Waffling between 3 and 4 stars on this one. 
 I thoroughly enjoyed the first 2/3 or so, but I found myself much less interested during the last third. After (view spoiler)[ Wang enters the world of Three Body for the last time (hide spoiler)], a lot of the narrative lost interest for me. Most of the characters seemed very flat, and the philosophy aspects felt very heavy-handed to me; and those are the two things that generally draw me to scifi the most. Also, several of the early plot elements seemed to be wholly forgotten until the final pages. 
 I did like the hard scifi aspects of the book very much: the incorporation of the three-body problem, the challenges of SETI, microcomputing, dimensionlity, and practical space travel. I also found the backdrop of the story fascinating: With a Chinese rather than Western author, the Chinese setting feels very natural, and reading the book highlighted my own lack of knowledge about Chinese history. Luckily, the translator has incorporated copious notes on historical, cultural, and mythological references (as well as puns!) that would not be known by many Western readers. It really felt like a different experience from reading something set in China but written by a Western author. It also helped me challenge some of my preconceived notions of what academic and scientific life in China is like. 
 During the first 2/3 or so, I kept thinking of the book as a parallel to Contact, but... it's really not that. It came across as much closer to Asimov's writing: really neat science, but lackluster characters and an overall heavy-handedness to the writing. 
 Overall, I would recommend this if only for the setting, which I think is very different than many Western readers are used to, and the really cool hard scifi aspects, but I don't think I'll be continuing with the series.