Qiu Chenyun, 35, took up a new position in Nanjing, far from family and friends after relocation from Suzhou. Reading may be a good hobby, but like many she had little quality time for herself on the helter-skelter of modern life.

One of her friends recommended the radio adaptation of The Three-Body Problem, the best-selling science fiction novel by Liu Cixin.

She hesitated at first, because she had actually tried to read the novel, but found it difficult to follow the loosely narrated story with its many characters and strange scientific concepts. However, when she tried the radio play, which launched on Nov 30, she was immediately hooked.

"The adaptation is excellent. Compared with other audio books I am listening to, this one is better because it is played by many different people, rather than read by one person. The sound effects and background music are vivid, too," she says.

The radio play adaptation of The Three-Body Problem has been running for nearly four months with 16 episodes released so far on Ximalaya, which have been broadcast 15 million times. Each Wednesday, the platform releases a new episode that lasts about 30 minutes, and as planned the 1,500-page trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, Dark Forest, and Death's End) will be contained in a total of 80 episodes. It was produced by 729 Voice Studio, a company set up by professional voice performers in late 2016, which started with the production of the radio play, Kill Zone.