Book Reviews 书评

The planet Earth has only one star, the Sun, to revolve around. That is a blessing to mankind and all livings, because there is a simple predictable system involving day, night, and four seasons, which has made survival easy. Don’t take this system for granted. It is not uncommon that in a different part of the universe planets revolve around two stars, or even multiple stars. Click and view the Triple-Star System Animation - YouTube to see how complicated the triple-star motion can be. The motion of a planet in that “three-body” system can be extremely chaotic. If there were intelligence on that kind of planet, can you imagine what their lives are like? This is the basis of the science fiction “三体 Three-Body Problem”.

Humans are a three-dimensional beings. Ants can be visualized as two-dimensional. Humans look down to ants as a lower beings. On a planet in a much sophisticated triple-star system, more sophisticated intelligence may likely exist in a much higher dimension than three, and be more advanced than humans on earth. They may look down on humans just like humans look down on ants.

If those higher dimensional beings were to come down to earth, would they…… (Click here to view the entire review.)

The author, born 1984, is a physicist turned science fiction writer. In fact she has a Physics Bachelor and a Business/Economics Ph.D. from Tsinghua. Because of her science expertise, the fictions she conjured up have strong and solid scientific basis. With her incomparable imagination, aided by her prowess in literature, her work was awarded in 2016 the prestigious Hugo Prize for the best science fiction of the the year. This book is in particular a collection of the short/mid-length pieces of hers. More than cold science and futuristic intrigues, her work often has sophisticated humanistic emotions that can be very touching. Her concept of intertwining ancient Chinese history and futuristic science is especially intriguing, interesting, and enlightening.