Match Book
The Three-Body Problem
Liu Cixin
2006 · 472 pages · Science fiction
How it reads
The Three-Body Problem is science fiction (hard science fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in an international setting, in the future, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are war. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It opens a series. The ending is left open, for you to argue about. At 472 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something tense
- you want something to chew on
- you're drawn to stories about war
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy or heartwarming
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- science fiction
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- international
- Setting: time
- future
- Mood / feeling
- tense
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- third person, several viewpoints
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- first in a series
- Themes
- war
- Ending style
- ambiguous
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
2001: A Space OdysseyArthur C. ClarkeShares: science fiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace- The Dream HotelLaila LalamiShares: science fiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- The Wandering EarthLiu CixinShares: science fiction, tense mood, hard science fiction, ambiguous ending
- Ancillary JusticeAnn LeckieShares: science fiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Red MarsKim Stanley RobinsonShares: science fiction, heavy and literary tone, hard science fiction, moderate pace
The Gods ThemselvesIsaac AsimovShares: science fiction, tense mood, hard science fiction, moderate pace
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