How 3 Body Problem puts the science in science fiction

Since early last year, I’ve been slowly making my way through a fascinating little book. It’s called The World According To Physics, a handsome little hardcover volume written by British physicist and science communicator Jim Al-Khalili. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds is pretty “hard”, and even other mainstream classics of the genre, like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Robot series, are underpinned by fairly hardcore science-y stuff. In fact, some terms and concepts first coined by science fiction writers, like James Blish’s “spindizzy”—a starship propulsion system powered by an intricate relationship between gravitational and electromagnetic fields—or Ursula K. Le Guin’s “ansible”—a device that enables faster-than-light communication in a universe where faster-than-light travel isn’t possible— have entered both pop culture as well as scientific parlance. Liu’s books take their time to advance the plot, and for him it is as important to get into long passages on something like particle physics as it is to detail the intricacies of a planetary civil war between humans who believe the invading Trisolarians need to be fought off and those that see them as saviours.