The Three-Body Problem
The Three-Body Problem (Book 1)
- Author Cixin Liu
- Narrator Daniel York Loh
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date 23 February 2023
- Run Time 14 hours and 47 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Fiction in translation, Science fiction, Science fiction: aliens / UFOs.
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What to expect
Bloomsbury presents The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, read by Daniel York Loh.
Read the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon – soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones.
1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind.
Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns.
This is the Three-Body Problem and it is the key to everything: the key to the scientists' deaths, the key to a conspiracy that spans light-years and the key to the extinction-level threat humanity now faces.
Praise for The Three-Body Problem:
'Your next favourite sci-fi novel' Wired
'Immense' Barack Obama
'Unique' George R.R. Martin
'SF in the grand style' Guardian
'Mind-altering and immersive' Daily Mail
Winner of the Hugo and Galaxy Awards for Best Novel
Read the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon – soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones.
1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind.
Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns.
This is the Three-Body Problem and it is the key to everything: the key to the scientists' deaths, the key to a conspiracy that spans light-years and the key to the extinction-level threat humanity now faces.
Praise for The Three-Body Problem:
'Your next favourite sci-fi novel' Wired
'Immense' Barack Obama
'Unique' George R.R. Martin
'SF in the grand style' Guardian
'Mind-altering and immersive' Daily Mail
Winner of the Hugo and Galaxy Awards for Best Novel
Critics Review
A unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, politics and history, conspiracy theory and cosmology
Wildly imaginative, really interesting... The scope of it was immense
A marvellous mélange of awe-inspiring scientific concepts, clever plotting and quirky yet plausible characters, all conveyed in in a plain style capable of signalling hidden depths
A milestone in Chinese science fiction
The best kind of science fiction
Liu Cixin's impressive The Three Body Problem won the 2015 Hugo award for best novel, the first time a Chinese writer has taken that prize
It's a stunning, high-concept, rollercoaster of a novel which offers an intriguing Eastern perspective... this is a trilogy which, like Asimov's Foundation epic, looks set to quickly become an essential science fiction classic'
China has a lively SF scene inaccessible to western audiences until recently, so it's a great pleasure to read this book by Cixin Liu – the country's most popular SF writer – in English. Handled expertly on the terms of the genre, it is seeing this tale played out through a different cultural lens that makes the book fascinating. The translation is exemplary. The book is top-flight SF; smart, informative and engaging
Hard science fiction at its finest, and fans will appreciate the superb attention to detail that drives this constantly evolving and impressive series
The writing is superb... The ideas are astounding, real eye-openers that expand the mind and really get the old grey matter going... A stand-out, award-worthy novel and one that deserves a place amongst the science fiction classics'
For a book that makes you think, and holds true to some of the traditional values of SF, this one can't be beat
[The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest are] the works of fiction I am most enthusiastic about
A celebration of science as saviour
This book lives and dies by the quality of its ideas. Fortunately, the many, many different questions posed are fascinating and imaginative and I barreled through this novel right up to its gripping conclusion
A book rich in ideas, puzzles and theories but each of them is explained in a way that isn't only accessible but is also absolutely engrossing... The ideas are vast but they are beautifully expressed and, for this, credit must also go to Ken Liu who has done a fantastic job of translating this masterpiece. I loved where The Three Body-Problem took me – it is tense, wondrous and fascinating and I am so ready to read its successor, The Dark Forest, the next in this exciting, original and gobsmacking trilogy'
A really fascinating book and I'm delighted that there are two more to come in the series... I'd recommend to readers who want to enjoy the science as much as the story'
A book that you must have read, whether you are a Science Fiction fan or not. Cixin Liu tackles so many different topics from action, thriller and a strong emotional backdrop... I cannot imagine what effort it must have cost to translate such an epic story to English but it paid off really well. A great performance'
Even what doesn't happen is epic
Cixin Liu began his massively ambitious trilogy with this dazzling work of SF... Hard to sum up in a few short lines, but one you read it you'll be doing your best to tell everyone else to follow suit'
Might be the biggest TV series to hit Earth this year… an adaptation of one of the 21st century’s most celebrated books
One of the first Chinese novels to truly make an impact with Western audiences, [Liu]’s mind-boggling epic has found fans in everyone from George R.R. Martin to Barack Obama
Formidable… The Three-Body Problem, written by the Chinese science-fiction godfather Cixin Liu, imagines a tantalising scenario
Even by sci-fi standards, the story is staggering in its scope – some portions are set 18m years into the future, in galaxies far, far away
The series has outgrown its genre, both in China… and around the world, introducing casual readers to hard sci-fi in the same way Thrones once did for high fantasy
A masterful elaboration on the extraterrestrial “what-if”, it is gratifying that a novel so steeped in Chinese thought and history is encountering such a wide audience
Briskly told space-action thrillers, packed with mind-blowing and wondrous sci-fi invention and ideas
[A] gripping and haunting sci-fi mystery
Incredible success… Liu is lauded as the man who put Chinese science fiction on the map
A dazzlingly complex narrative full of unpredictable shifts of pace and tone, with the reader pushed and pulled between heavyweight issues: tricky physics, philosophy, Chinese history, and planetary annihilation
User Reviews
| Author | Cixin Liu |
|---|---|
| Narrator | Daniel York Loh |
| Series | The Three-Body Problem |
| Duration | 14 hours and 47 minutes |
| Release Date | |
| ISBN | 9781837933570 |
| Format | Audiobook |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Genre | Fiction in translation, Science fiction, Science fiction: aliens / UFOs |
| Collections | As Seen On Screen |
| Availability | AU, GB, IE |
| Rating |
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| Narration |
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