Picked up the audiobook of this translation from the Chinese, mainly because it was a 2015 Hugo best novel nominee and was supposed to be good. Wasn't disappointed, although this is definitely a very dense science-heavy book so if you don't like science in your fiction, maybe give this one a pass. If you do however it's a thought-provoking novel told from several points of view that don't fully unify into a complete picture of the story until quite near the end. (Given the density of some of the subject matter I'm not sure whether to recommend the audio book or not; it probably did help get through some of the more dry parts, but on the other hand I had to re-listen to several parts of it several times just to understand what was going on, and they might have been easier to absorb in text form. Be warned based on your own preferences.)

The book has two main characters, Ye Wenjie, a female scientist who loses pretty much everything in the cultural revolution, becomes somewhat embittered about humanity, and makes some decisions as a result that literally change the course of human destiny; and Wang Miao, a male scientist from the generation after Ye Wenjie who is studying nanotechnology and who is asked to help investigate the mysterious suicides of large numbers of leading scientists who have apparently decided their work is meaningless and science is wrong. Wang also becomes involved in a computer game called Three Body which models an alien world and challenges its players to find the secret of the chaotic laws of nature that govern it (this is the only point in the book that disappointed me - given the title of the game, Wang's eventual conclusion that it's a three body system was a gigantic DUH rather than the big achievement it somehow seems to be within the game; that was obvious almost from the start so it stretches credulity that a highly educated scientist like Wang would have taken so long.)

Anyway, avoiding spoilers as much as possible I'll just conclude that Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao's stories meet and combine with the game's story also to reach a conclusion involving conspiracies, a shrewd old policeman, the attempted destruction of humanity, aliens, and multi-dimensional physics, and more. There are apparently two more books in the trilogy and I'll be picking up the next soon.