A message from author: 'The words mean what they mean'

Liu Cixin's trilogy portrays a lose-lose universe, but he says reality need not be that bleak, can be win-win

The Three Body Problem, the first volume of the science fiction trilogy by Liu Cixin, has become such an international cultural phenomenon that business and government leaders have studied the books and drawn lessons from them.

However, Liu has warned against drawing too many analogies from his stories.