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The Three-Body Problem

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The Three-Body Problem

By: Cixin Liu, Ken Liu - translator
Narrated by: Daniel York Loh
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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©2023 Cixin Liu (P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Asian & Pacific Islander Creators First Contact Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Fiction China Interstellar
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Continue the series
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The Dark Forest By: Cixin Liu, and others
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Death's End By: Cixin Liu, and others
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The Redemption of Time By: Baoshu, and others

Critic Reviews

A unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, politics and history, conspiracy theory and cosmology (George R.R. Martin)
Wildly imaginative, really interesting... The scope of it was immense (Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States)
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 (Kim Stanley Robinson)
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'
All stars
Most relevant
I haven’t listened to a science fiction book for some time. This was a wonderful story with lots of twists and internal connections between people and events. His imagination is extraordinary: whole new worlds have been created out of the chaos of ‘three worlds’. I had to keep listening to know what might happen next. His characters had depth and the relationships between characters were interesting. The narrator was perfect for such a complex and technical text - forceful but slow enough to convey much meaning. Well done. Looking forward to the next volume.

Wonderful imagination

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The plot had me guessing from beginning to end, and the ominous narration superbly complimented the story. I was first introduced to this book as a novel about "playing a video game to save the world" and I am so glad that this crude summary truly paled in comparison to the totality of the story itself.

A surreal dreamlike dive into a parallel universe

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This book reinvigorated my interest not just in science fiction, but in reading fiction in general. there's lots to think about in this story

Great science fiction

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This book is unique as it is written from a different cultural point of view. Intelligent and entertaining. Couldn’t stop listening.

Brilliant

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Some of the different characters I found difficult to distinguish between which made the performance trying.
There were sections which I think were added incase people didn’t understand the history/cultural aspects of china however the writing in these sections did not match the rest of the book so it was a little jarring.
Maybe I am just not used to complex sci-fi but I found the chunks of physics were a little out of sink and took me out of the story.
A number of the characters did not have humanity, maybe that was showing what belief had done to them.
Maybe I had hyped this up but it didn’t live up to the hype, I struggled to listen to it all the way through.

Really interesting but I don’t think the translation quite worked.

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