The Three-Body Problem
Liu Cixin is considered the leading sci-fi novelist in China. The winner of multiple awards at home and abroad, he represents a stream of work which has enjoyed great success in Chinese publishing over the past decades. The book is the first part of an evocative trilogy whose premise is humanity’s first contact with an alien civilisation which represents a threat to the survival of the inhabitants of planet earth. That may seem like one of the genre’s more common plots, but the charm of Liu Cixin’s novel is that it blends science fiction with the history of China. In doing so it explores the country’s difficult past, including the Cultural Revolution, as well as more current issues such as humans’ impact on the environment. In addition, the novelist’s scientific approach and minutely detailed writing – full of allusions to historical figures and mathematics and physics problems – help give substance and form to the plot and capture the reader’s attention. At the end of the book, the story remains incomplete, heightening anticipation for the next instalments in the saga.
Il problema dei tre corpi
Liu Cixin
Mondadori, 2017