The Three-Body Problem

Summary (w/ spoilers):

Our past protagonist experiences the worst that humanity has to offer and reacts realistically. She is not a stubbornly positive main character with superior morals - she is a hurt character who loses faith in humanity, and operates in a state of shock and single-mindedness. There is scant accountability or even repentance for humanity's self-serving destruction, so when she is presented with a chance to change humanity's existence, she takes it.

To me, this is what can happen when horrible acts are turned a blind eye - history is doomed to repeat itself. The stifling of progress and science in 1966 China scars her, and in turn, she enables a power that can stifle modern scientific progress that will last generations after her, sending humanity to extinction.

Overall review:

This book had me thinking about it days after I reading because of the existential questions and in-depth concepts introduced. I really enjoyed unravelling the story’s mysteries alongside the protagonists, but blundered through the hard science parts. It’s hard to know if my amazement is just being overwhelmed from lack of understanding coupled with the fact this won a Hugo, but I can’t deny I felt engaged after finishing this story.

Thoughts on other people's reviews:

I AGREE characters seem to exist only to serve the plot. The scale the book is going for is huge so it makes sense personal development is nothing in comparison and could be a waste of time - however the lack of nuance is too drastic for me. For example, women in this story have single-minded goals that they coldly pursue, and save for appearing motherly, show no emotional sensitivity, which is odd given women are typically socialized to do so.

I DISAGREE that colluding with aliens for human intervention is unrealistic. Imagine being a 20-something year old losing your dad in a murder your mother enabled to save herself, being forced to partake in deforestation and experiencing the apathy for it firsthand, and seeing systems of power moving on from the pain that they inflicted on you. After being betrayed over and over from an individual to global scale, how could you still have faith in humanity?