Were the books excellent? I've heard that the sci-fi concepts are great, but that the writing and/or translation to English are poor. I also wonder if the books fall foul of the same tropes I see in some other Chinese storytelling, where themes are very obviously different to those in non-Chinese media. I love good sci-fi but haven't committed to the books yet because I'm concerned I might be wasting my time. Truly interested in opinions!
Yes the books are excellent. I am American but lived in China for a while and my wife is Chinese so I've seen a lot of Chinese media so familiar with many tropes. It is definetely Chinese, but it is not generic scifi with the usual tropes. I gave a copy to my dad and he read the whole trilogy faster than I could finish and was fascinated by the Chinese perspectives and the fact that it was critical of the cultural revolution. I typically prefer good characters over hard scifi, and my main criticism is the characters are not well written, they are mostly walking tropes, so it should speak to the quality of the books that I loved them despite that.
They are good, the themes are fascinating (and I actually disagree with many of it's viewpoints, but still love the books) and the scenarios are really well written with it sounding too wild and crazy but once you learn more about what is happening it makes sense. The alien world is like something out of Stapledons Star Maker.
I'm very picky about scifi, but this is highly recommended.
I was on the edge of my seat in a very novel way for the first half or so of the first book, then it turned fantasy (to me) quick. I know people are claiming this is hard sci-fi, it's not. But there are some very interesting ideas and they are strung together in a very big way. It was kind of too big for me, so I never read the next two. I'd recommend the first book just so you know what it's all about.
I think by hard sci fi people mean that faster than light travel doesn't exist (aka the warp, tacheon drives, space folding, etc. etc.). I agree on it mostly being fantasy (and reading it just this year you can see it was written when string theory was hot)
In my opinion the story the books tell is excellent, after having been pulled in by the story, I would read it in stenography if necessary. I was blown away by the ideas brought forward by the books, but I was a bit surprised to find out that not every person who likes to consume sci-fi is automatically a fan of three-body problem.
The books were great. My favorite books. I have read the 5-6 years back. Don't listen too much into the writing issue. I think it's worth the time. The writing/translation is different from western writing. Sometimes can be unexpectedly cheesy, funny, and emotional but hey that's what life is.