About Cixin Liu
Liu Cixin (born 23 June 1963) is a Chinese science fiction writer.
Liu’s most famous works include The Three-Body Problem (2007), The Dark Forest (2008), and Death’s End (2010). These three novels form part of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. Supernova Era (2003) was recently translated into English and is available on sale.
The Three-Body Problem’s translation by Ken Liu won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Liu Cixin thus became the first author from Asia to win Best Novel.
Death’s End was a 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel finalist and won a 2017 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. He is a nine-time winner of the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious literary science fiction award).
The cinematic adaptation of his short story The Wandering Earth was released in China on February 5, 2019
Liu cites British authors George Orwell and Arthur C. Clarke as important literary influences.
Remembrance of Earth’s Past Series
Remembrance of Earth’s Past is a science fiction trilogy by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin, but readers refer to the series by the title of its first novel, The Three Body Problem.
This series is excellent hard science fiction and particularly interesting given the ambitions of humanity to become a space-faring society.
The series consisting of a single storyline that kicks off with an astrophysicist broadcasting radio waves from Earth that are detected by an alien civilization on a planet, Trisolaris, that is doomed, being in an unstable orbit in a three star system (hence the title The Three Body Problem). The book then takes us through Trisolaran’s plans to invade Earth to survive, Earth’s actions to understand and deal with the threat, the articulation of Cosmic Sociology axioms leading to The Dark Forest theory and with the final book Death’s End giving a ‘big picture’ overview of the series spread over seven eras across many centuries.
One of most brilliant pieces of fiction and hard science fiction I have read so far. The book, however, doesn’t provide comfort for humanity as a space-faring civilization.
It makes me wish that Fermi’s Paradox (the question ‘Where is everybody?’) has only one answer – ‘There’s no one else’.
The Three Body Problem
The story is about Ye Wenjie, an astrophysicist, who manages to send radio waves that allows an alien civilization, Trisolaris, to locate Earth with an aim to invade it to escape their inevitable doom on their planet orbiting in a three star system (hence the name Three-Body Problem). This story happening in present time, backwards and flash-forwards then takes us through a series of events as Earth acts to understand the threat and prepare for dealing with the Trisolarans.
The Three Body Problem Quotes
To effectively contain a civilization’s development and disarm it across such a long span of time, there is only one way: kill its science.
No, emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is a type of existence. You must use this existential emptiness to fill yourself.
In my line of work, it’s all about putting together many apparently unconnected things. When you piece them together the right way, you get the truth.
The reason why the sun’s motion seems patternless is because our world has three suns. Under the influence of their mutually perturbing gravitational attraction, their movements are unpredictable—the three-body problem.
These are the rules of the game of civilization: The first priority is to guarantee the existence of the human race and their comfortable life. Everything else is secondary.
The one-armed woman said, “There was a movie called Maple recently. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. At the end, an adult and a child stand in front of the grave of a Red Guard who had died during the faction civil wars. The child asks the adult, ‘Are they heroes?’ The adult says no. The child asks, ‘Are they enemies?’ The adult again says no. The child asks, ‘Then who are they?’ The adult says, ‘History.’”
In the shooter hypothesis, a good marksman shoots at a target, creating a hole every ten centimeters. Now suppose the surface of the target is inhabited by intelligent, two-dimensional creatures. Their scientists, after observing the universe, discover a great law: “There exists a hole in the universe every ten centimeters.” They have mistaken the result of the marksman’s momentary whim for an unalterable law of the universe.
Can the fundamental nature of matter really be lawlessness? Can the stability and order of the world be but a temporary dynamic equilibrium achieved in a corner of the universe, a short-lived eddy in a chaotic current?
I did indeed invent an ultimate rule. .. Anything sufficiently weird must be fishy.
Everyone likes to reminisce, but no one wants to listen, and everyone feels annoyed when someone else tells a story.
But I cannot escape and leave behind reality, just like I cannot leave behind my shadow. Reality brands each of us with its indelible mark. Every era puts invisible shackles on those who have lived through it, and I can only dance in my chains.
