Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem Series (also known as Remembrance of Earth's Past) is a landmark of science fiction, tracing humanity's first contact with an alien civilization and its catastrophic consequences across four centuries. The trilogy begins in China's Cultural Revolution, when a disillusioned scientist sends a message into space and receives a response from Trisolaris, a planet whose chaotic three-sun system makes civilization unstable. The Trisolarans, facing extinction, plan to invade Earth, setting in motion a conflict that spans the remaining novels. Liu, China's preeminent science fiction writer, fills these books with mind-bending concepts: the unfolding of a proton into two dimensions to create a surveillance device, the weaponization of physics itself, and universe-scale engineering projects. The prose, translated by Ken Liu and Joel Martinsen, is crisp and propulsive. Liu's vision is notable for its cosmic pessimism; the universe he depicts is governed by a 'dark forest' logic in which civilizations must hide or destroy potential threats. The trilogy asks whether humanity can transcend its divisions to face an existential threat, and its answers are not reassuring. The Three-Body Problem won the Hugo Award, the first translated novel to do so. Essential reading for anyone interested in hard science fiction or the global reach of contemporary Chinese literature.