The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #1)

by Liu Cixin

This book is a bit disappointing. The world is exciting, and the story is captivating, but the author doesn't care about the characters. You spend so much time with Ye, but somehow I still feel like I don't know anything about that character's motivations. Did the killings change her? Did her daughter change her? Maybe her grandchildren? She's old, she tells the story, she learns the truth, and it's done. Wang, the main character, finds himself in a super weird and terrifying situation. Suddenly he's part of a cult, then he's part of mass murder, and then you don't even get to see him react to the truth, just the aftermath. The whole Adventists vs Redemptionists doesn't unfold into anything. It builds up a great story and then dumps the secrets on you and the end. Yeah, sometimes the characters don't matter to the story, but it doesn't feel like one of those situations, otherwise why spend so much time around them?