In a peculiar way, Chinese science fiction has simultaneously entered its golden age and generated a “new wave” subversion of the genre. In the meantime, Liu Cixin’s success should also be contextualized by looking at it as one facet of the revival of the genre in China over the past fifteen years, which was conditioned by various cultural and social elements ranging from the free platform for new authors on the Internet to the nation’s collective yearning for social changes or anxieties about the lack of changes. The success of the trilogy in the American book market is a small echo of its record-breaking popularity among Chinese readers. (words borrowed from the title of a report on the Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2014), the trilogy had already been a national sensation in China and before the trilogy was published in China between 20, a new wave of Chinese science fiction had already emerged at the turn of the twenty-first century. Martin, and Ben Bova.īefore The Three-Body Problem “touched down” in the U.S. The Three-Body Problem has thus far won the hearts of many American sf readers, gaining support from established authors of the genre such as Kim Stanley Robinson, George R. The publisher’s promotion campaign may not match what happened to The Lord of the Rings or The Hunger Games, but the strategy of releasing the trilogy with a steady pace within a less than three-year time frame is apparently aimed to create a similar momentum to entice American readers. Tor released The Three-Body Problem to critical acclaims in November 2014, followed by its sequel The Dark Forest (translated by Joel Martinsen) in August 2015, with the final volume of the trilogy Death’s End (translated by Ken Liu) to be released in August 2016.

Ken Liu, a Chinese-American sf writer who himself swept the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards with his one short story “The Paper Menagerie” (2012), has fine-tuned Liu Cixin’s 刘慈欣 novel with a smooth combination of the original Chinese text’s dynamism and the stylish accuracy and neatness of American sf. The first non-English novel that won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, it has stayed on the top of Amazon’s bestselling list in the category of Chinese literature for almost a year. Ken Liu’s translation of Santi 三体 (The three-body problem) is a milestone in the history of science fiction (sf).

Ciuxinthe three body problem pdf