Death’s End

To steal a metaphor from Cixin Liu, the Earth’s Remembrance series is like a collection of Russian nesting dolls. The minute you think you know what you’re reading, Liu opens up the next doll to reveal three more inside it.

Only, instead of smaller and smaller dolls, these books unfold into bigger and bigger ideas. The boundaries of the known universe are too small of a box for this brilliant, imaginative, and creative masterpiece. Liu annihilated the idea that you should, “shoot for the moon because even if you miss you will land among the stars.”

Instead, he aims outside of our solar system and invents a playground (or rather, a Dark Forest), in which sociology, psychology, and even a little theology are pushed to their limits.

These books made me feel small. In the best way.

Favorite Quote(s)

Of course, not many people really believed this interpretation, but in some sense, Tianming’s stories had now acquired a status akin to the Bible. Without realizing it, people were no longer searching for real strategic intelligence, but reassurance that they were already on the right course.

The false alarm was the result of the explosive amplifying effects of a hyper-information society when fed sensitive news.