The Three-Body Problem

Deeply original and creative, there are lots of big ideas to enjoy here. Special kudos to Ken Liu's translation, which seemed to convey the historical and societal (and to some extent linguistic, even) context that Western readers like me necessarily lack. It misses five stars for me mainly because I struggled with the pacing in a few places — which admittedly may be part of the differences in context. Nevertheless, I'll be continuing the series and strongly recommend it for hard sci-fi fans.