Rating: 4 out of 5
I was put off by the beginning—the opening chapters were non sequitur, at least if you don’t know what’s going on, and up until we learn more about the Red Coast Project, these introductions can seem brutal without any explanation as to why they would be so.
Once we meet some of the other characters, and for me it’s unclear who should be treated as the main protagonist of this storyline, the mood lightens somewhat, which seems to be in keeping with the lightening of the official tone of the times as well, at least as described by Mr Liu.
The setting of the Three-Body game was very interesting although it was somewhat surprising that only our remotely scientifically relevant Xiao was able to make progress against the environment of the site. Or was this a part of the ETO design? Many questions about this remain unanswered, although the design of the game and the setup make it one of the most interesting aspects of the book.
Beyond this, the elements of the (criminal?) investigation give the novel a certain detective story air which normally helps a book develop. In this who/what/why, Da Shi stands out more than anyone else, overall becoming a great character whose flights of thought are some of the most innovative in the book.
Overall, the increased leniency of the action—let’s just say that during the rest of the book, there are almost no violent or grotesque deaths and tortures that one experiences in the beginning—and the way the reader is brought in on the Trisolaran civilization, step-by-step, helps pique the interest of the reader in what comes next, even if the “next” is very far away. I started to investigate by commencing the next book.
