a three body solution centers around three lovers who become unlikely leaders trying to save the Earth from global collapse. What inspired you to write a three body solution?

If I can be completely honest, the idea was “downloaded” during a shared psychedelic experience with two other people. Like much of the best science fiction, the novel exaggerates reality just enough to help us see it more clearly. My queer reply is that the book edges reality just enough to make readers blush, laugh, and hopefully think.

One of my closest friends is Thai and fascinated by aliens, so TaDoo was born. My partner of eighteen years is Vietnamese, deeply logical, and yet somehow equally devoted to RuPaul’s Drag Race, so Tâm emerged. And then there is me—an empathic, slightly overwhelmed middle-aged human trying to make sense of a world that often feels like it is unraveling.

One night, squeezed together on an all-too-small bed, dreaming about a larger Murphy bed, struggling with an Alexa that refused to play the right music, something unexpected happened. We shared a vision of a future that felt more hopeful, more connected, and more playful than the one currently being offered to us.

By morning, we realized we had all experienced something remarkably similar. QuBit and the advanced tech MMMurphyBed were envisioned, the characters followed, and eventually a three body solution emerged. 

At its heart, the book asks a simple question: What if we could bottle our best moments of mortality and connection and share them with humanity?

Which came first: the relationship between Chip, Tâm, and TaDoo, or the larger vision of a world in crisis?

The world crisis came first. I’ve been wrestling with existential distress far longer than I’ve been imagining alternative relationship structures.

As Lily Tomlin famously said, “Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.” That line has haunted and inspired me for years.

The more I looked at our political divisions, ecological challenges, and collective loneliness, the more I found myself imagining leaders who approached power differently. What might happen if tenderness, honesty, vulnerability, and cooperation were treated as strengths rather than weaknesses?

The thruple became my laboratory for exploring that question.

The three protagonists are imperfect, messy, occasionally ridiculous, and often in over their heads. Yet they keep choosing each other. In a world increasingly organized around fear, I wanted to imagine people organizing themselves around connection.

Maybe that’s what I mean by “pink magic.” Not perfection. Not ideology. Just the radical belief that love, creativity, humor, and community might still have a role to play in shaping our future.  I write with the following mottos in my heart: 

#BooksNotBombs

#DreamMoreDreadLess  

Were there particular science fiction authors who influenced your work?

Not all of my influences are strictly science fiction, but the writers who stayed with me are the ones who cracked open reality in some way. They each affirmed something that influences how and why I write. 

Cixin Lui gets a big gay hug for his daring The Three Body Problem series and for acknowledging character development was not his primary interest.  

C. S. Lewis gave me portals to a land with talking animals and a way to observe grief.

Stephen King gave me permission to be strange, sprawling, and a little haunted. Daniel

Quinn’s Ishmael helped me think differently about humans, animals, and culture. Octavia

Butler showed me how speculative fiction can be prophetic, political, and deeply embodied.

Ocean Vuong may not be sci-fi, but his prose reminds me that language can wash over you without having to comprehend every word. And David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas* helped me appreciate stories that move across time, bodies, and identities.

Also, full confession: I may be one of the rare unicorns who loved the Wachowskis’ film adaptation of Cloud Atlas even more than the book. Queer cinematic heresy, perhaps, but I stand by it.  

What was the most challenging aspect of writing such an ambitious and genre-blending novel? 

Believing I had permission to write it.

The book blends queer romance, science fiction, grief work, neuroscience, primatology, psychedelics, spirituality, and political commentary. Conventional publishing wisdom would probably suggest picking one lane. Instead, I decided to create a traffic jam.

I also relied on a great deal of support along the way: the encouragement of my partner, insights from psychedelic experiences, and AI tools that occasionally helped untangle my famously long-winded sentences.

The deeper challenge wasn’t writing 600-plus pages. It was trusting that the story deserved to exist.

I know some readers may use the book as a bedtime companion, while others may discover it works equally well as a yoga block or doorstop. I’m genuinely okay with either outcome.

At some point, every creator faces the same question: “Just because I can, should I?” For this book, my answer was yes.  

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