Cixin Liu
Author of The Three-Body Problem
About the Author
Cixin Liu is the author of The Three Body Problem, which won Best Novel at the Hugo Awards 2015. (Bowker Author Biography)
Series
Works by Cixin Liu
Sun of China {story} — Author — 12 copies
The Wages of Humanity {story} — Author — 5 copies
The Wandering Earth, Part 2 of 2 — Author — 5 copies
For the Benefit of Mankind 2 copies
三体 2 copies
Cannonball 2 copies
Sea Of Dreams 2 copies
The Poetry Cloud {short story} — Author — 2 copies
الجنين الخالد 1 copy
2016 1 copy
Moonlight 1 copy
A hromtest-problma 1 copy
(54) 三体III：死神永生 1 copy
The Circle {short story} — Author — 1 copy
A stt erd 1 copy
A hall vge 1 copy
Three Body Mystery 1 copy
Ode to Joy {short story} 1 copy
Contraction {short story} 1 copy
2018-04-01 {short story} 1 copy
三体全集(签章典藏版)（套装共3册） 1 copy
Beyond Time 1 copy
Associated Works
The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection (2016) — Contributor — 520 copies, 8 reviews
Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation (2019) — Contributor — 457 copies, 12 reviews
Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction (2016) — Contributor — 108 copies, 6 reviews
The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction (2018) — Contributor — 50 copies
Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol. 42, No. 1 & 2 [January/February 2018] (2018) — Contributor — 12 copies
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 113 • October 2019 (2019) — Contributor, some editions — 7 copies, 2 reviews
Terra Nova vol. 3: Antología de ciencia ficción contemporánea (2014) — Contributor — 6 copies, 1 review
SFが読みたい! 2020年版 — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Cixin Liu
- Legal name
- 劉慈欣
- Other names
- 刘慈欣
- Birthdate
- 1963-06-23
- Gender
- male
- Education
- North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power
- Occupations
- science fiction writer
power plant computer engineer - Organizations
- Beijing Guomi Digital Technology
- Short biography
- Liu Cixin, born in June 1963, is a representative of the new generation of Chinese science fiction authors and recognized as a leading voice in Chinese science fiction. He was awarded the China Galaxy Science Fiction Award for eight consecutive years, from 1999 to 2006 and again in 2010. His representative work The Three-body Problem is the BEST STORY of 2015 Hugo Awards, the 3rd of 2015 Campbell Award finalists, and nominee of 2015 Nebulas Award.
His works have received wide acclaim on account of their powerful atmosphere and brilliant imagination. Liu Cixin's stories successfully combine the exceedingly ephemeral with hard reality, all the while focussing on revealing the essence and aesthetics of science. He has endeavoured to create a distinctly Chinese style of science fiction. Liu Cixin is a member of the China Writers' Association and the Shanxi Writers' Association. - Nationality
- China
- Birthplace
- Henan, China
- Places of residence
- Beijing, China
Shanxi, China
Luoshan County, Henan Province, China - Map Location
- China
Members
Discussions
Jeff's 2019 Reads in The Green Dragon (April 2021)
Reviews
A science fiction series that gets rave reviews from both Barack Obama and George R. R. Martin is certainly worth investigating. Since the books are heavily philosophical, so is my review. These are disconnected observations rather than a summary of the novels; so be it.
Observation 1: Almost all the science fiction I’ve read comes from American/European culture. This is from China. Is there anything different? After all, a science fiction writer is supposed to predict the future – or at show more least come up with a future that’s plausible; does the future look different to someone from a different culture with a different political ideology? It does, a little – and I found the differences surprising. The Western science future has often been the playground of the rugged individualist – especially during the “Golden Age” from the 1930s to 1950s. Stories from this era make space travel the province of the wealthy industrialist or the inspired inventor; what actually happened is that governments took over until very recently. In Cixin Liu’s trilogy, governments are in charge from the start – but do a pretty poor job of it; the United Nations is portrayed as particularly inept, for example blocking lines of scientific research because they are deemed too dangerous only to find that this forbidden research is just what’s needed to solve developing problems. Fortunately, “rugged individuals” come along and pursue the forbidden research – sometimes with extreme measures, like assassination – and save humanity. The difference from the Western versions is said individuals are not defying international law for their own interest, but for the interest of humanity as a whole.
