Celestial Imagination.docVIP

Celestial ImaginationHollywood director Christopher Nolan’s science fiction film Interstellar has grossed over $670 million at the global box office since its screening last October. About 20 percent of that was from China. However， many Chinese science fiction fans were left feeling distinctly underwhelmed after watching the movie， because they felt the story it tells could not compete with Chinese writer Liu Cixin’s Three Body trilogy.“Interstellar was indeed a successful movie that was well worth watching. But to Chinese science fiction fans like me， its scientific ideas and the story background were not particularly striking. The Three Body trilogy has already created a much more grand and evocative vision of a future interstellar era，” Lu Ling， a 35-yearold editor of a Beijing-based website， to Beijing Review.The trilogy concerns an alien invasion of Earth and the response of the planet’s governments and scientists to this threat. Feeling desperate about the future of humanity based on her personal experience， a female Chinese astrophysicist goes in search of help from other intelligence races in the universe by sending out several messages. The messages are received by aliens calling themselves “Trisolarans” that live on a barren planet in a state of existence that embodies the three-body problem in orbital mechanics. To guarantee the future existence of their civilization， the Trisolarans attempt to carry out a ruthless invasion plan spanning over 400 years， while the people of Earth fight using all possible means to protect their own home planet and civilization.Last November， Tor Books， a top U.S. science fiction publisher， released The ThreeBody Problem， the English-language version of the first volume of the trilogy， on Amazon. Within one week， the book had rocketed to the top of Amazon’s Asian bestseller chart， and received acclaim from English readers owing to its ambitious structure， its author’s bold and extraordinary scientific imagination and an exp