Liu Cixin Archives

She's another victim of intergenerational trauma from the Cultural Revolution. "The Three-Body Problem" still, Tencent Liu Cixin's novel seemed to drop this reason for Yang Dong's suicide, sticking to the pulpy notion that physicists were committing suicide because they discovered that "Physics doesn't exist" when in real life, scientists would be more excited to test and research[...]

"Evans" is really a Welsh name, but author Liu Cixin probably picked it because it sounded so white What's interesting is that Mike Evans is not a military man or an evil capitalist but a man who hates capitalism and blames it for the destruction of the environment and other species He is, in his[...]

It would have provided a more complete portrait of what drove Ye Wen Jie to do what she did. "The Three-Body Problem" still, Tencent The Real Heart of The Three-Body Problem The Three-Body Problem may be author Liu Cixin's rumination on the Fermi Paradox, alien invasion, and Hard Science Fiction, but at the story's centre is his[...]

But anyway, it's following the order of events in Liu Cixin's book faithfully, so that's how it's going to be. "The Three-Body Problem" still, Tencent First, we get to the end of last week's cliffhanger in Science Grandma Ye Wen Jie's origin story at the Red Coast base She received a transmission from an alien civilization imploring,[...]

The adaptation of Liu Cixin's original book is mostly faithful but has minor but interesting changes Commissar Lei does not seem to be as much of a self-serving careerist as he is in the book, where he planned to claim sole credit for any of Ye's findings for himself Here he talks to Chief Engineer[...]

It's remarkable that the show has filled the viewer with dread every time Chen Xue shows up, because that means she's going to murder someone with her bare hands. Chen Xue is the biggest change from Liu Cixin's original novel In The Three-Body Problem, the character was just a nameless fanatic who appears just once in[...]

Episode twenty-two of The Three-Body Problem is almost all new material not in Liu Cixin's original novel It was created for the show by screenwriter Tian Liang Liang who, along with the producer and director, know the book inside-out and is one of the best episodes that make the story better It also features the[...]

Every scene with Mu Xing is new since she's not really in the book, and every scene of Wang Miao bonding with his daughter to remind him what the real stakes are is new, and all of them massively improve upon Liu Cixin's novel. Episode twenty-one of The Three-Body Problem opens with a twist: turns[...]

Episode 20 of The Three-Body Problem brings the story's VR game to a close, and a murder that changes everything. Everything is tragedy.

Author Liu Cixin seems to have a thing for the name "Mike" for his white characters It pops up again in The Wandering Earth 2. "The Three-Body Problem" still, Tencent The Time of the Math Weirdo Wang Miao and Shi Qiang get back to Beijing to find Shen Yu Fei's math genius husband, Wei Cheng, at headquarters asking[...]

It's closer to Liu Cixin's original novella, covering the decades where the world discovers the sun will destroy the solar system in a hundred years and how the governments unite under a Chinese government proposal that over ten thousand giant rocket engines are built all over the Earth to push it out of the sun's[...]

And she's the most compelling character in the story, even in Liu Cixin's book. "The Three-Body Problem" still, Tencent We're back in the 1970s when Young Ye Wen Jie (Wang Zi Wen) gets transferred to work in the Monitoring Department It's Political Commissar Lei's idea, and Chief Engineer Wang Yei Ning is dead set against it, even[...]

It has more action than Liu Cixin's book. "The Three-Body Problem" still, Tencent One More Clue for The Three-Body Problem The episode opens with Shi Qiang (Yu He Wei) badgering General Chang for the classified files on Ye Wen Jie, aka Science Grandma (Chen Jia), especially when he and Wang Miao are about to chase her and Shen[...]

All the odd and quirky character moments in the show are the handiwork of series writer Tien Liang Liang who works overtime to humanize the characters (and add new ones) to inject emotion into the story over author Liu Cixin's dryness. "The Three-Body Problem", Tencent Another Fail State for The Three-Body Problem Game Meanwhile, Wang Miao's (Edward Zhang)[...]