Observation 2: Ideology doesn’t appear much, and when it does it’s again not what I expected. I assume this book had to get through Chinese censors to get published, but one of the heroes (sort of, he’s eventually punished for “crimes against humanity” because he violated UN laws on forbidden research) is a wealthy Western capitalist (to be fair, he’s portrayed as acquiring his wealth in an unusual fashion, and he’s also portrayed as having unpleasant personality characteristics). And one of the villains announces “The era for humanity’s degenerate freedom is over. If you want to survive here, you must relearn collectivism…”. And the results of that “collectivism” are pretty grim – just like the actual results of collectivism in the recent past. The era of the “Cultural Revolution” in China affects some of the protagonists, and they’re not very happy about it.
Observation 3: Cixin Liu is very hard on environmentalism and anti-intellectual/anti-science movements. These are consistently portrayed as anti-human, and are generally terminated with extreme prejudice by the powers that be. Since the PRC is technocratic society, I imaging that had no trouble getting past the censors.
Observation 4: The trilogy deals with the Fermi paradox from the very beginning, and in what I consider a more logical fashion than Western science fiction. In our popular science fiction – you can take Star Trek and Star Wars as examples – alien civilizations are portrayed as having roughly the same degree of technological development as the Earthlings that encounter them. In actuality – assuming there are alien civilizations at all – that’s vanishingly unlikely. If you consider the entire history of Earth, and the history of technology, alien life forms will most likely be either single celled organisms – that’s what the average living thing on Earth is, over time – or beings so advanced they are indistinguishable from God. Or Satan. All it would take in the four billion years or so of Earth history would be a minor difference – the development of intelligence occurring a little earlier or a little later, by a factor of 0.00001, say – and we’d be either at the Mesolithic level or have 40K years of further advance under our belts. It’s scarcely imaginable what technology will look like 40 years in the future, much less 40000. If you extend that across the entire galaxy, it’s likely there will be some civilization out there (again, assuming that there are any at all) that’s billions of years more advanced than ours. A corollary to that is Western science fiction usually assumes that advanced alien civilizations will be benevolent – or at worst neutral – toward humanity; the trilogy does not make that assumption and the results are viscerally horrifying. It’s one thing to imagine aliens invading Earth for resources or slaves or Lebensraum; it’s another to find them treating us as something like cobwebs in the corners – needing to be swept up to make things neat.
Very enlightening and thought-provoking, although sometimes the thoughts are nightmarish. I had a minor problem dealing with names; although international in scope many of the characters are, understandably, Chinese and it was hard to remember who’s who. show less
Observation 1: Almost all the science fiction I’ve read comes from American/European culture. This is from China. Is there anything different? After all, a science fiction writer is supposed to predict the future – or at show more least come up with a future that’s plausible; does the future look different to someone from a different culture with a different political ideology? It does, a little – and I found the differences surprising. The Western science future has often been the playground of the rugged individualist – especially during the “Golden Age” from the 1930s to 1950s. Stories from this era make space travel the province of the wealthy industrialist or the inspired inventor; what actually happened is that governments took over until very recently. In Cixin Liu’s trilogy, governments are in charge from the start – but do a pretty poor job of it; the United Nations is portrayed as particularly inept, for example blocking lines of scientific research because they are deemed too dangerous only to find that this forbidden research is just what’s needed to solve developing problems. Fortunately, “rugged individuals” come along and pursue the forbidden research – sometimes with extreme measures, like assassination – and save humanity. The difference from the Western versions is said individuals are not defying international law for their own interest, but for the interest of humanity as a whole.
