Scientists Are Working On Those Replicators.

Me: I feel optimistic about life as a concept and about humanity and our place in the cosmos. Yes, the universe is vast and indifferent but that fact doesn’t have to be inherently terrifying and doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything out there that means us harm. There’s reason for hope. 

Liu Cixin: 

I listened to this song a lot while reading 3 Body Problem and The Dark Forest. 

Another of my favorite books… The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Cursed image

. . . Lou Ji came over and put his hand on a small painting.

“Would you leave this one for me?”

Cheng Xin and AA moved the painting aside and set it on top of a box next to the wall. They were surprised to see that it was the Mona Lisa.

Cheng Xin and AA continued to work at disassembling frames. AA whispered, “Clever old man. He kept the most expensive piece for himself.”

“I don’t think that’s the reason.”

“Maybe he once loved a girl named Mona Lisa?”

Lou Ji sat next to the Mona Lisa and caressed the ancient frame with one hand. He muttered, “I didn’t know you were here. Otherwise I could have come to see you often.”

Cheng Xin saw that he wasn’t looking at the painting. His eyes stared ahead as if looking into the depths of time. Cheng Xin saw that his ancient eyes were filled with tears, and she wasn’t sure if he was mistaken.

Inside the grand tomb under the surface of Pluto, lit by the dim lamps that could shine for a hundred thousand years, Mona Lisa’s smile seemed to appear and disappear. The smile had puzzled humankind for nearly nine centuries, and it looked even more mysterious and eerie now, as though it meant everything and nothing, like the approaching Death.

Death’s End (p. 512), Cixin Liu

I also felt the same way about the lack of Black characters. It seemed like when characters weren’t Chinese he defaulted to white, with one or two Latino characters. Although there was one Black character, Fraisse. I think especially with the subject matter basically being humanity itself, at some point in the story we should have gone to Africa, the birthplace of humanity. But, like you, that failing was further motivation for me to continue writing, as was the serious sexism problem in the book. 

A understated review of Death'S End by Liu Cixin

The last time a book penetrated me this deeply was when I read one of the Song of Ice and Fire for the first time and was blown away by the audacity and imagination of the writer and Liu Cixin just revised my favorite top ten lists of authors.

Even when I didn’t agree with where the narrative went, I still remained captivated.

I don’t know how to summarize the plot because this is the last book of a trilogy and while every book can be read without the others, this last one tops the other two, but that comparison is only possible because I read the other two. I guess a few key words in this trilogy are humanity, alien, space, civilizations, galaxies, time travel, science, love, hope and death. But that still doesn’t do justice to the roller coaster effect you get from reading this.

Cant thank enough Ken Liu for translating this, because having for the last two years started to read more science fiction, you start to know how things will go, but this thriller, cinematic ride that Liu Cixin is able to draw out in the midst of hard science concepts where scientists go back and forth on ideas says a lot about his skill level as a writer.

Now comes what I really didn’t like about the trilogy: where are black people in the multi universes Liu Cixin created? Of course the main actors are Chinese and the supporting cast is white and even some Latino, but not even one black character. Then again that’s true of 99% of science fiction out here so thank you Lou Cixin for giving me the motivation to write what I am not seeing in the science fiction world.

so I just bought this