Western figures like da Vinci and Isaac Newton are voiced and played as weirdly swishy and could be seen as rather homophobic in a country that has effectively banned portrayals of overtly gay characters, but perhaps they make an exception for white guys from the decadent West because they're all Capitalist homosexuals, right? The campiness[...]

The Three-Body Problem, in staying faithful to Liu Cixin's novel and keeping the pace slow, is finally paying off You really need to stop and hear what's being explained It's not just dry exposition about Science – all of it is grounded in the hidden agendas of Yang, Lei, and the Party, and Ye being[...]

Yes, the show is insanely faithful to Liu Cixin's book, following its basic structure, including having Ye Wen Jie, aka Science Grandma's origin story, in the middle of the story as it was originally serialized in China (and completely censoring the harsh and unflinching portrayal of the Cultural Revolution and her father's death) Since the[...]

The Three-Body Problem, the Chinese television adaptation of Liu Cixin's Science Fiction novel, is arguably the biggest Science Fiction show in the world right now, even if most people watching it are in China Rumour has it that the series has over one hundred million viewers following the show from beginning to end, including rewatches[...]

Tencent's The Three-Body Problem Episode 12 offers more of the VR game at the heart of the mystery as well as some inside gamer jokes.

The Cultural Revolution allegedly killed over a million people, brutalized millions more, and destroyed families where siblings and parents betrayed and denounced each other. In the original novel The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin unflinchingly depicted the destruction of Ye Wen Jie's family when her mother and sister denounced her father, and he was beaten to death[...]

Liu Cixin's book is dense but can be dry. "The Three-Body Problem" poster art, Tencent The Mystery of Ye Yang Dong Wang Miao (Edward Zhang) and Shi Qiang (Yu He Wei) return from talking to Shen Yu fei (Li Xiao Ran) to headquarters to assess what they've found so far Shi Qiang sees Shen Yu Fei's deep faith[...]

The original novel by Liu Cixin can be rather dry with talking heads, mostly scientist Wang Miao and cop Shi Qiang explaining the plot and scientific theory to each other and the reader The show makes some interesting decisions to break up or offset all the talking because there are a lot of complex and[...]

Several changes and additions were made to Liu Cixin's original story to keep things running, which some fans have objected to, but mostly viewers are happy with the new bits You can watch the episode via link to Tencent's YouTube link. "The Three-Body Problem" still, Tencent The Three-Body Problem: The Game's Endgame Wang Miao's (Edward Zhang) first run[...]

Anyway, back to the show. "The Three-Body Problem" still Tencent Differences from The Three-Body Problem Book The Three-Body VR game was introduced a lot sooner in Liu Cixin's book, where Wang Miao starts playing it even before he starts getting the countdown numbers in his eyes The makers of the show probably didn't want the game to overwhelm[...]

The reason is The Three-Body Problem is a milestone in several ways: Liu Cixin's book is the most significant Science Fiction novel since Frank Herbert's Dune that, put Chinese Science Fiction on the world map, and the TV series is the first major Science Fiction television series to come from China That makes it worth[...]

The Three-Body Problem follows Liu Cixin's first novel in his epic Science Fiction trilogy, which won the Hugo Award in 2015 and has been praised/recommended by President Obama He told The New York Times that the novel going from an initial earthbound mystery to covering the fate of the universe, "was just wildly imaginative, really[...]

The sixth episode of The Three-Body Problem slows down to spend most of it recapping what happened before, then censors a major story point.

There's a reason Liu Cixin is at the head of China's Science Fiction boom  His books point to what China aspires to: huge ambition, a forward vision, a reckoning with the past, and an arrow to the future Ten million viewers for The Last of Us on HBO is impressive, but a hundred million viewers[...]

Considering Liu Cixin's epic trilogy is the most significant Science Fiction epic since Frank Herbert's Dune, and the show is getting over one hundred million viewers in China, it's kind of odd that we're literally the only site paying any attention to it, no? Are Western outlets ignoring it because 1) anti-China bias and 2)[...]

The second episode of The Three-Body Problem gets pleasingly weird, introducing a sense of foreboding and even cosmic horror to the mystery.