- Publisher: MacMillan Audio
- Publish Date: 2014
- Duration: 13 hours 26 minutes
- Book 1 of 4 – Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy
- Audible ASIN: B00P00QPPY
- Author: Cixin Liu
- Translated by: Ken Liu
- Read by: Luke Daniels
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu won the Hugo Award in 2015 for best novel. It is most often considered a hard science fiction novel with a lot of details on potential physics and applications of such physics, but it borders on fantasy by the end of the story.
The Three-Body Problem begins in the not too distant past of the Chinese Cultural Revolution where many academics were purged from society. One young woman, Ye Wenjie, witnesses her father, a professor, beaten to death for not rejecting his belief in science, and the Western contributions to science. She is sent to a labor camp, but eventually is recruited to the secret “Red Coast” base that uses a radio telescope to send and (potentially) receive messages to and from space. She finds a way to use the sun to boost the power of the radio transmissions and beam a message out into space. It takes four years at light speed for the message to be received by an alien race, and another four for them to send a reply. This begins a sequence of events that could lead to the destruction of the human race, or perhaps its salvation.
The title of the book refers to the classic physics three-body problem that it is impossible in the long-term to calculate the trajectories of three bodies (three planets, three stars, etc.) based on their gravitational affects on each other. The alien planet is in the three-star Alpha Centauri system which is the nearest star to our sun. Because they are in the gravitational fields of three different suns (three-bodies), they alternate wildly between stable and chaotic periods. These are illustrated by an interactive computer game in the novel that supposedly shows the effects of this problem on the alien society, using historical human scientists as allegories for the alien race. The chaotic nature of the gravitational effects regularly destroys much if not all of this Tri-Solar society.
The book mixes a lot of supposed science into story and gives seemingly reasonable explanations behind this science. Perhaps I don’t have enough of science background, or perhaps I just don’t have enough imagination, but much of this ‘science’ seemed more handwavium than science. The basic premise of a chaotic action of three stars on the planet does not seem to match the actual system. The wild swings that change the entire climate of the planet from rock melting heat to completely frozen atmosphere does not seem like it would lead itself to developing even intelligent life, let alone an advanced society whose technology verges on magic.
I did not believe that this alien species and culture could evolve to the state proposed in the book, but I did like the idea of an alien race whose technology appears miraculous on Earth. I liked the historical journey into a past China and some of what people went through at the time, and how that changed over time. I did like this story and the people in it, even when I didn’t believe it. I don’t know that I would have give The Three-Body Problem the Hugo had I been giving them out, but do think it is a good book and worth the time to read (or listen to).
Matt Truxaw’s newest book is Monster, which released on 1/12/2026. This urban fantasy, horror, thriller will keep you turning the pages.
He is also the author of the hard science fiction thrillers: “Plastiphobia/Plastivore” and “Anthrophobia: A Teacher’s Tale”
You can find them all on Amazon in Paperback, Hardback, Kindle and/or free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
When you read any of them, he would really appreciate a review/rating on Amazon or your favorite book seller/book reader site.
More about Matt:
He was born in Orange County California many years ago and he still lives there. He has been reading books for most of those years and writing up book reviews for the last few years. He gets MANY of his books out of the library/Libby so expect a lot of old science fiction classics book reviews and other science related reviews in addition to newer books he comes across.
If you want to be ‘in-the-loop’ on these and other works, you can follow his author’s page on Amazon or his Facebook page.
For more reviews and articles by Matt here on Amazing Stories (Click here).
Monster: A Novel by Matt Truxaw
