Reading notes: The Three-Body Problem

  1. It's pretty rare to feel compelled to go read the thing everyone was talking about 7 years ago. But I was, and it paid off.
  2. This is my favorite science fiction novel ever. (Note that I am not a science fiction guy, and this still won't make the top 100.)
  3. There's almost no humor in the book (unless I'm just missing something, which could easily be the case, given how little I know about sci-fi and about Chinese literature).
  4. Besides the overall "what the heck is going on" question, the narrative generally resolves one mystery while presenting another. This seems to owe something to the structure of video game narratives.
  5. Of all the fiction I've read during my software carrer, this is the book with the most overlap in readership among my colleagues.
  6. It's the most recommendable book I've read this year.
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