The three suns

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The three suns ( Chinese  三 體  /  三 体 , Pinyin Sān tǐ  - "three (heaven) bodies") is a science fiction novel by the Chinese author Liu Cixin . The original edition was published in 2006 in serial form in the journal Science Fiction World and was published in book form in 2008 ; a German translation by Martina Hasse was published by Heyne Verlag in January 2017 .

The novel describes mankind's first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization , the "Trisolar", so named because their home planet is under the gravitational influence of three suns . The course of these three suns cannot be precisely predicted and the civilizations emerging on Trisolaris will be destroyed time and time again. In order to escape the recurring extinction of life in their homeland, a trisolar civilization, which despite the circumstances managed to develop into the space age, sets out in the direction of Earth, which is almost 4.2 light years away to claim it as a new living space and to destroy humanity living there.

The Chinese title literally means “three bodies” and alludes to the three-body problem of celestial mechanics , which is of central importance in the novel; as opposed to the original and already published in 2014 English translation ( "The Three Body Problem" to dt. So "The three-body problem" ) uses the German title said mathematical problem only indirectly.

The three suns is the first part of the Trisolaris trilogy , which is continued with The Dark Forest (2008; published in German 2018) and Beyond the Time (2010; published in German 2019); he has received numerous international awards, including the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel in 2015 .

action

The astrophysicist Ye Wenjie needs during the Cultural Revolution in the sixties with a look at how her father Ye Zhetai, a respected academic, four Rotgardistinnen of the Tsinghua University belonging High School is beaten to death. Both Wenjie's mother - out of fear - and her younger sister - out of zeal for the cause - spoke out in favor of his execution. Two years later she was sent to work at the Red Shore military base. The secret research project is a Chinese version of SETI looking for extraterrestrial life. Wenjie discovers the possibility that broadcast radio transmissions can be amplified if they are reflected by the sun and sends a message. Eight years later, she entered a loveless marriage with Yang when she received a message from a worried alien pacifist from the planet Trisolaris. He warns her not to answer. Otherwise, the inhabitants of Trisolaris will be able to locate the earth and ultimately conquer it. The extraterrestrial continues to describe the environmental conditions of Trisolaris and its history. Shaped by the trauma surrounding her father's death, she hopes the aliens could help humanity. She secretly answers and offers the strangers support.

Some time later, after the Cultural Revolution was over, Ye returned to Tsinghua University as a professor. She meets Mike Evans, son of the CEO of one of the largest oil companies, but who is a committed environmentalist and who believes that all species are equal. Ye sees that Evans is also angry with humanity and confides in him what she experienced at the Red Shore military base. Evans used his fortune to hire staff and bought a huge ship that he converted into a floating colony and listening post . After receiving news from Trisolaris and thus confirming Yes's story, Evans announces the establishment of the militant and partly secret Earth Trisolaris Organization (ETO) as a kind of fifth column and appoints Ye as its leader. The news says that the trisolar conquering fleet has set off, but that it will only reach Earth in 450 years, as the fleet can only travel at 1/10 the speed of light and also takes a long time to accelerate to this speed. The association attracts a large number of scientists, some employees of governments and other educated people who are dissatisfied with politics and what is going on on earth. The association forms a small private army and begins building small atomic bombs . However, Evans retains control of most of the resources and begins withholding or modifying messages from Trisolaris. Moreover, the union breaks up into factions. The Adventists and their leader Evans seek the complete annihilation of mankind by the Trisolarians. The Savior and their Leader Shen want to help the Trisolarians solve the three-body problem. Another, small faction, the survivors, whose members are mainly recruited from Chinese, want to help the Trisolarians to conquer the earth, but in return demand that their descendants be allowed to survive.

