The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's Past #1) by Liu CixinTranslator: Ken Liu
Published: 2014
E-book, English Edition, 400 pages
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
★★★★☆
Blurb:
Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth.
Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.
The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple award winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.
Review:
Hmm.. susah mau me-review ini. I felt both fascinated by the idea and bored to sleep by the technical details. Walaupun sebetulnya detail teknis dalam novel sci-fi ini luar biasa. Penulisnya betul-betul meriset teknis ilmu sains-nya dengan menyeluruh. Semua teorinya terasa nyata, sampai-sampai aku merasa seperti sedang membaca tesis. Karena pemahaman fisikaku sangat awam, penjelasan sains-nya yang komplit sampai ke tetek-bengek kecil-kecilnya seringkali membuatku bosan.Yup, karena itulah bagian 'sains' dalan novel sci-fi ini terasa sampai ke dalam. Bungkus fiksi-nya hampir-hampir tidak terasa karena semua percakapan dalam novel ini sangat serius. Karakter yang percakapannya menarik mungkin hanya Shi Qiang atau sering dipanggil Da Shi, si polisi kasar yang kadang kurang ajar. Aku menobatkannya menjadi karakter protagonis menyebalkan. Tapi aku sendiri masih bingung siapa tokoh utama cerita ini, sampai aku membaca bagian kedua.
Bagian pertamanya menggambarkan suasana konflik di China pada tahun 1960-an. Kemudian di bagian selanjutnya cerita dipercepat ke 40 tahun kemudian, tepatnya tahun 2000-an. Seorang ilmuwan nanopartikel, Wang Miao tiba-tiba dihubungi pihak militer dalam rangka membahas kasus yang telah menewaskan sejumlah ilmuwan. Wang Miao mengira ia dibutuhkan sebagai informan karena ia mengenal beberapa ilmuwan yang tewas bunuh diri tersebut, tapi ternyata ia malah dijadikan sebagai 'mata-mata'.
Rasanya cerita jadi makin seru. Seperti apa ilmuwan ketika menjadi mata-mata? Tapi tidak ada aksi heboh terlibat seperti dalam televisi. Wang menyelidiki permainan Three-Body yang dimainkan salah satu kolega yang dicurigainya. Dari situ ia memperoleh informasi yang luar biasa.
Semakin mendekati akhir cerita, alurnya jadi maju-mundur. Rahasia makin banyak terungkap, dan penulis memilih untuk kembali ke masa lalu untuk mengungkapkannya daripada si tokoh yang menjelaskannya langsung. Bagus, sih. Jadi lebih mudah membayangkannya. Tapi karakter-karakternya jadi berjarak dengan pembaca. Aku nggak bisa menaruh simpati pada siapapun tokoh di dalamnya, dan gara-gara itu aku jadi merasa kalau dunia orang dewasa ini kok dingin sekali.
Hal lain yang membuatku takjub dari novel ini adalah setting waktunya. Sebagai novel sci-fi, setting waktu yang dipilih bukan ratusan tahun ke depan, tapi dalam rentang waktu 1960-an sampai 2000-an. Walaupun begitu, penulis seakan membuat rentang waktu tersebut menjadi luar biasa dengan penjelasan perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi yang sangat mendetail. Sedangkan untuk genre-nya, sci-fi melingkupi sebagian besar ceritanya, tapi di dalamnya juga terdapat misteri, crime, filosofi, dan fiksi sejarah.
Mungkin karena banyak detail teknis dalam deskripsinya, membuat novel ini jadi terkesan kaku. Terjemahan Inggris-nya banyak diksi yang jarang digunakan atau mungkin karena istilah teknisnya, aku seringkali harus membuka kamus untuk mengetahui maknanya. Tapi untuk penjelasan sejarahnya, terdapat catatan kaki yang menjelaskannya. Karena itulah rasanya seperti membaca tesis. Hehehee..
Membaca novel ini memang harus ekstra sabar. Tapi bagian akhirnya cukup memuaskan. Selain itu juga menggelitik rasa penasaran untuk mengetahui cerita selanjutnya. Ada twist dan aha-moment yang tiba-tiba muncul sehingga kantuk karena membaca deskripsi teknisnya langsung hilang.
