Month: November 2021

I have recently finished the novel that I have been reading, “Death’s End.” Since my last reflection, there was a lot of development and eventually resulted in the protagonist and another character, left alone to enjoy the rest of their lives in a virtual, 1x1km world that can be changed to their preference.

My overall impression of the novel is that it is a unique and intriguing read. There may be sudden shifts in plot and sudden changes in the future of human civilization, which I think the author attempted to use to convey a meaning. The novel starts from a utopia between 2 civilizations sharing knowledge into a realization that the entire universe is dependent on survival-of-the-fittest mentality, or according to the book, like a “dark forest.”

I noticed that the author tends to use a lot of imagery, metaphors, and similes to convey an abstract theme, comparing it to current-day objects while providing a sense of uncertainty. An example is where the author describes an interstellar weapon as a “paper slip” (Liu, 587) and where a spaceship getting sucked into a 2-dimensional world is like “ice creamed dropped onto every direction” (587).

A book I’ve been reading lately is Death’s End by Cixin Liu, the third book in the three-body trilogy. This science fiction was originally published in Chinese and was translated into English by Ken Liu.

This novel is based on earth in the future, where the existence of another civilization known as the Trisolarans was discovered. The Trisolaran solar system consists of 3 suns and therefore means that there is constantly a threat of civilization eradication in the Trisolaran solar system.

Many sections in the novel are deeply linked to me because they take place in a futuristic Beijing, where the entirety of the city was embedded underground for protection against Trisolaran invasion. In addition, the protagonists of the series are people that have a Chinese background, allowing me to understand the Chinese influence behind the protagonists.

This novel made me realize that our current society isn’t fully developed and that we currently do not have a lot of technology in the universe we are in. It is possible that there are many civilizations in the universe but we have not discovered any others due to a lack of technology. In addition, this also showed to me that in times of crises the world can combine together and work together against a common cause.