三体 (2008)

The Three-Body Problem, first in Cixin Liu’s trilogy, moves from China’s Cultural Revolution towards a problem that expands the scale of the story dramatically. Cixin Liu mixes historical injury, scientific argument and the appeal of an impossible game, with Ken Liu translating from Chinese. Choose it for the way a particular twentieth-century history alters the motives behind a cosmic encounter. The exposition can be substantial, and this opens a trilogy rather than completing its whole argument. The Chinese title is 三体.