Observation 2: Ideology doesn’t appear much, and when it does it’s again not what I expected. I assume this book had to get through Chinese censors to get published, but one of the heroes (sort of, he’s eventually punished for “crimes against humanity” because he violated UN laws on forbidden research) is a wealthy Western capitalist (to be fair, he’s portrayed as acquiring his wealth in an unusual fashion, and he’s also portrayed as having unpleasant personality characteristics). And one of the villains announces “The era for humanity’s degenerate freedom is over. If you want to survive here, you must relearn collectivism…”. And the results of that “collectivism” are pretty grim – just like the actual results of collectivism in the recent past. The era of the “Cultural Revolution” in China affects some of the protagonists, and they’re not very happy about it.
Observation 3: Cixin Liu is very hard on environmentalism and anti-intellectual/anti-science movements. These are consistently portrayed as anti-human, and are generally terminated with extreme prejudice by the powers that be. Since the PRC is technocratic society, I imaging that had no trouble getting past the censors.
Observation 4: The trilogy deals with the Fermi paradox from the very beginning, and in what I consider a more logical fashion than Western science fiction. In our popular science fiction – you can take Star Trek and Star Wars as examples – alien civilizations are portrayed as having roughly the same degree of technological development as the Earthlings that encounter them. In actuality – assuming there are alien civilizations at all – that’s vanishingly unlikely. If you consider the entire history of Earth, and the history of technology, alien life forms will most likely be either single celled organisms – that’s what the average living thing on Earth is, over time – or beings so advanced they are indistinguishable from God. Or Satan. All it would take in the four billion years or so of Earth history would be a minor difference – the development of intelligence occurring a little earlier or a little later, by a factor of 0.00001, say – and we’d be either at the Mesolithic level or have 40K years of further advance under our belts. It’s scarcely imaginable what technology will look like 40 years in the future, much less 40000. If you extend that across the entire galaxy, it’s likely there will be some civilization out there (again, assuming that there are any at all) that’s billions of years more advanced than ours. A corollary to that is Western science fiction usually assumes that advanced alien civilizations will be benevolent – or at worst neutral – toward humanity; the trilogy does not make that assumption and the results are viscerally horrifying. It’s one thing to imagine aliens invading Earth for resources or slaves or Lebensraum; it’s another to find them treating us as something like cobwebs in the corners – needing to be swept up to make things neat.
Very enlightening and thought-provoking, although sometimes the thoughts are nightmarish. I had a minor problem dealing with names; although international in scope many of the characters are, understandably, Chinese and it was hard to remember who’s who. show less
I'm usually of the opinion that sequels don't live up to the expectations set by their counterpart. But in this case that opinion is smashed to bits. In The Dark Forest, Cixin Liu continues to explore the broad-ranging implications of first contact upon the human race. This is a book steeped in philosophy, morals, and psychology. Where do humans turn to when their future looks towards annihilation? What role will the clouding of history play in our own view of ourselves? Why does the show more universe appear so dark and desolate to us? These topics and questions are explored with mastery.
