Name: 里森's review of Death's End by Liu Cixin
Item: Death's End
Rating: 3.5
Author: 里森

Liu Cixin

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series! “The War of the Worlds for the 21st century... packed with a sense of wonder.” – Wall Street Journal The New York Times bestselling conclusion to a tour de force near-future adventure trilogy from China's bestselling and beloved science fiction writer. With The Three-Body Problem, English-speaking readers got their first chance to read China's most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu. The Three-Body Problem was released to great acclaim including coverage in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and reading list picks by Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg. It was also won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, making it the first translated novel to win a major SF award. Now this epic trilogy concludes with Death's End. Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent. Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early twenty-first century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle? The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming)

Death's End

The final instalment of China's best-selling, award-winning apocalyptic space opera trilogy that ranges from the 1960s to the heat death of the Universe.

Jasper

That child sitting by the ashes of the campfire turned from optimism to isolation and paranoia, a loner in the universe.

Naomi J.

In the eternal night of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, two civilizations had swept through like two shooting stars, and the universe had remembered their light.

“Yun Tianming once gave you a star, and now he’s given you a universe.“

里森

Thomas Wade character is so well written I can't describe, you go from hating him from the deepest of your heart to loving him and understanding he was the only one with enough foresight to understand the future. 

Extinction invalidates any values one can have, that's what Cheng Xin does not understand in the book, agency (and more fundamentally, existence) has to always come first in the priority list, above any other human-like values. Just like Jean-Paul Satre said, "Existence precedes essence".

Ricky

Best book of all time!

Thomas Wade character is so well written I can't describe, you go from hating him from the deepest of your heart to loving him and understanding he was the only one with enough foresight to understand the future. 

Extinction invalidates any values one can have, that's what Cheng Xin does not understand in the book, agency (and more fundamentally, existence) has to always come first in the priority list, above any other human-like values. Just like Jean-Paul Satre said, "Existence precedes essence".

Ghee

Just finished the final book in the Three-Body Problem series, and I have to say, it’s hands down the most complex one 😭. It’s not just the story itself—it’s the way it completely wrecked my emotions. I feel so crushed reading about their struggles, sacrifices, and the sheer madness they went through, only for the world to reset to zero. Absolutely mind-blowing, but also incredibly heartbreaking. I’m so SAD right now, but at the same time, I feel completely EMPTY.

The journey was incredibly long, but honestly, I enjoyed it so much :") I learned so much from reading sci-fi like this. It’s like diving into a whole new world with so much depth and knowledge—reading this was a whole experience. If you love sci-fi stories, you *have* to read this! It’s confusing at times, but WOW, it was SO GOOD.

div. ☆

Just finished the final book in the Three-Body Problem series, and I have to say, it’s hands down the most complex one 😭. It’s not just the story itself—it’s the way it completely wrecked my emotions. I feel so crushed reading about their struggles, sacrifices, and the sheer madness they went through, only for the world to reset to zero. Absolutely mind-blowing, but also incredibly heartbreaking. I’m so SAD right now, but at the same time, I feel completely EMPTY.

The journey was incredibly long, but honestly, I enjoyed it so much :") I learned so much from reading sci-fi like this. It’s like diving into a whole new world with so much depth and knowledge—reading this was a whole experience. If you love sci-fi stories, you *have* to read this! It’s confusing at times, but WOW, it was SO GOOD.

Azrael Montana

this probably ranks in my top 10 books of all time - the detail, the imagery, the emotions - just wow.

Wingyan Chan

lala

Finished this book in 11 June 2022 but haven’t gotten the chance to write a review on it. It took me a lot of time to recover from the Remembrance of Earth’s Past series. Genuinely speaking, as a book on its own, Death’s End started off strong with a lot of questions concerning of how humanity behaves with the Trisolaran invasion coming. It delves into other humanity plans besides the Wallfacer Project as discussed in The Dark Forest. However, following the same formula as the previous two books in the series, Death’s End revolves around a person to “save” humanity. This is where my problem lays with this book. The main character of this book is Cheng Xin, a woman as opposed to men in the previous two books. And idk if it’s just me but Cheng Xin is not a character you’d “love”. Her decisions are questionable, and honestly I was kinda pissed off with her a little, idk if it’s about her or the humanity putting their trust on her. The fifth and sixth part of the book seems a bit too rushed and ambitious. However, it ties up the series nicely and it doesn’t disappoint me at all.

I give Death’s End 5 stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Nothing has prepared me on how mind-blowing the third book in the series. I’d probably think about this book for the rest of my life.

