I started watching the SyFy series of the same name on Netflix, so got this book to make sense of the TV series.
The series made a lot more sense after I read the book. First of all, both the series and the book, switches back and forth between time periods and also between current events and a virtual reality game called Three Body. The story is much easier to follow in the book.
Here is the premise of the story. It is based upon the fact that the three body problem is "chaotic" and it does not have a closed form solution. What am I talking about? Although, most people are not orbital mechanics experts, I believe I can assume that most people can understand the concept of the two body problem. Sun-earth, earth-moon, earth-satellite are all two body problems. These are governed by Newton's law of gravitation The orbit of the smaller body around the larger body can be mathematically described by an elliptical orbital shape. That's how we know when the seasons will occur, when night and day will occur and also when and how high tides will be. However, if there are three bodies (stars or planets) of similar sizes, then their motion cannot be expressed by a closed form solution and the motion can be wild (chaotic is the word, NOT random), stable and unstable, depending on conditions. In this story, the Trisolarans live on a planet in a three body system where an advanced civilization will get destroyed due to the upcoming unstable positioning of their three stars. For example, at one stage all three stars are aligned with each other and with the planet with life of it. What will happen if such positioning takes place? The gravitational forces will add up and anything on the planet that is not "tied down" will get sucked into the closest star, hence the end of civilization on that planet. Think about the Poseidon Adventure (if you have seen it) but only on a much larger scale. Remember that this is happening in cosmic time scale, so the civilization can see this situation coming up and try to cope with it. The freaky solution is to "dehydrate" the whole civilization and store the flattened/folded bodies until the situation stabilizes after a few million or billion (earth years). After the stabilized situation comes up then hydrate everyone to restart the civilazation! Like this solution?
Trisolarans are looking for a world to colonize to survive. One person on the watch on earth, Ye Wenjie, at a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) like site in China transmits a strong signal that can reach the Trisolar system 4 light years away and receives a reply 8 years (round trip delay) later, apparently from a pacifist Trisolaran that says repeatedly, "Do not Reply because the Trisolarans mean to exterminate all life on earth to colonize it for themselves." Spoiler alert. Ye has lost all hope in humanity to survive in the long run. So, she replies anyway.
Now, the Trisolaran know the location of a habitable planet to colonize. They send a fleet towards earth to colonize it. But, thankfully they can only travel at one-tenth the speed of light some of time and about one-hundredth the speed of light, on average. Do, the fleet will actually take 400 years to reach here. Earthlings have 400 years to plan to defend and defeat the invaders. Meanwhile, there is a bunch of people on Earth like Ye, who are welcoming the Trisolarans who have been communicating with them. The earth-defenders have to somehow learn what the Trisorans have been communicating with the earth-bound collaborators. Defenders have to capture the data storage device that has all the communication between the Trisolarans and the collaborators. So, there is an even freakier solution involving super strong invisible nano-strings.
In the book, all geniuses that have developed the nanostrings and defenders are, of course, Chinese. In the TV series, the brilliant people are all non-Chinese Americans.
That is about where the first book ends. There are two other books. Nowadays, a trilogy sells well, unless of course one can write a heptology (Is that a word?) and make a billion. More about that after I read the two other books in the trilogy. I have put a hold on the books at the library. So, stay tuned and feek free to leave comments.
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