Liu's exploration of humanity in the future is brilliant and dark. He crafts an imaginative and believable world that I found myself getting lost in. The conclusion has left me engaged, eager to read the conclusion to the trilogy. Liu's 'cold' characters make a return in The Dark Forest, and while I wish they were more carefully crafted, I can see now that they are not where Liu chooses to spend most of his efforts. I'm okay with it. It's the scientific ideas and philosophy that are the stars of this show. show less
Liu's exploration of humanity in the future is brilliant and dark. He crafts an imaginative and believable world that I found myself getting lost in. The conclusion has left me engaged, eager to read the conclusion to the trilogy. Liu's 'cold' characters make a return in The Dark Forest, and while I wish they were more carefully crafted, I can see now that they are not where Liu chooses to spend most of his efforts. I'm okay with it. It's the scientific ideas and philosophy that are the stars of this show. show less
This is one of those books where the degree of pleasure I take in having read it far exceeds the degree of pleasure I took in reading it. I am very glad I read this, for the perspective it gave me on China and on what science fiction is, for the way it made me think about storytelling structure and how our expectations for it may be tied to the culture/s we've grown up in, for the pure fact that I think it's good to read outside our comfort zones, outside our nations of familiarity, and in show more translation. But while there were several sections of the book that wowed me in a purely readerly sense, on the whole, I did not enjoy this. It takes a very long time to get going, parts of it are grimmer than I usually prefer in fiction, and ultimately I feel a little held captive by the fact that (despite there being no cliffhanger) I will have to read two more books if I want fully to understand what is going on. I'm just not sure I have the stamina to get through two more of these, though I would like to. (And I'm curious to see how the second book, which was translated by a different translator, reads. I didn't care for the translation of Three Body, and I see from the translator's note that I disagree with him about what translation should do.) On the other hand, some of the author's science fiction ideas, his use of science to speculate about where science might go and how science might be used, were enthralling and mind-bending. There was also one development in particular that was fascinating, compelling, and alarming. So while I certainly took a lot away from this read, and while I don't read just for (or always for) enjoyment, I do wish I had found more to enjoy here in addition to finding much to appreciated. For anyone who hasn't read this yet who thinks they might like to, I say do. show less
DNF 92% (Less than 2/22 hours left of the audiobook)
I'm not going to let this book or Liu waste any more of my time, so I'll be brief (for me, with a bee in my bonnet, autism, and severe ADHD).
(Let me be clear, I am a nobody who knows nothing taking umbrage with a wildly popular book from an awarding-winning and hugely respected author. These are all just my opinions. If you like this book, I love that for you. If you think that cultural differences excuse bigotry, I hate that for you)
- show more The Three-Body Problem is a contender for my favourite read of 2023 and possibly of all time.
- Liu's worldview is very clearly on display in this book, authoritarian communism*, rampant misogyny to the point that there's maybe one femme in this book who actually has a name and her own agency, not to mention the born sexy yesterday manic pixie dream girl (literally) femme-enfant, weird and entirely unnecessary sneering at promiscuity and Queerness. I struggled so hard to make sense of Liu's first book and the wonder of his author's note when compared to what little he has said about his politics, but this book really made it clear in the same way Pierce Brown's conservative mask slips hard Morning Star and Ben Gailey's pathetic laissez-faire neo-liberalism ruined the end of the otherwise brilliant Chasing Graves trilogy.
- While there is some of the varying viscosities of fascinating sci-fi concepts and exploration/ extrapolation of scientific theories, there's a lot less with any grounding, care, or interest.
- I can understand why somone would find The Three-Body Problem boring, but I was absolutely wrapt throughout. Conversely, this is excruciatingly fucking boring, and only becomes increasingly more boring with countless twists and failed attempts at twists that made me stop caring and not feel like the stakes that had been suffocating in this first book mattered in the slightest.
- This book is in desperate need of an editor and workshopping because the internal logic, tone, and consistency are absolutely fucked. I wouldn't dream of saying you can't blend genres or even more between genres between books or parts of a single book. There does need to be some reason and artifice with this blending, which is not on display here. The first book and the first third of this book are hard-medium sci-fi (some people hate the Sophons and say no to the hard, but I have no issue with them and don't think hard sci-fi needs to be 100% turgid at all times), but the second third just introduces magic realism for no apparent reason withs guy dreaming up a woman, daydream hanging out with her, and then giving our favourite arsehole ex-cop (ACAB) a couple of details, which he then also magical knows all about her 'because a hetdudes know this dream girl', and then actually goes and fucking finds her! Later we have a brief Takeshi Kovacs interlude with some utopian cyberpunk, and later the most boring Battlestar Galactica/ colony ship nonsense. With the time scale it was always going to get more and more speculative and futuristic, but the handling and portrayal of everything is so clunky and jarring in a way that does not feeling purposeful.
- Did I mention how shitting boring it is?! I know I am more sensitive to these because of all the actual shitty gross stuff, but I really wanted to at least see how things played out, after being so obsessed with the first book. I was determined to finish, but between the yikes and snores I physically couldn't, and I came into this book with so very much patience and good will banked!
