Science Fiction

Peter Suderman | 4.3.2024 12:29 PM

When Cixin Liu's science fiction novel, The Three-Body Problem, debuted in English translation for American readers in 2014, it was clear that it was a comment on the perils of Chinese authoritarianism. The books have now been adapted into a series for Netflix; seen today, the story looks as much like a comment on social media. There's a reason that the first shades so quickly into the second.

The novel, initially published in 2008, begins with a harrowing sequence from China's Cultural Revolution in which a scientist is beaten and ultimately killed as part of a "struggle session," a public self-incrimination in front of an angry mob. The session was led by revolutionary youth who insisted the scientist had committed a crime against the people by stating basic facts about the fundamental nature of the universe that undermined the ideology of Chinese Communism. But the scientist does not recant. He cannot bring himself to say that which he knows to be simply untrue.

That sequence frames the novel and the rest of Liu's trilogy. It's a story about authoritarian overreach, the danger of mob thinking, the endurance of science and fact even in the face of political pressure, and the hidden power of the private mind. Yet in a reminder of the Chinese government's persistent censorial power, Liu apparently had to move it to later in the novel in order to appease Communist Party overseers. He now recommends that readers seek out the English translation.

The Netflix adaptation, 3 Body Problem, also begins with this sequence. But the struggle session feels more familiar now, thanks to social........

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