11 Books That Scratch the 3 Body Itch

Many science-fiction stories are thought experiments taken to the extreme. What if someone proved that the rules of math are not constant? What if angels and demons were proved to exist? What if the entire universe existed within a constructed tower? These are some of the ideas that make up Ted Chiang’s groundbreaking first collection, and boy does he commit to them. To write the novella Story of Your Life (which you may know better as the Denis Villeneuve adaptation, Arrival), Chiang immersed himself in years of linguistic research to fully authenticate the problem of interstellar communication. But, crucially, Chiang rarely uncouples scientific quandary from humanity. Unlike The Three-Body Problem, in which human struggle often feels like a framework around which Cixin can drape his ideas, Chiang’s puzzle-box stories center on the emotional and philosophical impact of great discovery: the despair, the horror, the hope.

I’m loath to include too many “classics” on this list. I’d rather tell you about books you may not be aware of. But Foundation is so integral to the hard sci-fi tradition, and such an influence upon The Three-Body Problem, that it’s only right to point new readers toward its vastness. A novel in five parts, it relates the future history of Galactic Empire and the attempt to preserve human knowledge and civilization during an approaching Dark Ages. The scale of Asimov’s vision, in terms of both time and space, broadened the canvas for so much science fiction to come. It’s stately and talky and more inclined toward grand ideas than gripping action, but it’s safe to say that without Foundation, there would be no Three-Body Problem. In fact, there may not be any of the other books on this list either.

The Three-Body Problem may have rocketed the profile of Chinese science fiction, but it’s far from the only game in town. Sinopticon presents some of the biggest names in the genre who aren’t Liu Cixin. The 13 stories showcase the breadth of the Chinese perspective, ranging from humor to cold, bitter despair. What’s notable is how many of the stories share conceits familiar from western sci-fi. A Que’s “Flower of the Other Shore” is a funny zombie story that riffs on Hollywood cliché; Gu Shi’s “The Last Save” features a piece of tech ripped straight from Black Mirror; Hao Jingfang’s “Qiankun and Alex” is focused on the relationship between a young child and the generative AI trying to learn from him. The trick is in Xueting Christine Ni’s translation, which contextualizes cultural differences while allowing something of the original tonality to remain. The result is a set of stories that feel familiar yet have an off-kilter quality that keeps them fresh. It’s a wonderful introduction to a rich alternative viewpoint.

Hao Jingfang’s 2020 novel, Vagabonds, was rapturously received, marking her out as perhaps the potential inheritor of Liu Cixin’s crown. However, it’s the just-released Jumpnauts that may well consolidate her position. It’s a gorgeous book, treading similar ground to The Three-Body Problem but with a jaunty, almost cheerful outlook. In key ways, it’s a reversal of Cixin’s trilogy. Rather than humanity working together to face alien adversaries, Jumpnauts has its cast of characters navigate a terrestrial geopolitical crisis, while communicating with benevolent visitors from the afar. Jingfang melds scientific futurism with age-old mythology in the most satisfying of ways, suggesting that human history is not at all what we think and holding out the trembling hope, that maybe … just maybe … our future is one of peace.

Many sci-fi authors strive for the epic longevity of Remembrance of Earth’s Past or Foundation; Annalee Newitz is one of relatively few who truly succeed. The Terraformers tells a millennia-long story, beginning 60,000 years in the future, concerning the vast transformation of a planet from hostile wilderness to habitable cradle of humanity’s future. And she does all of that in less than 400 pages. Each of the three linked novellas that make up this prospective history is brimming with enough ideas and social commentary to support a much longer novel. Granted, Newitz is palpably more interested in the workings of her blank-canvas stage than she is in the human drama playing out upon it. Yes, there is love and war, but the books joyfully geeky attention is focused more on the rigors of a global transport system, or solving the universe’s biggest housing crisis. Don’t be dissuaded, though: Newitz’s world-building is more thrilling than many a laser battle.

Octavia Butler is best known by sci-fi fans for the near-future hellscape of The Parable of the Sower. Her trilogy, “Lilith’s Brood,” pushes much further, taking place in the aftermath of Earth’s nuclear devastation. In the first book, Dawn, Lilith awakens on a ship in the care of an alien race, the Oankali, who tell her they have spent the centuries of her hibernation cleansing our planet for humanity’s return. However, the price they demand for their benevolence is laced with the racial allegory key to so much of Butler’s speculative fiction. The series’ later developments never quite live up to its initial moral enquiry — critics point to an overcluttering of ideas — but Dawn excels in its marriage of hard and soft sci-fi. It also stands as an alarming and offbeat marker of the last time that the threat of nuclear holocaust tinged the edges of our lives.