Kalau tertarik untuk membaca novel yang dibalut deskripsi ilmu fisika dan hard-science yang kental, buku ini layak dibaca untuk menguji logika. Bahkan penulis kondang Rick Riordan juga membaca buku ini dan memberikan empat bintang, karena itulah aku bertahan menyelesaikannya. Ada kutipan yang betul-betul membuatku 'mendidih' membacanya. "It's just a tree..." he said. Just a tree?! JUST?!! It's a-three-hundred-years-old tree!! THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD!!! Berikut kutipannya:
"Do you know how old this tree was?"
"You can count the rings."
"I did. More than three hundred and thirty years. Do you remember how long it took you to saw through it?"
"No more than ten minutes.."
"More than three hundred years! A dozen generations. When this tree was but a shrub, it was still the Ming Dynasty. During all these years, can you imagine how many storms it had weathered, how many events it had witnessed? But in a few minutes you cut it down. You really felt nothing?"
"What do you want me to feel? It’s just a tree. ..." (p.7)
Edit 2019/08/04:
Setelah baca buku ketiganya, kutipan di atas menjadi bermakna sangat lain.
I see the quote in bigger picture: imagine the tree is human civilization that grows from the shrub until it becomes a three-hundred-year-old tree, then imagine the human with saw that cut the tree is the law of physics that folded the space and time dimension of the tree. How would that makes you really feel?
If you survive this book and continued until the last book of this trilogy, in Death's End (the third book), it is explained as a feeling of 'worst than death'. But then, you could see the rings, means that whatever happens, there's something left behind and leave traces to what humanity is (from the optimist point of view).
Aku pernah googling apa artinya Three-Body Problems, dan inilah penjelasannya:
In physics and classical mechanics, the three-body problem is the problem of taking the initial positions and velocities (or momenta) of three point masses and solving for their subsequent motion according to Newton's laws of motion and Newton's law of universal gravitation.
The three-body problem is a special case of the n-body problem. Unlike two-body problems, no closed-form solution exists for all sets of initial conditions, and numerical methods are generally required.
Historically, the first specific three-body problem to receive extended study was the one involving the Moon, the Earth, and the Sun. In an extended modern sense, a three-body problem is any problem in classical mechanics or quantum mechanics that models the motion of three particles. - Wikipedia
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About the author
Liu Cixin
Goodreads Author
BornBeijing, China
Genre
Member SinceMay 2012
URLhttps://www.goodreads.com/liucixin
Born
Beijing, China Genre
Member Since
May 2012
URL
https://www.goodreads.com/liucixin
About the translator (Chinese-English)
Ken Liu
Goodreads Author
Website
Twitter
Genre
Member SinceMarch 2012
URLhttps://www.goodreads.com/kenliu
Website
Twitter
Genre
Member Since
March 2012
URL
https://www.goodreads.com/kenliu
Ken Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an American author of speculative fiction. He has won the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, as well as top genre honors in Japan, Spain, and France, among other places.
Ken's debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers play the role of wizards. His debut collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker.
He has been involved in multiple media adaptations of his work. The most recent projects include “The Message,” under development by 21 Laps and FilmNation Entertainment; “Good Hunting,” adapted as an episode of Netflix's breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC's Pantheon, which Craig Silverstein will executive produce, adapted from an interconnected series of short stories by Ken.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Ken worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Ken frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, the mathematics of origami, and other subjects of his expertise.
Ken is also the translator for Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds, Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide, as well as the editor of Invisible Planets and Broken Stars, anthologies of contemporary Chinese science fiction.
He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
Ken's debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers play the role of wizards. His debut collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker.
He has been involved in multiple media adaptations of his work. The most recent projects include “The Message,” under development by 21 Laps and FilmNation Entertainment; “Good Hunting,” adapted as an episode of Netflix's breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC's Pantheon, which Craig Silverstein will executive produce, adapted from an interconnected series of short stories by Ken.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Ken worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Ken frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, the mathematics of origami, and other subjects of his expertise.
Ken is also the translator for Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds, Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide, as well as the editor of Invisible Planets and Broken Stars, anthologies of contemporary Chinese science fiction.
He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
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