Modern Hard SF: Simulating Physics in Virtual Reality in Cixin Liu’s "The Three-Body Problem"

Philip Steiner

Abstract


In Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem, the reader follows the protagonist Wang Miao into the digital depths of the virtual reality of Three Body. As I will demonstrate in this paper, the virtual reality Three Body constitutes a purposeful combination of literary simulation of modern physics and intermedial VR video game representation. I will show that this combination is utilized for several interesting narrative purposes, for example, as a powerful foreshadowing instrument and as an almost didactic explanatory device for the theoretical physics problem upon which the novel is based.


Keywords


virtual reality; Chinese SF; hard SF; Cixin Liu; intermediality

Full Text:

PDF

References


Bould, M., & Vint, Sh. (2011). The Routledge Concise History of Science Fiction. London, New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203830161.

Chau, A. (2018). From Nobel to Hugo Reading Chinese Science Fiction as World Literature. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 40(1), 110–135. Retrieved on August 20, 2022, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/26588544.

Cixin, Liu. (2008/2016). The Three-Body Problem [三体] (L. Ken, Trans.). London: Head of Zeus.

Cixin, L. (2013). Beyond Narcissism: What Science Fiction Can Offer Literature (H. Nahm & G. Ascher, Trans.). Science Fiction Studies: Vol. 40(1), Chinese Science Fiction. Greencastle: SF-TH Inc. (pp. 22–32). DOI: 1m0.5621/sciefictstud.40.1.0022.

Downey, S. (2014). History of the (Virtual) Worlds. The Journal of Technology Studies, Spring/Fall, 40(1-2), 54–66. Retrieved on September 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/43604309.

Encyclopedia Britannica. Three-body problem. Retrieved on August 28, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/science/three-body-problem.

Heffernan, J. A. W. (1993). Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kile, S. E. (2017). Early Modern China in a Global Context: Some Comparative Approaches [Special issue]. Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 17(2), 111–145. Retrieved on September 1, 2022, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/90018088.

Møller-Olsen, A. (2020). Data Narrator: Digital Chronotopes in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction. SFRA-Review, 50(2-3), 133–140. Retrieved on September 1, 2022, from https://sfrareview.org/50-2/.

Wolf, W. (2002). Intermediality Revisited: Reflections on Word and Music Relations in the Context of a General Typology of Intermediality. S. M. Lodato, S. Aspden, & W. Bernhart (Eds.), Word and Music Studies: Essays in Honor of Steven Paul Scher and on Cultural Identity and the Musical Stage (pp. 13–34). Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi.

Wu, Y. (2013). Great Wall Planet’: Introducing Chinese Science Fiction. Science Fiction Studies: Vol. 40(1), Chinese Science Fiction (W. Pengfei & R. Nichols, Trans.). Greencastle: SF-TH Inc. (pp. 1–14). DOI: 10.5621/sciefictstud.40.1.0001.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2022.46.3.57-66
Date of publication: 2022-10-31 18:06:40
Date of submission: 2022-03-30 19:24:43


Statistics


Total abstract view - 1472
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF - 1134

Indicators



Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2022 Philip Steiner

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.