Though the stories in Liu’s first collection are, on the whole, very different from The Three-Body Problem, there are two very good reasons for reading it. First, Liu translated Cixin’s novel into English, being a major part of its cross-cultural success. Second, the contents of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories are so laden with awards as to make them utterly essential reading for any fan of sci-fi or speculative fiction. The title story, about a boy entranced by the magical properties of origami, goes much deeper, into the cultural schism between his mother’s Chinese identity and the American side of his family. It was the first work of fiction to sweep the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. Other stories weld the magical and the scientific. Liu gives us a camera that creates holograms of people captured in specific moments; he ties time travel into the worst of Japanese war crimes. A brief highlight, “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species,” presents an alien culture via the entries in their encyclopedias. The many, many awards and nominations are well earned. In a just world, he would be as celebrated and widely read as the writer he helped introduce.

What if The Canterbury Tales were set in space? Depending on your perspective, and what you were forced to endure in English class, that pitch has either turned you on or really off the idea of Hyperion. Dan Simmons’s Hugo-winning space opera is unashamedly stuffed with literary references, but it’s also arguably the most readable novel on this list. Structurally, it’s broken into six sections, each featuring a different “pilgrim” sharing a journey to a distant world to worship at the feet (tentacles?) of a godlike creature, the Shrike. There are no weak links in this chain of stories. They roam across space and time, featuring archaeologists and ancient cultures, reverse aging and time-manipulated warfare. The scope is majestic, the characters are compelling, and Simmons’s flourishes of imagination can be grand or quietly fascinating (a house linked by teleports with each room on a different planet). Chaucer would have been delighted to inspire such fun.

Science fiction is full of multiverses. Many stories follow along the branching paths of the Many Worlds theory, in which a butterfly flapping its wings causes an electro-quake in Orion’s Belt or the death of a god on Proxima Centauri. (Great idea actually, noted down!) The Doors of Eden is a different take on the conceit. Rather than positing the various forked futures ahead, Tchaikovsky peers into the deep past, examining all the potential routes of planetary evolution, had conditions differed just slightly. These musings are presented as interstitial chapters in between the central thrust of the plot, which concerns strange creatures on the English moors and a shadowy governmental conspiracy. It’s all great rollocking stuff, but those evolutionary thought experiments are where the author’s imagination really takes flight. Most fans would recommend Tchaikovsky’s lauded “Children of Time” trilogy, but The Doors of Eden shares more of the niche scientific enthusiasm of The Three-Body Problem.

Asian writers aren’t the only demographic making waves in contemporary sci-fi. An Afrofuturist revolution is also gathering pace in the work of authors such as Nnedi Okorafor, Temi Oh, and Tade Thompson. Thompson’s Wormwood trilogy is dense and challenging, and, like The Three-Body Problem, it presents a perspective on human community and our place in the cosmos that’s at odds with the prevailing American mind-set. The first novel, Rosewater, establishes an alien presence on Earth before leaping forward several decades to assess its impact on our world. The Nigerian town of Rosewater has grown around a huge alien dome, which releases a mind-altering fungus that allows humans to access a network of psychic connection. The setup may sound like a brain-melter, but providing you have a little patience for a raft of new terminology, Rosewater soon settles into one of the most thrilling, satisfying, and grimly imaginative science-fiction novels of the last decade.

Who says that you can’t use hard science in a love story? In Interstellar, Christopher Nolan made love the furthest-reaching natural law, and in Kim Bo-Young’s debut, it’s the single constant point in the relativistic geometry of the universe. Through a pair of twinned novellas, Bo-Young tells the story of a couple bonded in love but separated by space-time. As millennia pass on Earth, they long for each other in the cosmos, hope of reunion sustained by ongoing technological advances. Their dual story is accompanied by two briefer tales — themselves linked — which ponder the relationship between godlike beings and the humans they observe. These are fine sci-fi, but in a list of high concepts, cold science, and macro-scale storytelling, it’s the tale of thwarted, persistent love that shines from the empty reaches of space.