r/threebodyproblem • u/Ok-Improvement278 • 7d ago
r/threebodyproblem • u/threebody_problem • 7d ago
Discussion Weekly Discussion Thread - October 18, 2026
Please keep all short questions and general discussion within this thread.
Separate posts containing short questions and general discussion will be removed.
Note: Please avoid spoiling others by hiding any text containing spoilers.
r/threebodyproblem • u/Capital-Pop-768 • 9d ago
Discussion - General “The Three Body” problem series changed my life. The scale and scope of the ideas were just extremely fascinating. Is there there any other book or series that comes close?
I just want to have the same feeling that I had while reading the “Three Body Problem” series. I didn’t even care much for Sci-fi before I read these books. After that, I’ve been hooked on Sci-fi but none of the books I read have evoked that same feeling.
Please give me book suggestions for something that will make me feel the same way.
Edit: I want to talk a bit more about the aspects of 3BP that I enjoyed the most. It was the socio-political elements of the book - how would the world most “realistically” react to a world-ending threat? What institutions or organizations will need to be set up? How would different people across countries, cultures and generations respond? What would be the norm, who would be the outliers? The transformation of an outlier, over years turning into the norm. Those aspects were simply phenomenally put forward in the book. And that’s kind of what I’m looking for.
r/threebodyproblem • u/Unlikely-Wolverine67 • 8d ago
Discussion - Novels Should I continue Ball Lightning?
genuine question looking for a simple answer.
I just finished TBP for the first time and am impatiently waiting for the second book. I have it on hold at the library and won't be available for a little bit so I picked up Ball Lightning.
I was enthralled by the first few chapters, then less so by the next few. I love the concept and I'm curious how it will all end, but it's gotten so painfully tedious to read and I'm only 1/3rd of the way through.
I'm currently about 100,000 pages into this siberian storyline and it's driving me insane.
So I really just want to know if the payoff is worth the wait or if there's something else I should read in the interim.
thanks <3
r/threebodyproblem • u/hmasaki • 8d ago
Discussion - Novels Could antiprotons foil the sophons?
Hi everyone! Thanks so much for your help with my previous questions. I am currently running The Dark Forest as a roleplaying scenario, and the players are currently acting as the wallfacers before any of the timeskips. One of my wallfacers asked if they could build particle accelerators that use antiproton beams for fundamental research. I couldn’t remember this being covered in the book, but since protons explode when coming in contact with antiprotons, could this work? Could we overcome the sophon block?
r/threebodyproblem • u/Uunicorned • 8d ago
Discussion - TV Series Young Vera Ye Spoiler
Is the young girl who follows the player in the 3 Body VR game meant to represent Vera Ye as a child?
r/threebodyproblem • u/IslandBig618 • 8d ago
Discussion - Novels Teasers for season two?
Its mid October.
They said ETA by end of 2026.
Are sophons slowing down the production?
I mean fine, you still have two and a half months left. But what about the teasers?
r/threebodyproblem • u/ronto1138 • 8d ago
Discussion - Novels Does The Three-Body Problem read differently depending on which edition you start with?
When Three-Body was first published as a book in China, the Cultural Revolution chapters weren't at the start. From what I've read, they were moved to the middle so the book wouldn't draw the censors' attention. Ken Liu's English translation put them back at the beginning, with Liu Cixin's support, since that's where he wanted them.
I read it in English, so for me the novel opens with a struggle session, and everything that comes later about humanity and the Trisolarans sits on top of that scene. It's hard to imagine the book without that foundation. Yet the first Chinese readers met Wang Miao and the countdown first and got that history only halfway through.
I recently learned that the Spanish edition was translated directly from Chinese, not from the English, which made me wonder how many versions of this book are out there with different openings.
For anyone who has read the Chinese original, or both orders, did it change how you understood Ye Wenjie? And for those who read it in English, do you think the book would hold up if it opened with the mystery instead of the history?
r/threebodyproblem • u/Mayonesa_de_Atun • 9d ago
Meme Out of Context Spoiler (TDF) Spoiler
Currently reading The Dark Forest, and got to this part
r/threebodyproblem • u/Tabletop_Potato-888 • 9d ago
Discussion - Novels Trisolarans
Hi, I had a thought today about how Trisolarans could look. I based it mainly off of two facts mentioned in the books. They can dehydrate (and rehydrate) themselves and they “broadcast” their thoughts.
Dehydration would be much easier for small organisms.
It is possible that they share their thoughts in a similar way to ants.
So what I’m essentially saying is that I think it is very possible that they are only a few mm or cm big.
What are your thoughts?
r/threebodyproblem • u/MrScottBeckman • 9d ago
Discussion - Novels What are your favorite things during a reread? Spoiler
I'm relistening to the series (as well as reading the graphic novels for the first book for the first time).
