this type of literature, it’s just that the human element here is the weakest element. The motivation of the heroes looks somewhat simplified, in some places even stupid.
Rating: 9
I don’t remember very clearly where this book came from on my phone, but with some degree of probability I saw it in a bookstore in the same series in which even Stevenson was published. Yeah, Stevenson, I thought... probably... Or I don’t know. Then I looked at the ratings (very high), saw that the novel was given a “Hugo” in 2015, and “Hugo” is not just for you, including in recent years. Before the Chinese, Ann Leckie received it for a good, actually, piece - “Servants of Justice”. "Hugo" is not always given for straight brilliant books, but in general there are a lot of famous and respected science fiction writers on the list, often with good works- from Vinge, Gaiman, Stevenson, Simmons and Bujold to Asimov, Le Guin, Zelazny and Heinlein, who thundered in the 60s. And now Liu Cixin.
Honestly, I don't remember such disappointments in modern science fiction. Usually such books are abandoned within the first 50 pages, and Liu's fate would have been exactly the same if he hadn't included the part about the Cultural Revolution in China at the beginning. This block lulls the reader and promises him a Chinese flavor, but in fact, as soon as the fantastic part is turned on, the narrative turns into a stupid pumpkin, and in the end it slides into some kind of outright heresy about crazy alien Martians, whose level of development resembles drug-addled students of some kind. some agricultural college on initial stage training.
It’s hard to imagine why the Chinese author was given the Hugo, but it’s about the same thing as Nobel Prize peace to Barack Obama in 2009. So Liu Cixin wrote a sequel to “The Three-Body Problem,” but I’m even scared to imagine how it ended.
However, the experience is good. He says, in particular, that one should not blindly trust the ratings.
Rating: 6
To be honest, I don’t understand at all how you can talk about some of the ideas contained in this trilogy, condemn them, argue. Of course, there are ideas there, but... Still, science fiction (whether hard, soft, or whatever) is literature, and fiction. With its own characteristics, but literature. It’s not enough to come up with something, you need to present it and, preferably, make it interesting to read, in order to captivate and evoke emotions. So, there is no trace of any of this here. This is how a fifth grader could probably put it school essay. The text causes nothing but bewilderment, annoyance and even shame for the author.
It’s even more surprising that there are so many awards, especially the Hugo. I have only two explanations: either this is the notorious political correctness, or everything I wrote above refers not to Liu Cixin’s novel, but to its translation into Russian.
Rating: 2
Monstrous, simply insane rubbish. Style, motivation of the characters, plot development, description, characters, world, aliens - everything is described at the level of a maximum 12-year-old teenager. The author is not aware of logic at all. Don’t waste your time, this “fiction” will seem flat, stupid and boring idiocy even to a smart schoolchild. I won't waste time describing it.
Rating: 1
Very long, very detailed and very boring. The book, in style, is an eerie fusion of Dan Brown, Umberto Eco and Paolo Coelho, only without the adventurism of the first, the grace of the second and the laid-back cynicism of the third, and as a result we have what we have - indigestible sand-lime brick. I don't recommend it.
Rating: 2
There is such a maxim in the film “Contact” that there is no evidence of the existence of another intelligent life truly capable of overcoming cosmic distances- Do not need. Otherwise we are screwed on all counts. Because a civilization that has such resources will transform us into a resource, or even simply destroy us.
So I’ve plowed almost (well, almost) 500 pages of this book, but I have no desire to iron the laces and run to give my hard-earned money for it in the name of possession, I have a desire to get a tourist hatchet somewhere and use it to bale the skulls of earthling characters, Trisolians, and even himself the author (and most likely, the author in the first place) - to that point of assembly, until the cold knot of fear that now lies in my subconscious is released.
The first thing that resonated with me was a realistic description of the “cultural revolution” of the 60s, when masses of people destroyed their own fellow citizens in the name of a bright future; repentance for the events of that nightmare, in essence, came to the surface civil war in combination with genocide and terror of a pseudo-search for a national idea.
These events are the beginning of the subsequent conditions that determined the life of one of the heroines, and the validity of her actions.
