More than 30 years ago, I joined a huge team of "science fiction" fans under the slogan of "marching into science". At that time, there was a book, PHS Roaming in the Future, which sold 3 million copies, enough to make all the best-selling or not-selling writers envious today. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. By the mid-1980s, the sci-fi craze that swept through China disappeared inexplicably like a dinosaur. It is said that there is something in it. However, in my opinion, the rejection of readers is probably the more important reason. Most of the "science fiction" at that time were neither scientific nor fantasy, let alone literature. A masterpiece like "PHS Roaming in the Future" is at best a popular science book without a plot. For example, it says that there will be an "electronic newspaper" in the future, which can be read on the screen by adjusting the knob-is it so convenient for us to click with the mouse today?
After the domestic sci-fi craze ebbed, many readers like me turned to foreign sci-fi works. Unfortunately, at that time, we often picked the worst imported foreign works, except for flying saucers and monsters, and the quantity and quality of translation were not satisfactory. Of course, this is another topic. In these gloomy days, I often lament that our writers' scientific consciousness is weak, scientists' humanistic quality is low, and even doubt whether Chinese people have the congenital deficiency of fantasy ability. In short, it's a bit of national science fiction nihilism. Where is our Clark? Where is our Asimov? Where is our heinlein?
In a blink of an eye, I entered a new era, gradually began to smell some new smells, and my ears began to hear someone shouting and saying some names. I finally read "Country Teacher" written by a man named Liu, and then all my pessimism and doubts about China people's fantasy ability seemed to vanish in an instant. In this seemingly phoenix nirvana story, a trivial rural teacher's last futile and sad efforts were integrated into a space epic with a magnificent time and space. And the significance of this teacher has also been brought into play to the scale of a vast universe, a scale that ordinary literary works can't reach.
I have read almost all his works hungrily, and none of them let me down. It can be said that one is better than the other. In 2006, I watched the serial of "Three-body" in the science fiction world. When I read my blood boiling, I couldn't help writing a letter to Liu. As a result, I received the complete electronic version from the author incredibly. From the beginning of Three-body, I have no doubt that this man single-handedly raised China's science fiction literature to the world-class level. If nothing else, the three-body game in broad daylight is as magnificent as any world science fiction masterpiece.
Because the three-body galaxy has three suns, its irregular movement makes the living conditions of the three-body civilization extremely bad. In order to cope with the unpredictable natural environment, they can completely drain the water in their bodies at any time and turn them into dry fibrous objects to avoid the harsh climate that is completely unsuitable for survival. For this fantastic imaginary world, Liu gave full play to his specialty in hard science and endowed the world with completely real physical characteristics and evolution laws. As a computer engineer, Liu even designed a three-body program to simulate the orbit of the three-body world. Liu borrows the cloak of earth civilization and tells the legend of 200 times destruction and rebirth of this distant civilization in the form of virtual reality. The three-body echoes the earth from a distance, and it contains realistic pertinence at your fingertips in the most incredible life scenes. It is not only a unique reflection on the earth civilization itself, but also a transcendence at the cosmic level.
If it were someone else, Three-body would have come to a successful conclusion at this level, but for Liu, the drama has just begun. After constructing a plump and solid three-body world, he further made the three-body world, the earth and even higher civilizations collide more violently and meaningfully. Faced with the incredible technology of the three men and the huge fleet that came to destroy the earth, mankind made a "face-to-face plan" with global power, and four sets of counterattack plans were independently designed by four "face-to-face". Seriously, each set of countermeasures is unique and amazing. In other people's works, it can be used as the ultimate scheme to build a grand finale. But for Liu, these are just bedding and floating clouds. At the end of three body 2: Dark Forest, I experienced a perfect climax, an enlightening shock, and an extreme satisfaction that I have never experienced in literary works for many years.
In this process, I also got some contact and understanding about Liu himself. I know he is a computer engineer in a power plant in a remote inland town. His work is heavy, his income is low, and the factory is facing closure. In this process, how he lived in a secluded place and wrote a masterpiece of examining the universe, which is quite sci-fi in itself. Because of work problems, he once considered giving up the writing of three body 3, which worried us fans. Thankfully, he finally persisted.
When Liu asked me to preface three body 3, my first thought was: Great! I can see three body 3 soon. Unlike watching three body 2: Dark Forest one night, I watched it carefully this time, in order to stay in the three-body world for a while.
In an era when spoilers are regarded as unforgivable crimes, I must be very careful. To make a long story short, I think three body 3 has surpassed the first two films in many aspects, and this transcendence is not a little bit. In front of the dark forest of the universe, it's just a detour. The third part is a frontal storm, which is extremely difficult. I really admire Liu's courage of not knowing the world, and I admire his handy description of the scenery of the universe. It can really be described as "traveling with eight poles." Seeing the end of three body 3, I can't help thinking of Asimov's The Last Question, which is also a description of the end of the universe. We can compare and see who goes further in imagination, who has more details and whose universe is bigger.
Three body 3 is a hard science fiction. For ordinary readers, its fluency and readability may not be as good as the first two. Some paragraphs are even obscure (such as the description of "God"), but for science fiction lovers and fans of Liu, the proliferation of cosmic details will definitely make them more enjoyable. In the whole trilogy, I personally think that the first one has the most sense of history and reality; The second part has the highest degree of completion, the most complete structure, the clearest clues and the most gorgeous beauty; Three body 3, on the other hand, pushes the cosmic vision and essential thinking to the extreme, which is unparalleled at present.
Frankly speaking, systematic epics and myths have always been the weakness of China literature. After the baptism of post-modern culture, our writers cherish it more, take lack as the strength, pursue the strategy of "avoiding the sublime", despise grand narrative and dispel the ultimate inquiry. I appreciate Liu's works because he went against the current, carried forward rationalism and humanistic spirit, and injected holistic thinking and transcendental vision into China literature. This ultimate concern and questioning, based on scientific logic and realistic details, gives the vast fantasy a solid wing.
Liu's world covers all scales from singularity to the edge of the universe, spanning a long time from Cretaceous to the next billion years. The speed and breadth of his thoughts have already surpassed the traditional realm of "catching the moon in nine days and catching turtles in five oceans". The imagination of the universe structure in Three-body has been of creative significance, but it can be seen that Liu intends to keep a distance from western myths and take a new path of China mythology. This is unprecedented work. The truth about the beginning, end and end of the universe. He guessed, he thought, he wrote. It doesn't matter whether this is correct or not. Although God smiles when human beings think, God won't even laugh if human beings don't think.