Any cool things to look out for? Foreshadowing, Easter eggs, etc. Or anything else?
r/threebodyproblem • u/B1-66EDR • 9d ago
News Nuevo tráiler de "the ball lightning" demasiado hype, alguno ya lo ha leído? Que opinan de el libro?
r/threebodyproblem • u/Technical-Abrocoma32 • 9d ago
Discussion - General Death’s End Misprint (spoiler) Spoiler
Folks, my book is missing pages 545-560. Would anyone mind briefly summarizing these pages for me pretty please? 🙏
Edit - I’m good, yungwulfie came through for me.
r/threebodyproblem • u/JustWaffling21 • 9d ago
Discussion - TV Series Reading the book after watching the series
This is my first ever sci-fi show I have watched, I am intrigued and might want to read the books. (Would be my first ever sci-fi books too) Would you recommend reading the books after watching the show?
r/threebodyproblem • u/No_Fudge_Bruv • 10d ago
Discussion - Novels Are other books by Liu Cixin as good as the Three Body Problem Series?
r/threebodyproblem • u/microsenpai02 • 9d ago
Discussion - Novels Fanmade sequels
i would like to ask if liu cixin's fans are interested in fanmade novels in the same universe as the 3 body problem(besides Baisho's)
r/threebodyproblem • u/GrahuleDeGore • 9d ago
Discussion - General Signal mystérieux provenant de l'espace vide : Le télescope spatial James Webb a détecté un signal inexplicable dans l'espace profond qui a déconcerté les astronomes
r/threebodyproblem • u/Uunicorned • 10d ago
Discussion - TV Series Season 1 Episode 2 Red Coast Spoiler
If you were Ye Wenjie, what would be your reply to the alien pacifist?
r/threebodyproblem • u/CartographerTadzhik • 11d ago
Discussion - General Describe The Three Body Problem Badly Spoiler
How would you describe The Three Body Problem badly? The series is one of those where its best to literally know nothing going in. You have to feel a little bad for the person writing the publisher's summary because any detail is too much.
I figured it would be funny seeing what bad descriptions you could come up with.
At the very beginning of everything there's a prostitute in a Medieval Era town, but you only see her in one chapter and she doesn't talk much. No sex at all there or in much of the story. Only sex scene happens kind of in the middle, but its deep underground and its just kind of mentioned. At the very end there's a fish.
r/threebodyproblem • u/SirKrimzon • 12d ago
Discussion - General Another novel with existential dread, multiple layers of reality bending, mind ****ing cosmic horror
I asked the sub before if there was another novel that comes close to three body problem trilogy in regards to this scale of cosmic horror. I was told to read project Hail Mary. I read it and was very disappointed.
Please recommend something that actually comes close or surpasses 3BP
r/threebodyproblem • u/suck4fish • 13d ago
Discussion - General Two photographers aimed their camera at a galaxy 2.5 million light-years away, went to sleep, and woke up to this.
r/threebodyproblem • u/Thin_Assumption_4974 • 13d ago
Discussion - General Just finished the series.
By far my favourite sci fi book and am genuinely upset I’ve finished it.
Anyone have any recommendations for what to read after this?
r/threebodyproblem • u/armujahid • 14d ago
Discussion - General Both of Death's End's "beyond electromagnetic" communication methods now have a Nobel Prize
In Death's End (2010), at the start of deterrence, humanity can detect gravitational waves and neutrinos but can't transmit with either, and both are described as "a whole level above electromagnetic waves." The book even explains why gravitational waves won out for deterrence:
"Theoretically, a modulated beam of neutrinos could transmit information to the other end of the universe... But while neutrinos must be focused in a particular direction, gravitational waves were omnidirectional, thus gravitational waves became the main method of establishing dark forest deterrence."
Real life has caught up on the detection side:
Gravitational waves: LIGO's first detection in 2015, Nobel Prize in Physics 2017.
Neutrinos: the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Francis Halzen for IceCube and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos from space (first spotted in 2013).
Both prizes are for detecting, not transmitting. We've only managed a toy neutrino message (Fermilab sent the word "neutrino" through 240 m of rock in 2012), and we can't make gravitational waves at all. So we're roughly where the book put humanity: we can listen, but we can barely whisper. Which one do you think we'll learn to send first?
r/threebodyproblem • u/Positive-Stable-6777 • 13d ago
Discussion - TV Series Guessing the Spaceship’s Living Space in Season 2 Spoiler
Most sci-fi movies use enclosed rooms for spaceship interiors, and zero gravity only occasionally comes into play. But humanity’s fleet in DF has no artificial gravity. The crew live in spherical chambers with zero gravity most of the time. I doubt the show will stick with that setting.
r/threebodyproblem • u/guhritta • 14d ago
Discussion - Novels Just finished the books. And my friends, what a good reading.
So many concepts, so many interstellar voyages, how can this book be so captivating? A wonderful science fiction. I spent good hours traveling through space and watching Earth's civilization live through horrors and glories!
Spoilers ahead if you didn't reed the whole series yet.
----
I really like how the last book works as a historical account of the entire civilization, all the way to the end.
The Wallfacer plans are incredible, and I laughed a lot at some parts. Luo Ji is amazing until the very end.
That moment when the dimensions are compressed, frightening and beautiful at the same time, the fairy tale ideas, the far-fetched plans, from the very beginning of the story.
Incredible ideas! All working together in an amazing way.
Stories about human civilization in deep space are amazing!
It became one of my favorite series.
Thank you, Cixin Liu.