In the literature of self-help, recovery and various strains of New Age spirituality, the word ‘God’ has increasingly been replaced with a less creed-driven alternative: the higher power . This phrase entered the popular vocabulary in the 1930s, due mostly to the influence of Alcoholics Anonymous. The term only appears three times in the Big Book that codifies AA beliefs and practices, but accepting a higher power is at the heart of the organization’s method, and one of the 12 steps to recovery.
Does this change in parlance from ‘God’ to ‘higher power’ really make a meaningful difference? Apparently it does to a subset of the population—a survey shows that 8% of people do not believe in the former, but accept the latter. I suspect that for some, this leap of faith has been life-changing, and enabled them to overcome personal frailties and obstacles that, otherwise, might have been insurmountable. I note that one of my favorite authors, Denis Johnson, repeatedly dedicated his works to H.P., and I don’t think he had Mr. Lovecraft or Hewlett-Packard in mind. Yet when asked point blank about this matter, his response was "I don’t have anything to say about theology."
Ah, leave it to science fiction to address a different angle of the higher power question. The higher powers in sci-fi stories don’t need any theology either. They have technology instead. They just show up in their spaceship one day, and demonstrate through their weapons and gizmos that they operate on a higher level than the poor human race. This is no matter of myth, doctrine or parable, but a plausible scenario that might actually occur some day. In the words of Chinese science fiction author Cixin Liu: "I’ve always felt that extraterrestrial intelligence will be the greatest source of uncertainty for humanity’s future. Other great shifts, such as climate change and ecological disasters, have a certain progression and built-in adjustment periods, but contact between humankind and aliens can happen at any time."
This is a well-worked field in the territory of science fiction, and at this late stage in the genre’s history I had little confidence that Liu, or any contemporary, could come up with a fresh perspective on the first contact story. But he has done just that in his Hugo-winning novel The Three-Body Problem . And his breakthrough comes from a simple, but powerful insight. The aliens don’t even need to send the spaceship. In fact, they don’t even need to appear in the story. The most significant impact of first contact is merely the knowledge that the higher power exists. Once humans accept that fact, everything changes. And homo sapiens themselves will be the source of the change.
According to the theory of Bill Mathers of the RAND Corporation, (a fictional sociologist in The Three-Body Problem ) the moment humans acknowledge that this higher power exists, a kind of switch is turned on in mass society. “Regardless of the content of the encounter, the results would be the same….The impact would be magnified by the lens of human psychology and culture until it resulted in huge, substantive influences on the progress of civilization.”
This kernel of insight underpins the drama of The Three-Body Problem . The book begins with scientific enigmas. Certain observable phenomena no longer behave as they have in the past. The full ramifications of these changes remain unclear, but a large number of physicists, confronted with the new reality, have committed suicide. Others are behaving unusually. Government agencies and military are now involved, but find their traditional tools and weapons have little to offer in this new state of affairs.
Liu’s fertile imagination is on display as he provides a bizarre range of hints and anecdotes that, at first glance, appear disconnected and often inexplicable. Why does a strange series of numbers, apparently indicating a countdown, show up in photographs taken by an eminent scientist? How does the cosmic microwave, the background noise of the entire universe, manage to fluctuate in an unprecedented manner at the exact moment predicted by a renegade researcher? Why are influential people in society playing an elaborate video game that encourages them to solve the famous, and perhaps insoluble, three-body problem? What emergency situation has spurred Chinese and US military leaders to cooperate in solving a problem that no one wants to explain—or perhaps is capable of describing?
Full disclosure: the plot of The Three-Body Problem involves more high level physics than I have ever encountered in a work of fiction. But you don’t need to be Stephen Hawking to enjoy the conceptual creativity involved here. Liu does a worthy job of explaining what can be explained, and providing poetic comparisons when straightforward explication would prove too cumbersome. I may never be able to comprehend how a proton unfolds into 7-dimensional space—and sincerely hope that I won’t need that information in my day-to-day life—but Liu draws me into the process with enough storytelling firepower to compensate for my sketchy background knowledge.
This novel is as clever on the small details of his plot as on the larger concepts at play in his tale. An interlude involving an army of 30 million soldiers trying to emulate a binary computer with the help of white flags and black flags is both preposterous and very amusing. The incident of a cult-operated tanker ship captured with the help of a nanomaterial trap is like a James Bond movie scene on steroids.
Alas, the writing doesn’t always live up to the concepts. The prose doesn’t have much grace, and even when Liu sets up a scene that invites poetic description—for example, the many parts of this book that take place in isolated natural settings—he is perfunctory in his descriptions. This is especially odd in a book which places such emphasis on ecological issues. By the same token, every character in the book is little more than a cardboard figure, building from a familiar stereotype—from the tough-guy, chain-smoking cop to the opportunist political boss. Sometimes these stick figures can be entertaining—Shi Qiang, the police detective, steals every scene he is in. But they rarely achieve even a baseline degree of plausibility. It’s hard to care about these individuals because they lack the depth of real people. Liu ought to spend some time reading, say, Stephen King or Octavia Butler, where he can learn how genre authors use back story and subplot to bring characters to life.
So this isn’t the book to read if you want to learn how sci-fi is merging with literary fiction in the current day. This novel doesn’t reflect that important trend. But Liu may have achieved something even more difficult. He has taken concept-driven speculative writing and introduced some whizz-bang new concepts that you’ve never encountered before. That kind of imaginative leap cuts to the very essence of the sci-fi genre, and is just as essential as metaphors and modifiers in grabbing hold of readers of works of this sort.
And grab them he does. If you look to sci-fi for big ideas, this work will not disappoint. Cixin Liu is the real deal, a storytelling visionary who can take on the whole universe in his schemes. By the way, a film adaptation of The Three-Body Problem is in the works—in fact, five different film projects based on Liu works are underway. So I anticipate that this genre lit sensation will soon turn into a film brand franchise. I’m not sure that will improve the quality of Liu’s writing, but it will certainly have an impact on his fame and influence.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. He is the author of ten books. His most recent book is How to Listen to Jazz (Basic Books).
Liu's breakthrough comes from a simple, but powerful insight. The aliens don’t even need to send the spaceship. In fact, they don’t even need to appear in the story. The most significant impact of first contact is merely the knowledge that the higher power exists.