It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race.
Should philosophy guide experiments, or should experiments guide philosophy?
Is it possible that the relationship between humanity and evil is similar to the relationship between the ocean and an iceberg floating on its surface? Both the ocean and the iceberg are made of the same material. That the iceberg seems separate is only because it is in a different form. In reality, it is but a part of the vast ocean.…
You must know that a person’s ability to discern the truth is directly proportional to his knowledge.
The Dark Forest
The story continues from The Three Body Problem with Ye Wenije asking Luo Ji, a sociologist, to study Cosmic Sociology, based on two axioms she had been thinking of:
- Each civilization’s goal is survival, and
- Resources are finite – civilization continuously grows and expands yet the total matter in the universe remains constant.
Liu Cixin continue the plot of Earth dealing with Trisolarans while constrained by constant surveillance and lock on all technology advancement through the quantum technology based sophons.
Liu Cixin also articulates his Dark Forest theory, a scary theory based on the two axioms of cosmic sociology.
A brilliant book!
The Dark Forest Quotes
Fate lies within the light cone.
The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care.
The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life—another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them.
In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.
“I don’t feel good,” he said softly, and pointed at the holographic probe with his pipe. “Why? It looks like a harmless work of art,” an officer said. “And that’s why I don’t feel so good,” Ding Yi said, shaking his gray head. “It looks like a work of art rather than an interstellar probe. It’s not a good sign when something’s so far removed from our own mental concept.”
First: Survival is the primary need of civilization. Second: Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant. One more thing: To derive a basic picture of cosmic sociology from these two axioms, you need two other important concepts: chains of suspicion and the technological explosion.
The universe had once been bright, too. For a short time after the big bang, all matter existed in the form of light, and only after the universe turned to burnt ash did heavier elements precipitate out of the darkness and form planets and life. Darkness was the mother of life and of civilization.
The past was like a handful of sand you thought you were squeezing tightly, but which had already run out through the cracks between your fingers. Memory was a river that had run dry long ago, leaving only scattered gravel in a lifeless riverbed. He had lived life always looking out for the next thing, and whenever he had gained, he had also lost, leaving him with little in the end.
Staying alive is not enough to guarantee survival. Development is the best way to ensure survival.
Time is the one thing that can’t be stopped. Like a sharp blade, it silently cuts through hard and soft, constantly advancing. Nothing is capable of jolting it even the slightest bit, but it changes everything.
Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.
Life needed smoothness, but it also needed direction. One could not always be returning to the point of origin.
If I destroy you, what business is it of yours?
Death’s End
The book’s plot is divided in seven eras starting with the fall of Constantinople, Crisis Era (when threat of Trisolarans is revealed), Deterrence Era and so on. I won’t go into the details that would reveal spoilers but the book gives a ‘big picture’ view of the entire series and about how civilizations would evolve into a space-faring species and the inevitable threats they would face.
Makes one wish that we are alone in this universe!
Death’s End Quotes
Because the universe is not a fairy tale.
Mere existence is already the result of incredible luck. Such was the case on Earth in the past, and such has always been the case in this cruel universe. But at some point, humanity began to develop the illusion that they’re entitled to life, that life can be taken for granted.
He lacked the ability to thrive in society, but also the resources to ignore it. All he could do was hang on to the edge, suffering.
But vagueness and ambiguity are at the heart of literary expression.
Weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is.
If we lose our human nature, we lose much, but if we lose our bestial nature, we lose everything.
In the eternal night of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, two civilization had swept through like two shooting stars, and the universe had remembered their light.
And now we know that this is the journey that must be made by every civilization: awakening inside a cramped cradle, toddling out of it, taking flight, flying faster and farther, and, finally, merging with the fate of the universe as one. The ultimate fate of all intelligent beings has always been to become as grand as their thoughts.
Time is the cruelest force of all.
It’s a wonder to be alive. If you don’t understand that, how can you search for anything deeper?
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