Review | Book review: Liu Cixin wraps up a sci-fi master class

Death’s End
By Liu Cixin
Tor

All eyes seem to be on China’s science-fiction writers. In August, the 2016 Hugo Award for best novelette went to Folding Beijing , a dystopian work written by 32-year-old Tianjin native Hao Jingfang, beating out none other than horror master Stephen King. And in 2015, the Hugo for best novel went to The Three-Body Problem, the first volume in a mind-expanding trilogy that starts with an alien invasion threat discovered during China’s Cultural Revolution.

That novel introduced English-speaking readers to the creative mind of Liu Cixin, China’s most beloved science-fiction author and a multiple-award winner. Last month’s English-language publication of Death’s End, the final instalment in the trilogy, cements Liu’s position as a leading sci-fi mastermind not only in China, but around the globe.

The 53-year-old Liu’s books have achieved success in part because they embrace the pure fundamentals of science fiction as a genre. That is, they contain wildly imaginative ideas about humanity’s future grounded in all manner of bizarre and brilliant scientific concepts.

The books in the Three-Body trilogy, including the second chapter, The Dark Forest, were published in Chinese between 2008 and 2010, and have sold more than two million copies in Liu’s homeland. They have been praised by the likes of Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg, and a movie adaptation is now in the works on the mainland.

In Death’s End, Liu presents another work of pure sci-fi bursting with concepts seemingly taken from textbooks on physics, astronomy and cosmology. These hard-science ideas drive the story and its cast of characters throughout the cosmos and – as the novel’s name implies – towards the end of the universe.