In a second storyline in the present, Wang Miao, professor of nanosciences and amateur photographer, should help to solve fatal incidents in connection with top international scientists. He is supported by the rude policeman Shi Qiang. Both of them notice that the governments of the world seem to be communicating a great deal and preparing for war. During the following days, Wang had strange hallucinations. While developing a film, he discovers a row of numbers in his photos and has no explanation. Wang sees other people playing a demanding and complex virtual reality computer game "Threebody" and begins to play it himself. The game is set on a seemingly fantastic world. A planet in a system with three suns can only follow a chaotic orbit ( three-body problem ). The development of a civilization on its surface is repeatedly interrupted: either the atmosphere burns up or it solidifies in ice. The extremes sometimes change within minutes. The residents (who look like humans) have difficulty developing their civilization and predicting climate changes. However, unlike humans, they have developed the ability to dry out and turn into a paper-like role. This is to outlast the chaotic ages. In the game diving Aristotle , Mozi , Newton and other personalities. None of them can predict the climate. Wang wins because he can seemingly predict the climate. It turns out that the game serves to attract members to the “Earth Trisolaris Organization”. Wang is accepted into the organization and informs Shi. This leads to a fight between the People's Liberation Army and the soldiers of the union. Ye is arrested. The People's Liberation Army works with the Americans and their leader Colonel Stanton to raid Evans' ship. The crew begins to destroy their data. Based on a suggestion by Shi, the ship is then divided with blades made of nanomaterial , which leads to a massacre of the crew, but the destruction of data stops. The data found lead to new revelations. The Trisolarians have extremely advanced technology. One of them is an 11- dimensional supercomputer , called a sophon, which only has the volume of a proton in three dimensions . Another finding is that two of these sophons were sent to earth and produce hallucinations there to drive scientists crazy, spy on every corner of the earth and instantly send the information to Trisolaris using quantum entanglement. One of the main tasks is to disrupt all of the earth's particle accelerators . The Trisolarians justify this with the fact that the earth can practically no longer research key technologies and that technological progress remains limited until the arrival of the fleet.

Finally, the aged Ye Wenjie visits the ruined research station "Red Shore" again. She reflects on her past choices and realizes that humanity will be different from now on.

background

Publication history

The original edition was published in sequels in Science Fiction World in 2006 and was also published in book form in China in 2008. In 2014, the novel was published in a translation by Ken Liu by the New York publisher Tor Books under the title The Three Body Problem , a German translation by Martina Hasse followed in January 2017 by Heyne Verlag.

The book gained media fame primarily through an interview with the then US President Barack Obama in the New York Times , in which Obama stated that he was a fan of Liu Cixin and found The Three Suns impressive.

Adaptations

In 2017, WDR and NDR Lius produced The Three Suns as a twelve-part radio play directed by Martin Zylka , which was first broadcast by broadcaster WDR 5 from December 25 to 29, 2017.

The novel was also filmed in 2015 under the direction of Fanfan Zhang with Feng Shaofeng and Jingchu Zhang under the title The Three Body Problem and was originally scheduled to be released in July 2016; in the following year, however, the producers announced a postponement for an indefinite period.

Sequels

The three suns is the first part of Liu Cixin's “Trisolaris Trilogy”, which will be continued with The Dark Forest (2008; published in German in 2018) and Beyond Time (2010; published in German in 2019).

Reviews

  • For Maximilian Kalkhof on spiegel.de, at first glance the novel may seem a bit old-fashioned hard science fiction. But as the author "... that connects everything, the cultural revolution, the history of human civilization and the question of the limits of science: that is masterful."
  • For Thomas Grüter in Spektrum.de , the novel addresses “... many profound philosophical questions and also gives a rare insight into the devastation of the Chinese cultural revolution.” The overall composition is masterful, but the “... sometimes abstruse distortions are to be criticized physical facts ”.
  • Hahn Marten on Deutschlandfunk : "[The novel] links Chinese history and scientific knowledge with the fiction of an extraterrestrial threat." - "[E] in a book for fans of intelligent literature."

Awards

Others

The URL 3body.net specified in the novel was no longer operational in 2018; the URL 3body.com is operated in Chinese.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michiko Kakutani: Transcript: President Obama on What Books Mean to Him. In: The New York Times . January 16, 2017, accessed December 16, 2017 .
  2. ↑ http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2015-08/06/content_21522042.htm
  3. ↑ Maximilian Kalkhof: Science fiction success "The Three Suns": The China bestseller. In: Spiegel Online . December 14, 2016, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  4. ↑ https://scilogs.spektrum.de/gedankenwerkstatt/buchbessprechung-die-drei-sonnen-von-liu-cixin/
  5. ↑ https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/cixin-liu-die-drei-sonnen-hochspannend-und-intelligent.1270.de.html?dram:article_id=374490
  6. ↑ 3body.net in the web archive. Retrieved August 30, 2018 .