Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem is a science fiction novel that follows multiple characters, usually the scientist Wang Miao, as the people of Earth discover and confront an upcoming invasion by aliens from the planet Trisolaris.
The novel spans multiple decades and perspectives, from China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s to sometime around the present day. Most chapters are written in the third person, and most follow either Wang Miao, a present-day nanomaterials researcher, or Ye Wenjie, a scientist who loses faith in humanity. Ye becomes the commander in chief of the Earth-Trisolaris Organization, a group that supports the alien invasion with domestic action. Ye was the first human to contact the Trisolarans, and she hopes they will save humanity from itself, though she doesn’t realize the full extent of their planned invasion. The Trisolarans’ home will soon be destroyed by the three suns of their solar system, so they plan to conquer Earth, arriving in around 450 years. To prevent Earth from defending itself, the Trisolarans use their superior technology to halt humanity’s scientific progress. Wang Miao, along with police captain Shi Qiang and other members of an international Battle Command Center, unravels the Trisolarans’ plot and collects intelligence on how the upcoming invasion might be stopped. At the end of this first novel in the trilogy, Trisolaran interference in humanity’s progress is revealed to the world.
Published as one volume in China in 2008 and translated into English in 2014 by Ken Liu, the novel brought Liu Cixin international fame. The Three-Body Problem became the first Asian novel to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel. The book is the first in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, followed by The Dark Forest (2008) and Death’s End (2010).
