1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. Tento špecifický prípad nebude tvar nie len zvyšok jej života, ale aj future mankind. Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech inžinier Wang Miao to infiltrate a tajné cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation bude lead him to mysterious online game a immerse him v virtuálnej svete ruled by intraktable a unpredicatable interakcie svojich troch suns. Je to tri-body problém a to je kľúč k everythingu: kľúč k učiacim sa deaths, key to a conspiracy, že spánok svetelných rokov a kľúča k extinction-level threat humanity teraz tváre.