And the first thing that was rejected was the ascension of the Celestial Empire, I understand everything, I understand that without “if you don’t help it, you won’t go”, and even more so in ideological China, I understand about the law of the transition of quantity into quality and I am happy for the development of the basis and superstructure of this country, but(!) why I couldn’t shake the feeling of censorship and the author’s shuffling towards his own government, huh? In a plot where the whole, absolutely the whole world in China is under threat, a Chinese man runs around China under the supervision of a Chinese and reveals a conspiracy against all humanity. And it reveals! Not once has a secret service agent led by a police officer... I know about three billion Chinese, but why was there no place for other races and nationalities in the rescue team? homo sapiens sapiens and their governments, which sponsor and coordinate the confrontation, is incomprehensible. They are mentioned, but this is how I’ll tell you about the rain in Uruguay, having never been there. And China and the Chinese turned out to be like a reflection in a polished round doorknob - wherever you turn, everywhere this cartoonishly refracted snob will be poking. It turned out convex, but too much.
About problem of three bodies in relation to Trisolaris, I will not tell you anything, because I have never been an astrophysicist or a planetary scientist, but even in the conditions of the possible destruction of their race, I am not ready to show sympathy for them, since my own skin is closer to my meat and in general I want to live.
The Trisolarians are honest, they are honestly flying to turn us inside out. I do not agree to be friends under such conditions, especially when my friendship is not required.
There is one more aspect - the author explains complex things in a very accessible way, I liked the descriptions of technologies, I didn’t like how they were used in the plot, but humanity has such a stable characteristic - invent or discover something, and we will figure out how to use it in the form of a weapon.
I also liked the psychology. How physicists pretended to be “lyricists” so that they would not be left in a closed facility for “lifetime”, how they were saved from madness in a way that was quite familiar to most, how E’s state of mind was presented, how her relatives ended up in different sides barricades, so different that nothing can put the fragments back together, I like the gloominess of the note on which the first book of the trilogy ended. Such small inserts are sometimes more warming than the whole extravaganza of the idea.
As a result, I want to part ways in the night of Era Permanent Order a fire, burn a couple of dry wood on it (and after reading the book, you will understand my very inhumane message), drink, if not alcohol, then scalding tea with ginger and, raising a fig to the depths of space, say to all possible neighbors: “Take a bite! Get there first!”
In terms of impact on the emotional side of me - 11 out of 10.
According to the logic of the story arcs - 7 out of 10, and then with such a stretch and the appearance that the gaps are small, and not the size of Baikal.
Rating: 7
The book is a disappointment - this is how this novel by a Chinese science fiction writer can be described in a nutshell.
I started reading with anticipation and expectation of something as beautiful as the works of Stanislaw Lem. And at first the author was really able to make an impression: the spectacular, bright first chapter promised the spirit of revolution and Chinese flavor. For half of the book, the author manages to intrigue and make you read avidly, not least thanks to the beautiful images created in simple and spare language, but with rich accents in the right places.
However, very quickly the narrative begins to sag. Personally, I found it boring to read the chapters dedicated to computer game, For example. And in the last third of the book, some unimaginable wildness begins to happen, and the work begins to resemble not hard science fiction, but a cheap space opera. One can make allowances for the author’s assumption with three suns (after all, the same Frank Herbert is also far from scientific with his “Dune,” which did not prevent the book from becoming a recognized masterpiece of science fiction), although this model itself, in particular, the development of life in such conditions, seems absurd even to the reader inexperienced in astrophysics. But this does not justify all the nonsense that is poured onto the pages in last chapters. The entire third part causes unimaginable boredom and a desire to scroll through rather than read it. Another civilization - kindergarten, which makes you laugh. I’ll just keep silent about the instant decoding of an alien language.
As before, this book turned out to be a chance find, and unexpectedly fascinating; as much as is generally conceivable in the case of solid NF. There is literally everything here that makes it possible to love the latter, and at the same time the book is devoid of rough-hewn corners, unfortunately, characteristic of such brontosaurus of intellectual fiction as Greg Egan, whose characters (sometimes even the detective plot) are an appendage of the concepts of a natural science theorist. The main characters of Cixin, by contrast, are intelligible, their personal death and life are justified.
I was drawn into the areas of the Celestial Cultural Revolution, which was in the throes of rebellion, because of the plot, written in just a few short sentences - although, in fact, it was extremely tactless on the part of the publisher to unfold the ENTIRE plot on the back of the paper publication.
