The Supernova Era Description
India | International
The Supernova Era is a novel by Chinese science-fiction author Cixin Liu.
The book was written in 2003 before his award-winning trilogy The Remembrance of Earth’s Past but more commonly known as The Three Body Problem series.
The book has recently been translated into English by Joel Martinsen, who also translated The Dark Forest.
The Supernova Era Summary
The Supernova Era, like The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, creates a fictional children-only society and examines the ‘innocence’ of children, ‘nature of evil,’ and whether ‘society corrupts’. Supernova Era has this playing on a global scale instead of an island.
.. readers encountering Supernova Era after The Three-Body Problem trilogy and The Wandering Earth novella or film, the novel will definitely have the feel of an “early novel” from someone who later became a leading figure in the genre.
Apocalyptic Childhood: On Cixin Liu’s “Supernova Era” by Gerry Canavan
Los Angeles Book of Reviews
Liu began writing Supernova Era soon after the political uprising in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, and the book is suffused with a sense of calamity, tragedy, and swift social change. But rather than seeming preachy or parable-like, his story shines with an absorbing timelessness — thanks in large part to Joel Martinsen’s smooth and spirited translation.
In Cixin Liu’s ‘Supernova Era,’ The Children Really Are The Future by Jason Heller
npr.org
The Supernova Era Review
The book deals with a ‘what if’ scenario when ‘everyone above the age of thirteen would die, and Earth would become a children’s world.‘
An undetected star eight light-years from Earth goes supernova and kicks off the plot. The narrative takes us through the actions and reactions of people and countries as they scramble to deal with the social, emotional, and civilizational implications as adults need to pass the baton to children in months. The Epoch Clock count down finishes, and the Supernova Era begins as the adults die.
The author explores technology aspects like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and human elements around loneliness, children working, game of war, and how the social and economic foundations of the adult world need to change in a children only world.
The book reminds us of the vulnerability of our planet Earth when it says, ‘Though they knew they were living on but a speck of dust in the cosmos, they had not truly come to accept this fact.‘
I found the portion around the game of war a tad too long. Overall, the book is well-paced and a smooth, worthwhile read. However, it is not in the same class as Cixin Liu’s famous and more complex later masterpieces in The Three-Body Problem series.
The Supernova Era Quotes
It takes a lengthy process of life experience to truly appreciate the value of life.
All of the key elements that make up our world come from an exploding star… The supernova is no dead star. It is the true creator!
“One can’t step twice in the same river” is nothing more than the babbling of an ancient Greek, for the river of time is the river of life, and this river flows endlessly at the same unchanging speed, an eternal flow of life and history and time.
Even the most ordinary things become marvelous in large quantities.
If the adults know it’s a game, they won’t play it seriously. We’re the only ones who’ll play a game seriously, and that’s what makes the outcome real.
“What’s strange is that adults always associate children with kindness, peace, and other wonderful things.” “What’s strange about that?” Huahua said, giving him a look. “In the adults’ era, children existed within their restrictions. But more importantly, children had no opportunity to take part as a collective in the cruel struggle for survival, so of course their true nature wouldn’t be exposed. Oh, for the past couple of days I’ve been reading the copy of Lord of the Flies you gave me.”
Nothing is a more powerful stimulant to society than war.
Time moved forward, crossing the universe like a transparent fog, without making a sound.
Balance of power is a basic principle of the world order.
An alliance is only stable when facing a threat comparable in strength. It will dissolve when faced with a threat that’s too big or too small.
Though they knew they were living on but a speck of dust in the cosmos, they had not truly come to accept this fact.
It may seem like an ordinary night, a moment in the flow of time between the endless past and the limitless future.
The easiest thing in war is desperate, death-defying use of effective force. However, the superior commander does not use death-defying measures, but arranges for the enemy to do so. Remember, child: War requires victory, not heroes.
“The adults? Hmph! They didn’t know how to have fun. Of course they weren’t going to build a fun world. The world the adults built was awful. Everything about it was so boring. They didn’t play; they just spent their days pouting and going silently to work. Total snoozefest. And they insisted on telling us what to do, can’t do this, can’t do that, can’t play here, can’t play there, so for us it was just school school school and test test test, behave and be a good kid. Ugh ugh ugh ugh! But now it’s just us left, and we want to build a fun world.”
Entertainment was only a supplement to the main body of life in the adults’ society, but play can be the entirety of life for children.
The adults’ society was an economic one. People labored to obtain economic compensation. The child society is a play society. People labor to receive play compensation.
History is a river that flows where it wills, and no one can stop it.
“History is a little tree branch carried along a stream. It might whirl in an eddy for a while, or get caught on a rock poking above the surface, or any number of other possibilities. For history as a discipline to study just one of those possibilities is as ridiculous as playing cards with a deck consisting entirely of aces.”
You only know them in ordinary times, but not in extreme situations. In times of crisis, people, children included, can become superhuman.
No matter how ordinary the job, you’ll do well if you put your heart into it.
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