Students who have read any science fiction novel – whether critically established works like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or George Orwell's 1984, or popular science fiction like Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – will be able to scaffold off of those reading experiences while engaging with The Three-Body Problem.
The same goes for works of science fiction beyond the page: the Star Wars and the Star Trek franchises provide plenty of instances of human beings in contact with non-human lifeforms.