Spoiler (plot reveal) (click on it to see)
In the sixties, from a Chinese “radar” facility, a repressed astrophysicist manages to establish a dialogue with a representative alien civilization, whose continued survival is in question. The creature calls itself a “pacifist” and asks the woman to never try to make contact again.
Nowadays, a coalition of Earth forces learns of an impending alien intervention and mobilizes its forces. But at the same time, the Adventist movement was also being formed - people who hate humanity and intend to help the aliens in its destruction.
At the forefront of defending the planet from foreign occupation are martinets not dressed in exoskeletons. square jaws, high-frequency lasers and masers, but eccentric recluses and scientific minds accidentally involved in the confrontation. This is how, in fact, it will most likely happen if, God forbid, Tsixin’s scenario happens real world: Atlantean brain activity, multiplied by the sticky sweat of irresistible horror of mental abilities enemy.
The writer creates a place in the text for meta-theories, which some inert science fiction writers would stretch out into several good stories; in particular, for assumptions that put to shame the horror stories about self-replicating assemblers, and which give a chill down the spine:
“The shooter’s hypothesis is as follows: the sniper shoots at the target, penetrating it every ten centimeters.
Now imagine that the surface of the target is inhabited by a race of intelligent two-dimensional beings.
Their scientists, observing the Universe, discovered a great law: “Every ten centimeters in the Universe there is a hole.”
They mistook the shooter’s momentary whim for a law of nature.”
I don’t want to rush to conclusions, but it seems that Li Cixin, lordly parading through crowds of recognized masters, already occupies an honorable place in the pantheon of artists of the modern science fiction novel. But when “The Problem...” was completed, the writer was only forty-three years old!
As for the physical and technical side of the matter, in my opinion, the book was not written at all because of them. This is science fiction based on sociology, not physics and technology. Here is described the behavior of masses of people in eras of great crises, as in real society(cultural revolution in China, ecological catastrophy), and in the fictional one by the writer (Trisolarian crisis). And this is exactly what was done masterfully. And in the next book there will be even more - there is a real political detective story. In general, there are many layers, of which “space opera” is by no means the most important.
三体 Copyright © 2006 by 刘慈欣 (Liu Cixin) © FT Culture (Beijing) Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved
Series development Andrey Saukov, Nikolay Plutakhin
Illustrations on the cover and in the text Nikolai Plutakhin
© O. Glushkova, translation into Russian, 2017
© Edition in Russian, design. LLC Publishing House E, 2017
Translator's Preface
Read in 2014 English translation the novel by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin 三体 (pinyin “santi”, Russian “Three Body Problem”), and especially after this book received the Hugo Award in 2015, I was inspired by the idea of translating it for the Russian reader. I don't know Chinese language, so I translated from English. This took a lot of time, because before that I had never translated pure science fiction. I had to communicate a lot with specialists: sinologists, physicists, programmers, and the like. In the process of writing the translation, I had to become closely acquainted with string theory, and with the structure of the Sun, and with cosmology, and with the history of China (especially during the “cultural revolution”), and so on and so forth. I tormented everyone who had even a remote connection with China or science with questions. What kept me moving forward was my love for the book and sheer sporting stubbornness.
Translation from Chinese into English was made by a wonderful American science fiction writer Chinese origin Ken Liu. It was a pleasure to work with his text. The novel talks quite a lot about the times and realities of the “cultural revolution”, not very well known in “ big world“, therefore, both the author himself and Ken Liu provided the text with a significant number of footnotes that are absolutely necessary for understanding the text. I, for my part, also had to contribute to the footnotes, since there are many scientific terms and facts about which most readers have only a very vague idea. So, the notes in the book belong to three authors: Liu Cixin himself; Ken Liu, translator of the novel into English; and to me, who translated it into Russian; they are designated accordingly as “Approx. author", "Approx. K.L." and “Approx. transl."
I am deeply grateful to my assistant Konstantin Vasenin for the help and support in creating this translation; knowledgeable and sensitive consultant Dmitry Nakamura; Albert of Chris, an experienced dragoman, who carefully checked the text against the Chinese original; Gar Garych, who told me a lot of new and interesting things about China during the “cultural revolution”; Red China Devil for his invaluable advice; other participants and forum administration " Eastern Hemisphere", to all my friends and fans, and to the incomparable, magnificent, magical Mr. Google. Thanks a lot, everyone!
