The Three-Body Problem - Book List & Netflix TV Series

The Three-Body Problem Books and 3 Body Problem TV Series List

This post details the award-winnning sci-fi mystery adventure books, Three-Body Problem – trilogy and paraquel!

Plus details of the top new Netflix adaptation, 3 Body Problem TV series.

For more top new TV series for 2024 including the best detective shows on Apple TV and Amazon Prime, see my posts listed below.

The Three-Body Problem Book Series

1. The Three-Body Problem

Author: Liu Cixin | Book 1 Published: 2006 – the first novel in the original Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy | Translator: Ken Liu | Audiobook Narrator: Daniel York Loh.

Plot: 1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China’s Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind. Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang’s investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns. This is the Three-Body Problem and it is the key to everything: the key to the scientists’ deaths, the key to a conspiracy that spans light-years and the key to the extinction-level threat humanity now faces. [Source: Amazon]

2. The Dark Forest

Author: Liu Cixin | Book 2 Published: 2008 | Translator: Joel Martinsen | Audiobook Narrator: Daniel York Loh.

Plot: Imagine the universe as a forest, patrolled by numberless and nameless predators. In this forest, stealth is survival – any civilisation that reveals its location is prey. Earth has. Now the predators are coming. Crossing light years, the Trisolarians will reach Earth in four centuries’ time. But the sophons, their extra-dimensional agents and saboteurs, are already here. Only the individual human mind remains immune to their influence. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a last-ditch defence that grants four individuals almost absolute power to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from human and alien alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he’s the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead. [Source: Amazon]

3. Death’s End

Author: Liu Cixin | Book 3 Published: 2010 | Audiobook Narrator: Bruno Roubicek.

Plot: Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge, and, with human science advancing and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations can coexist peacefully as equals, without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But peace has made humanity complacent. Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the 21st century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the start of the Trisolar Crisis, and her presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle? [Source: Amazon]

4. The Redemption of Time

Author: Baoshu | Book 4 Published: 2011 – paraquel to The Three-Body Problem | Audiobook Narrator: Bruno Roubicek.

Plot: At the end of the fourth year of the Crisis Era, Yun Tianming, riddled with cancer, chose to end his life. But death for Yun Tianming is merely the first step in a journey that will place him on the front line of a war that has raged since the beginning of time. As Yun Tianming lay dying, his brain was extracted from his body, flash frozen, put aboard a spacecraft and launched on a trajectory to intercept the Trisolarian First Fleet. It was a desperate plan. But there was an infinitesimal chance that one day Tianming may, somehow, send valuable information back to Earth. And so he does. But not before he succumbed to subjective centuries of alien torture and betrayed humanity. Rewarded with a cloned body by the Trisolarans, Tianming has spent millennia in exile as a traitor to the human race. But now he has a chance at redemption. A being calling itself The Spirit recruits him to help wage war against a foe that threatens the existence of the entire universe. But Tianming refuses to be a pawn again. He has his own plans… [Source: Amazon]

*The Three-Body Problem Book Series is available from UK Amazon, US Amazon and Apple eBooks.

3 Body Problem Netflix TV Series

Season 1 Released: March 21, 2024 | Creators: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Woo | Main Cast: Jovan Adepo, Liam Cunningham, Eiza González, Jess Hong, Benedict Wong | IMDb rating: 7.7/10 (58K) | Where to watch? Currently only available on Netflix.

Plot: A fateful decision made in 1960s China reverberates in the present, where a group of scientists partner with a detective to confront an existential planetary threat. [Source: IMDb]

Season 1 Episode List

Countdown: Unsettling events put a group of brilliant friends on edge as a mystery unravels with origins tracing back to China during the Cultural Revolution.
Red Coast: Auggie’s countdown jeopardizes her nanotech work. Jin becomes engrossed in an otherworldly VR game. Ye Wenjie follows through on a radical idea.
Destroyer of Worlds: Obsessed with their virtual reality quest, Jin and Jack race to solve a complex riddle but advancing to the next level brings harrowing consequences.
Our Lord: Jin seeks justice after a death rattles the group. Investigators learn of an extremist group devoted to an otherworldly entity ahead of a major summit.
Judgment Day: As threat levels rise, a secret mission to retrieve enemy intel ventures into dangerous territory. An ominous message reaches Earth.
The Stars Our Destination: With the world in a state of panic following a momentous declaration, Wade gathers the world’s greatest minds to prepare a defense plan.
Only Advance: A bold proposition for the Staircase Project puts the group at odds. Will weighs his options. Ye returns to a familiar place.
Wallfacer: A high-level operation upends Saul’s life. With emotions and expectations high, the probe launches into space as humanity enters a daunting new era.

3 Body Problem Season 2

Release Date: TBA.

Three-Body Problem – Books & New Netflix Series