Cixin Liu is the most prolific and popular science-fiction writer in the People’s Republic of China. Liu is an eight-time winner of the Galaxy Award (the Chinese Hugo) and a winner of the Nebula Award. Prior to becoming a writer, he worked as an engineer in a power plant in Yangquan, Shanxi.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Ken Liu is a writer, lawyer, and computer programmer. His short story “The Paper Menagerie” was the first work of fiction ever to sweep the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM
Copyright © 2006 by
English translation © 2014 by China Educational Publications Import & Export Corp., Ltd.
Translation by Ken Liu
This publication was arranged by Hunan Science & Technology Press. Originally published asScience Fiction World (
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Stephen Martiniere
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Liu, Cixin.
[San ti. English]
The three-body problem / Cixin Liu; translated by Ken Liu.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7706-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-5344-7 (e-book)
I. Liu, Ken, 1976–translator. II. Title.
PL2947.C59S3613 2014
895.13'52—dc23
2014033729
e-ISBN 9781466853447
First U.S. Edition: November 2014
1 Translator’s Note: This refers to the August 1967 editorial inRed Flag magazine (an important source of propaganda during the Cultural Revolution), which advocated for “pulling out the handful [of counter-revolutionaries] within the army.” Many read the editorial as tacitly encouraging Red Guards to attack military armories and seize weapons from the PLA, further inflaming the local civil wars waged by Red Guard factions.
2 Translator’s Note: Originally a term from Buddhism, “Monsters and Demons” was used during the Cultural Revolution to refer to all the enemies of the revolution.
3 Translator’s Note: These were some of the most famous intellectuals who committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution. Lao She: writer; Wu Han: historian; Jian Bozan: historian; Fu Lei: translator and critic; Zhao Jiuzhang: meteorologist and geophysicist; Yi Qun: writer; Wen Jie: poet; Hai Mo: screenwriter and novelist.
4 Translator’s Note: Chinese colleges (and Tsinghua in particular) have a complicated history of shifting between four-year, five-year, and three-year systems up to the time of the Cultural Revolution. I’ve therefore avoided using American terms such as “freshman,” “sophomore,” “junior,” and “senior” to translate the classes of these students.
5 Translator’s Note: In the Chinese education system, six years in primary school are typically followed by three years in junior high school and three years in high school. During the Cultural Revolution, this twelve-year system was shortened to a nine- or ten-year system, depending on the province or municipality. In this case, the girl Red Guards are fourteen.
6 Translator’s Note: “Cadre,” when used in the context of Chinese Communism, does not refer to a group, but to an individual official of the Party or the state.
7 Author’s Note: During that phase of the Cultural Revolution, most intermediate and higher people’s courts and procuratorial organs (responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes) were under the control of military commissions. The military representative had the final vote on judicial matters.
8 Translator’s Note: this is the Chinese term for the work behind “596” and “Test No. 6,” the successful tests for China’s first fission and fusion nuclear bombs, respectively.
9 Translator’s Note: The May Seventh Cadre Schools were labor camps during the Cultural Revolution where cadres and intellectuals were “re-educated.”
11 Translator’s Note: Qian Zhongshu (1910–1998) was one of the most famous Chinese literary scholars of the twentieth century. Erudite, witty, and aloof, he consistently refused media appearances. One might think of him as a Chinese Thomas Pynchon.
12 Translator’s Note: For more on Ding Yi, seeBall Lightning by Cixin Liu.
15 Translator’s Note: Hairen (
16 Translator’s Note: The Warring States Period lasted from 475 BC to 221 BC. But King Wen of Zhou reigned much earlier, from 1099 BC to 1050 BC. He is considered the founder of the Zhou Dynasty, which overthrew the corrupt Shang Dynasty.
17 Translator’s Note: King Zhou of Shang reigned from 1075 BC to 1046 BC. The last king of the Shang Dynasty, he was a notorious tyrant in Chinese history.
18 Translator’s Note: Zhao Ge was the capital of Shang China, where King Zhou held court.
19 Translator’s Note: Fu Xi is the first of the Three Sovereigns, a Chinese mythological figure. He was one of the progenitors of the human race along with the goddess Nüwa.
21 Author’s Note: Chien-Shiung Wu was one of the most outstanding physicists of the modern era, with many accomplishments in experimental physics. She was the first to experimentally disprove the hypothetical “law of conservation of parity” and thereby lend support to the work of theoretical physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang.
22 Translator’s Note: Er guo tou is a distilled liquor made from sorghum, sometimes called “Chinese vodka.”
23 Translator’s Note: Mozi was the founder of the Mohist school of philosophy during the Warring States Period. Mozi himself emphasized experience and logic, and was known as an accomplished engineer and geometer.
24 Translator’s Note: This was a Chinese 16-bit minicomputer modeled on the American Data General Nova.
25 Translator’s Note: A maser is like a laser, but for electromagnetic radiation, typically microwaves, not in the visible light range.
26 Translator’s Note: The Third Front program was a secret, military-led industrialization effort during the Cultural Revolution that built factories in China’s interior, where they would be less vulnerable to American and Soviet attacks.
(Liu Cixin)
in 2008 by Chongqing Publishing Group in Chongqing, China. First serialized in
) in 2006.