E Family
Ye Zhetai – physicist, professor at Tsinghua University
Shao Lin – wife of Ye Zhetai, physicist
Ye Wenjie – daughter of Ye Zhetai, astrophysicist
Ye Wenxue – sister of Ye Wenjie, member of the Red Guard organization
Base "Krasny Bereg"
Lei Zhicheng – political commissar of the Red Bank base
Ian Vaining – Chief Engineer base "Krasny Bereg" former student Ye Zhetai
Present tense
Yang Dong - daughter of Ye Wenjie and Yang Weining, physicist, specialist in string theory
Ding Yi – close friend Yang Dong, theoretical physicist
Wang Miao – researcher in the field of nanomaterials
Shi Qiang - police detective also known as Da Shi
Chang Weisi - Major General of the People's Liberation Army of China
Shen Yufei - Japanese, physicist, member of the Frontiers of Science Society
Wei Cheng - husband of Shen Yufei, brilliant mathematician, recluse
Pan Han – biologist, friend/acquaintance of Shen Yufei and Wei Cheng, member of the Frontiers of Science society
Sha Ruishan - astronomer, one of Ye Wenjie's students
Mike Evans - heir to an oil tycoon
Stanton - Colonel Marine Corps USA, head of Operation Guzheng
SILENT SPRING
Years of Madness
China, 1967
For the second day, the Red Union was besieging the headquarters of the Red Guard Brigade named after the Twenty-eighth of April. Red flags fluttered tirelessly around the besieged building, like fires constantly thirsty for firewood.
The commander of the Red Union was consumed with anxiety, but not because of the enemy: the two measly hundred Red Guards from the April Twenty-Eighth Brigade were mere suckers compared to the fighters of the Red Union, founded in 1966, at the very beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The Red Union Red Guards, who took part in revolutionary campaigns throughout the country and saw Chairman Mao's speeches in Tiananmen Square, were experienced and seasoned fighters.
Yet their commander was afraid. He was afraid of two dozen cast-iron stoves inside the building, filled with explosives and connected by a common electric detonator. He did not see them, but he felt them, just as iron feels the attraction of a magnet. If one of the besieged turns the switch, everyone will die in a gigantic explosion - both revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries.
And the youths from the Brigade named after the Twenty-eighth of April were really capable of such madness. Unlike the stern men and women of the first generation of Red Guards, these rebels were like a pack of mad wolves on hot coals.
Suddenly a thin figure appeared on the roof of the building beautiful girl with a huge red Brigade banner in his hands. Her appearance was met with a cacophony of gunfire. The attackers had a wide variety of weapons: from obsolete American carbines, Czech machine guns and Japanese .38-caliber shotguns to the latest rifles and machine guns adopted by the People's Liberation Army of China and stolen from its arsenals after the publication of the August Editorial. There were even spears and Chinese swords - dadao. All modern history in a concise manner.
Members of the Brigade have staged similar “demonstration performances” before. They climbed onto the roof, waved flags, shouted slogans into a megaphone, showered the attackers with leaflets... As a rule, the brave men, including both men and women, managed to escape from the hail of bullets, earning honor and glory for their feat.
The girl on the roof obviously had no doubt that she would succeed too. She waved a battle banner, glowing like her fiery youth, and firmly believed that her enemies would burn to ashes in the fire of revolution, that tomorrow a new, perfect world would be born from the fervor and heat of her blood. The girl was intoxicated by this shining scarlet dream... but then a bullet pierced her chest.
Her fifteen-year-old body was so tender that the bullet pierced right through it without stopping for a moment. The young warrior and her banner flew from the roof; the light figure seemed to fall slower than the red banner, like a bird that did not want to leave the sky.
The Red Union soldiers screamed with joy. They rushed to the building, grabbed the thin lifeless body of the girl and tore the banner out of her hands. Raising trophies above their heads, they celebrated for a while, and then threw the deceased onto the gate leading to the courtyard of the complex.
B O Most of the metal bars that made up the gate were gone - they had been torn down early in the faction wars to be used as spears - but a couple still stood. The girl's body was impaled on their points. At that moment, it seemed to some that it twitched and came back to life for a moment.