Death's End by Cixin Liu. The first two books of the trilogy were mind-blowing, and I want to read his other book, Supernova Era.
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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Me, too! I'm about 80% the way through the audio book. There are no real spoilers below.
I don't think any of them are mind blowing. I have very mixed reviews of the books. I know too much about physics and such, and the author gets basic stuff wrong all the time. But I do really like the philosophical and ethical discussions, especially in The Dark Forest. There's just too much meandering plot surrounding these discussions. The books are twice as long as they should be.
For instance, the author talks about the tidal forces of black holes and the top scientists in the book say "maybe the tidal forces were small because the black hole was so small". In reality, it's specifically small black holes that have the highest tidal forces. You would only fall cleanly into a supermassive black hole.
There were like 4 major physics "WTF?" moments in the first book, and a few in the second, too. I'm not talking about the totally off the wall things like the sophons. I mean the normal physics stuff. I just try to ignore them and enjoy the story, but the author writes a lot of self indulgent stuff. Like the whole Luo Ji thing of him being this perfect author who really understands characters and literally hallucinates their lives. It's like the author is trying to write himself into the book. And in Death's End with the fairy tale stories that just went on and on! Same kind of thing.
There's a book 4 of the series, I found out, but written by another author. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad. π
The philosophical and ethical questions are what I really like about the series. I'm halfway through book 3 and yeah his writing can be a bit slow sometimes, but I feel like it pays off later, because he'll recall a detail from like a hundred pages ago or the previous book in a compelling way. And yeah, you can definitely tell Luo Ji is the "author's voice" characterπ
I've heard Supernova Era described as being kinda "Lord Of The Flies" -ish, so maybe I'll put that on hold (I've been the dark forest for a while), and I'm absolutely not interested in the 4th book by some random author.π
I'm about to finish the book, and oh boy, have I had to suspend disbelief at the end. Again, not at the more exotic physics and cosmology. Just the basic stuff.
Still, it's a thought provoking book, and I'm glad I finished the trilogy. I wasn't sure I was going to. I have a friend who keeps asking me if he should finish the trilogy, and I still don't know what I should tell him. π
"He closes the book and the pages align like a flock of two dimensional birds coming together in unison to roost on the edge of the universe. He sits and ponders his life choices like a tree at the shore of a rapidly eroding river bank, wondering when it's going to fall in and die. He thinks to himself that if has has to read one more drawn out simile written by Cixin Liu he's going to burn the book and warm himself by the flames like a lizard basking in the dying sunlight of the day, yearning for enough energy to find a place to sleep for the night."
lol, that last part was interesting to read. I am to take this is inspired by reading the series?
Yeah, the author really likes his similes. Might be a Chinese cultural thing. They're not as drawn out as I made mine, but I was having fun. π
Space Team #9: The King of Space Must Die
Imagine Farscape, but with an idiot instead of a scientist.
Heh, that sounds fun.
Quite fun! Graphic Audio does a version where every character is voiced by their own actor, with the original audiobook narrator doing the in-between bits.
I'm flipping between Pratchett's Tiffany Aching section of discworld (I'm on the next to the last "I shall wear midnight", and I tend to draw things out because I never want it to end) and finally reading the "parahumans" stuff from the web serials. Plus a non fiction book for when I'm in the kitchen and waiting for things to finish.
Just finished the original "worm" yesterday, and it was a wild ride. Haven't started the next sections yet, beyond verifying that the scraper got things right. Wildbow, aka John McCrae, hasn't released anything official yet, but doesn't object to people scraping for their personal convenience and converting to whatever file type they prefer. Tbh, as this point I don't think he'll ever finish the editing and do his own epub or whatever.
The non fiction is "The Cooking Gene" by Michael Twitty. So far, it's brilliant. I haven't gotten into the second chapter yet because of how and when I'm reading it, but just the introduction was a powerful thing. I've seen him talking about the book and the journey that led up to it, and it's the first book I've ever bought because of something on YouTube lol. Him talking about the history of food as relates to his ancestry and the surrounding culture is a beautiful and intriguing experience.
I dropped off Worm somewhere in later half, I would guess. Have been meaning to get back into it, but then thought I should wait for the ebook release, but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.
It does get a little weird, and then there's a time jump in the later section that wasn't easy to read through, but the overall arc was worth it.
I've been away from reading for a few months, but am interested in diving into a good fantasy novel. My most recent binge was The First Law trilogy, which was a fun time, but the ending of it was unsatisfying to me.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a series that's low to high fantasy, but with well-developed system of how magic works in the world, and with competing characters and character development?
Have you read Brandon Sanderson's work? He has some very well-developed systems of magic.
Honestly, I haven't yet. I'm not even sure where I should get started with his works, there are so many of them.
There are many places, like Mistborn is a good series, but it's one of his early works and probably not the most well written. You can try one of his secret projects, 4 books that he released last year. 3 are part of Cosmere, but they are written as standalone books. 4th is a completely standalone book. All are nice, noncommittal way to read some of his work.
You can also try one of his non-cosmere series, like Cytoverse (starting from Skyward) or The Reckoners (starting from Steelheart).
The Ninth Rain, by Jen Williams.
A little past a quarter through; I haven't made up my mind about it yet. Its got a bunch of interesting concepts going in the pot, but I'm not sure how skillfully it's going to get combined. One major character is naive and unworldly, and I can't tell if it's just her viewpoint colouring the overall voice.
Time will tell, I guess.
Just finished Children of Dune. Took me longer than expected, but now I'm reading Thrawn which I'm flying through.
Just finished Constructors and now started The Long Way Home.
I just finished up Red Rising and I really enjoyed it but I can't bring myself to dive headlong into a series right now. My current read is A Separate Peace and next on the docket will be the autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt.
I tend to struggle to finish books that I start but this year I wanted to get better about reading so I set a very modest goal of 14 books. I'm already finished with five books since the start of the year!
Congratulation on covering 30% of your goal already!
There is no reason to force yourself to read something you don't want. I can rarely read series back to back now. I switch to something completely different after finishing the book and then get back to next book in the series after that. Keeps me from burning out.
How are you liking A Separate Peace?
I also maybe took Ambien and maybe signed up for some digital library cards with fake addresses because more books lol.
Currently on The Shadow Rising (Wheel of Time book 4). Been reading it at an insane (for me) pace to hopefully finish this week. This book had a slow start but for the last few hundred pages, I've been absolutely hooked. Can't wait to see where this series goes and how the characters continue to grow.
I'm currently enjoying listening to Buy Mort: How I Became The Accidental Warlord of Arizona - Shopocalypse Saga series of books.
With a Dean Koontz - Odd Thomas book in between. The last I listened to was Odd Apocalypse.
Torpedo Juice - by Tim Dorsey, book 7 of the Serge Storm mysteries. A comedic series focused on a Florida man whose motto is "think global, act criminal local", as he wanders through Florida leaving a trail of death and mayhem.
I finished all of The Queenβs Thief series, so now Iβm back trying to finish out my Bingo Card from r/Fanasy. I finished the second Murderbot Novella by Martha Wells and The Haunting of Tram Car by P. DjΓ¨lΓ Clark. Iβm on to Orconomics by J. Zachary Pike.
I thoroughly enjoyed Murderbot and am excited to return and focus on it.