This is not a review, and I don't hand out stars either. It is part of my annotated reading list. Whatever first comes to mind when I pick up the book. More about it in this blog post. The English text is a translation made with an LLM, which I check and revise myself.
written on November 4, 2026, read November 2025
I want to get around to some heavier literature on my reading list. What a doorstopper. It’s the Three-Body trilogy – “Trisolaris” in German – in a single volume: 1,740 pages. The book weighs quite a bit.
This was the book that ultimately accompanied me through my surgery. I came to it through the Netflix series and my curiosity about how the story continues. We’re still waiting for the second season, after all. Since episodes are still to come, I won’t write much about the plot – pretty much anything would be a spoiler.
I thought the book was really good. It just has one problem with me as a reader: it has to explain a lot to me. To do so, it uses footnotes1 that explain how something is derived and where it fits into the edifice of Chinese thought – alongside others that explain scientific terms. That does hamper the reading flow, though.2
It’s all just a bit unfamiliar. With European authors, I usually recognise fairly quickly the cultural reference points within which they move. I’m familiar with them, at least in broad strokes. With Chinese authors, I lack that sense of the self-evident – just as I do with authors from the many other, equally diverse cultures of Asia.
Chinese authors draw on a rich cultural heritage that goes back thousands of years and of which, to be honest, I know little. China simply didn’t feature in any meaningful way at school. And to my shame, I have to admit that the same goes for large parts of Asia. Perhaps the philistine in me shows when I say that – apart from a few Japanese films (quite a few of which fall into the “Godzilla vs. Whatever” category) and plenty of anime and manga – I’ve had far more contact with Japanese history than with Japanese culture. Although there is, of course, a great deal of overlap, since you can’t look at one without the other.
With China, I lack this context even more. I’ve only caught a very few, very selective and probably westernised glimpses of this culture. I keep meaning to finally fill this gap, but in the end I make myself comfortable on the sofa with something light from the Western cultural sphere after all. I’d be very grateful for recommendations that lead you there without 1,700 pages.3
I’ve read books by authors from half the world – but only from half of it. And I now see that as a major omission.4 My gap is even bigger when it comes to African authors. I’ve read many books on African history,5 but little fiction from that continent. That probably also has to do with the fact that I generally tend to reach for non-fiction.
“Trisolaris” became a gripping book for me – at the latest after I had switched off, for the time being, that question with which children drive their parents, and nieces and nephews their uncles, close to insanity: the highly recursive “Whyyyyy?”. I later read the endnotes in one go – each together with the passage it referred to. That made the book read much more smoothly. After all, I did read it in full during the five weeks I was occupied with my surgery.
And that brings us to my main problem with the book, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the book itself: I’m not sure I read all of it. I have the feeling that there’s some kind of hole in my memory. I probably read a few hundred pages during that time with my eyes, but not with my brain.
I think I simply read this heaviest single item in my hospital luggage at the wrong time. Everything came together: an outwardly unwieldy book, an unwieldy time, an unwieldy situation, somewhat unwieldy content. I should have taken comics with me.
So I’ll have to read the book again soon. I’d estimate that some 200 to 300 pages fell victim to my patchy memory of that time.
The problem: I don’t know exactly which pages they were – after all, I can’t really remember. Basically, I’d have to reread half of the second part and the entire third part. But first the current pile has to be worked through. It would be too easy if I could still remember where I’d have to start – stopping at the right place, I’ll manage.6
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Strictly speaking, they’re endnotes: in my edition they’re on pages 1,699 to 1,738. And with well over two kilos7 and a sternotomy, flipping back and forth was quite a challenge. ↩
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Yes, I’m aware of the irony that I use footnotes in my own blog posts as if the lid had come off the salt shaker. ↩
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Strangely enough, I feel little desire to travel to China. And I have no idea why. Perhaps because Japan and South Korea simply take priority as places I want to visit – and Singapore once more, to see how everything has developed in 25 years. Since I currently – unlike in the past – rarely travel far and Canada and Australia/New Zealand are also on my wish list, China is a country I’ll approach through books. ↩
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Japan is very high up on my bucket list as a travel destination. I hope to be able to tick it off that list as soon as possible. But I also know that this would only be dipping my little toe in. Still, it bothers me that Singapore is all I know of Asia. ↩
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Many thanks to that history teacher who got me interested in it. ↩
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It would probably be easier to wait for new episodes and then see where the “Where did that come from?” sets in. However, I fear – since the series already deviates quite strongly in the part that has been adapted so far – that this will be the case practically everywhere. So just read it again from the start after all? ↩
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I actually weighed the book. ↩