3 Body Problem: Read This Before You Watch The GoT Showrunners' New Netflix Series

This column was originally published as part of our newsletter The Daily Show on March 18, 2024. Subscribe here. (We're awesome about not spamming your inbox!)

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LIKE the three-body problem in Physics itself — the absence of a general solution to predict the motion of three gravitating celestial bodies — the spheres that are the West, China and science fiction, have been engaged in a constant dance of unpredictability over the last century or so, weighed down by the evermore tangled and incalculable variables of politics, ideologies, cultures, ideas, philosophies, history, and much more.

While Chinese sci-fi has been having a bit of a moment on the international stage, trouble never seems to be too far behind. Nevertheless, with Netflix's much anticipated and big-budgeted release (produced by Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss) of 3 Body Problem, based on the acclaimed book by author Liu Cixin (stylised as The Three-Body Problem), an unprecedented breakthrough for the country's blooming genre is in sight.

Originally serialised in Science Fiction World in 2006, and published as a standalone book in 2008, The Three-Body Problem was already quite a success by the time it was translated into English by Ken Liu, and released by Tor Books in 2014. But greater fanfare was to follow. Apart from selling millions of copies, it became the first Asian novel to win a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015 (and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel), and found endorsement from mainstream figures like George RR Martin, Mark Zuckerberg and Barack Obama.

The first in a series of three books — collectively known as Remembrance of Earth's Past — The Three-Body Problem is a novel densely packed with ideas — from sombre, reflective realism to speculative yet grounded science, to (perhaps most attractively) the outright mind-bendingly otherworldly (literally).

Opening with the Cultural Revolution sweeping across China, the book follows Astrophysics graduate Ye Wenjie, as she witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death, an event that would go on to shape the future of humanity, whose “moral awakening”, she comes to believe, could only transpire with the intervention of an external force.

Four or so decades later in the present, following a spate of mysterious suicides by several scientists (including Wenjie's daughter Yang Dong), Beijing detective Shi Qiang enrols nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive scientist community, whom the former suspects to have connections to the deaths. In his wildly disorienting investigation, Miao stumbles on an online game — featuring a planet ruled by unpredictable interaction of its three suns — that encourages its players to solve the titular three-body problem. But behind the virtual world lies a very real, harrowing conspiracy that spans light-years and poses an extinction-level threat to the human race.

It's difficult to go into too many details without spoiling the numerous twists, turns and secrets the book holds, but rest assured it is a page turner in the truest sense of the phrase. A thrilling, breathless ride across the cosmos.

For those uninitiated with sci-fi literature, Cixin's simple, explanatory writing comes as a boon. The author is very much in the genre's camp of ideas-and-plot over prose-and-style, and while the approach backfires at times (more on that in a minute), it mostly makes for an increasingly impressive wave that one can ride with relative ease, without the fear of getting overwhelmed by or lost in the deep waters of technical jargons. And it's all for the better, more so as Cixin has much to say.

Beneath the lucidity lie pages of densely packed notions drawing from and exploring wide-ranging subjects like the modern history of China and that of science; the human psyche; environmental degradation; an all-consuming quest to reach out for life beyond Earth; and a twisted sense of hope, redemption and retribution. While the devastations and human cost of the Cultural Revolution makes up the ground on which the book stands (Liu provides plenty of footnotes explaining historical references that readers might be unfamiliar with), the author does not shy away from more out-there — even absurd — ideas once the story takes off. From secret government bases to a “blinking” universe and mind-boggling methods of sabotage, you've got it all…and that's just the beginning.

On the flip side, though, this heavy-handed preoccupation with the above-mentioned ideas, and with feverishly moving the narrative along, robs the story and characters of deserving emotions and at times leaves one with a jarring sense of incompleteness, as if pages or paragraphs might have gone missing. And not all of Cixin's musings pay off. For example, there are times when Buddhist philosophy is touched upon in passing; but in a manner that feels superficial at best, ignorant at worst. While some of it can be attributed to the difficulties of translation, especially considering the intricacies of a particular language or cultural references, the suspension of disbelief in the context of more realistic happenings takes more getting used to than the fantastical devilry.

All the same, The Three-Body Problem remains largely an absorbing experience that provides not just the thrills, but plenty to chew on when you are lying awake at night, contemplating our species' morality and mortality, and the future-shaped hole that we are collectively and unconcernedly digging ourselves into.

So even if you're not a science fiction fan or a stranger to the Asian side of the genre, the novel provides not only an exciting opening to that wonderful world, but also a gateway into real history and contemporary scientific thinking for the more curious. More so, since there is plenty more to sink your teeth into once you are done with this book: there’s the sequel, The Dark Forest, and concluding the trilogy, Death's End. And well, with the Game of Thrones team involved behind the scenes (ahem), it's always a good idea to read the source material.

If you are still on the fence though, we have saved the big A word (other than annihilation) for the last, just to supplement that final nudge.As one of the characters so finely puts it, “I would never have thought that actual f—king aliens would be involved!”

3 Body Problem premieres on Netflix on 21 March 2024