I really wish I hadn't picked up the stand alone Liu novel and the official fan fiction prequel, before reading this. The fact they were on offer is some comfort, but is all the resson I can't get them refunded.
Let me be clear, I hate hating stuff. If you love this, I celebrate that. I want to love this like I love the first book, but I can't because I fucking hated this. show less
I'm not going to let this book or Liu waste any more of my time, so I'll be brief (for me, with a bee in my bonnet, autism, and severe ADHD).
(Let me be clear, I am a nobody who knows nothing taking umbrage with a wildly popular book from an awarding-winning and hugely respected author. These are all just my opinions. If you like this book, I love that for you. If you think that cultural differences excuse bigotry, I hate that for you)
- show more The Three-Body Problem is a contender for my favourite read of 2023 and possibly of all time.
- Liu's worldview is very clearly on display in this book, authoritarian communism*, rampant misogyny to the point that there's maybe one femme in this book who actually has a name and her own agency, not to mention the born sexy yesterday manic pixie dream girl (literally) femme-enfant, weird and entirely unnecessary sneering at promiscuity and Queerness. I struggled so hard to make sense of Liu's first book and the wonder of his author's note when compared to what little he has said about his politics, but this book really made it clear in the same way Pierce Brown's conservative mask slips hard Morning Star and Ben Gailey's pathetic laissez-faire neo-liberalism ruined the end of the otherwise brilliant Chasing Graves trilogy.
- While there is some of the varying viscosities of fascinating sci-fi concepts and exploration/ extrapolation of scientific theories, there's a lot less with any grounding, care, or interest.
- I can understand why somone would find The Three-Body Problem boring, but I was absolutely wrapt throughout. Conversely, this is excruciatingly fucking boring, and only becomes increasingly more boring with countless twists and failed attempts at twists that made me stop caring and not feel like the stakes that had been suffocating in this first book mattered in the slightest.
- This book is in desperate need of an editor and workshopping because the internal logic, tone, and consistency are absolutely fucked. I wouldn't dream of saying you can't blend genres or even more between genres between books or parts of a single book. There does need to be some reason and artifice with this blending, which is not on display here. The first book and the first third of this book are hard-medium sci-fi (some people hate the Sophons and say no to the hard, but I have no issue with them and don't think hard sci-fi needs to be 100% turgid at all times), but the second third just introduces magic realism for no apparent reason withs guy dreaming up a woman, daydream hanging out with her, and then giving our favourite arsehole ex-cop (ACAB) a couple of details, which he then also magical knows all about her 'because a hetdudes know this dream girl', and then actually goes and fucking finds her! Later we have a brief Takeshi Kovacs interlude with some utopian cyberpunk, and later the most boring Battlestar Galactica/ colony ship nonsense. With the time scale it was always going to get more and more speculative and futuristic, but the handling and portrayal of everything is so clunky and jarring in a way that does not feeling purposeful.
- Did I mention how shitting boring it is?! I know I am more sensitive to these because of all the actual shitty gross stuff, but I really wanted to at least see how things played out, after being so obsessed with the first book. I was determined to finish, but between the yikes and snores I physically couldn't, and I came into this book with so very much patience and good will banked!
I really wish I hadn't picked up the stand alone Liu novel and the official fan fiction prequel, before reading this. The fact they were on offer is some comfort, but is all the resson I can't get them refunded.
Let me be clear, I hate hating stuff. If you love this, I celebrate that. I want to love this like I love the first book, but I can't because I fucking hated this. show less
Lists
"the china pill" (1)
Finished in 2021 (1)
Best Audiobooks (1)
Wishlist (1)
. (1)
2023 (1)
Very Very Bad (1)
Five star books (1)
io9 Book Club (1)
Favourite Books (1)
Next in Series (1)
Obama Reads (1)
Overdue Podcast (1)
um actually (1)
2010s (2)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 91
- Also by
- 16
- Members
- 26,370
- Popularity
- #793
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 999
- ISBNs
- 483
- Languages
- 23
- Favorited
- 21