The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu and Ken Liu (4.5 stars)

In Part I: Silent Spring, the book begins in the Chinese Cultural Revolution from the perspective of Ye Wenjie, and gives us some insight into that time. There's a lot of little footnotes dotted through the text that explain some of the Chinese context when pure translation falls short.

Spoilers ahead.

Reading Silent Spring shakes the foundations of Ye Wenjie's life, and causes her to question almost everything and then betray humankind in a very surprising way:

If this was so, then how many other acts of humankind that had seemed normal or even righteous were, in reality, evil?

Wenjie extends a deliberate invitation to a powerful alien race to invade and cleanse Earth of humanity. This was unlike any other first contact story I've ever read. Wenjie's actions start a doomsday clock ticking that will expire in 450 years.

As a society how can you possibly plan a project that will a) determine whether your species continues to exist, and b) spans many many generations? It's a fascinating thought experiment that Liu explores from a number of angles, not least of which is the anticipated demoralization and fatalism that is expected to overcome future generations.

Many factions react differently to the news of a powerful alien race coming to take over the Earth. The "Saviors" develop a video game as a recruiting tool which is a fantastic and surreal exploration of the Trisolaran world that includes a player solving mathematical problems by developing an entire computer architecture based on humans moving around on a field:

“Your Imperial Majesty, this is the Qin 1.0 operating system we developed. The software for doing the calculations will run on top of it. That below”—Von Neumann pointed to the human-formation computer—“is the hardware. What’s on this paper is the software. The relationship between hardware and software is like that between the guqin zither and sheet music.”

Complete with progress bars made from people carrying coloured flags:

“Self-test complete! Begin boot sequence! Load operating system!”

Rehydrate! Dehydrate!

The next thought experiment is: how could you hold back all scientific innovation of a global society with the smallest amount of effort? The Trisolarans want to hamstring Earth science and defense to meet minimal resistance in 450 years. So with very limited resources they decide to disrupt fundamental physical particle research.

It's a really really odd book. It's not particularly easy reading and it's fairly slow to start. But it is fascinating.

4.5 stars.