Nate

The same way that the first book set up everything, this book is in a strange way a protracted conclusion. It feels, in hindsight of the series, that Three Body told us directly what happened before, Dark Forest was the events, and Deaths End was the author telling us what happened after.

Of the three books, this one is the least conventional, the most imaginative, and the one that requires the most suspension of belief (because as the science fiction keeps rolling decades into the future, the directions it takes depart further and further from the realm of our world, and become far harder to grasp)

If I had to guess, I think this would be Cixin Lius favorite of the three to write. You can really sense his joy at the open and abstract exploration of everything science, cosmology, philosophy. Here he draws humanity with his broadest brush strokes, charts our consciousness across the stars, reflects on the horizons of physics, cosmological warfare, the nature of the universe. Never in the series have his ideas been so big, so mind boggling, so thoroughly flooring and flabbergasting. To explain in detail would be to spoil this canvas.

At the same time, he weaves together a narrative of concepts. This is a deeply important distinction. As we went from books 1 through 3, we continuously zoom out across the timeline, and as the scope of the books stretches from months to years to billions of years, we are no longer concerned with characters but fundamental concepts. The first book was a man’s struggle against man, the second was man’s struggle with the other. But here, it is humanity’s struggle with concepts; struggle with the universe and its darkness, with the nature of creation and destruction, with what defines humanity. Cixin Liu arranges pure thoughts on a stage for us and plays the lights and curtains so well that we become just as riveted to see an idea prevail over a thought as we were interested in seeing man triumph over man. This is a skill I cannot say I have seen before.

The story that plays out upon the stage is one that surmises the human race. A story of missteps and failures and errors and blunders, a story of overwhelmingly negative odds, of suffering and meaninglessness and pain on the planetary scale. It is however a dark cloud tinged with a golden halo, and as rays of tender hope peek through, one is almost surprised to see them come forward - because the painting Cixin Liu has rendered is so dark, it is a miracle there is anything else to be gleaned at all.

At the end of the book one must ask if the universe is as he describes it, and it is terrifying to say that it may very well be. Nothing of his depictions exists in the clear of fiction - in fact, stretch some physics enough, and all may be possible. This is a terrifying, deeply upsetting thought.

I find myself mulling over the question Ceng Xin posed:

“Because the universe isn’t a fairy tale.”

And wonder if Cixin Liu upholds this axiom, or challenges it.

It must be noted that of the three books I found the lest investment with this main character. It was missing overall the personality of the first books character driven narrative, or the thrill and joy of the second. However, it takes those seemingly simplistic narrative tools out of your hands, and as you slam your fist in a fit of rage, it trades them out for far more novel, far more complex and rewarding narrative elements. So I guess if this isn’t your cup of tea, then so be it.

Is this book better than the second? In many if not most ways, yes. However, the second one may continue to be my favorite, if only because I loved Luo Ji, and loved the drama and the thrill and the psychological warfare.

Omar 

The same way that the first book set up everything, this book is in a strange way a protracted conclusion. It feels, in hindsight of the series, that Three Body told us directly what happened before, Dark Forest was the events, and Deaths End was the author telling us what happened after.

Of the three books, this one is the least conventional, the most imaginative, and the one that requires the most suspension of belief (because as the science fiction keeps rolling decades into the future, the directions it takes depart further and further from the realm of our world, and become far harder to grasp)

If I had to guess, I think this would be Cixin Lius favorite of the three to write. You can really sense his joy at the open and abstract exploration of everything science, cosmology, philosophy. Here he draws humanity with his broadest brush strokes, charts our consciousness across the stars, reflects on the horizons of physics, cosmological warfare, the nature of the universe. Never in the series have his ideas been so big, so mind boggling, so thoroughly flooring and flabbergasting. To explain in detail would be to spoil this canvas.

At the same time, he weaves together a narrative of concepts. This is a deeply important distinction. As we went from books 1 through 3, we continuously zoom out across the timeline, and as the scope of the books stretches from months to years to billions of years, we are no longer concerned with characters but fundamental concepts. The first book was a man’s struggle against man, the second was man’s struggle with the other. But here, it is humanity’s struggle with concepts; struggle with the universe and its darkness, with the nature of creation and destruction, with what defines humanity. Cixin Liu arranges pure thoughts on a stage for us and plays the lights and curtains so well that we become just as riveted to see an idea prevail over a thought as we were interested in seeing man triumph over man. This is a skill I cannot say I have seen before.

The story that plays out upon the stage is one that surmises the human race. A story of missteps and failures and errors and blunders, a story of overwhelmingly negative odds, of suffering and meaninglessness and pain on the planetary scale. It is however a dark cloud tinged with a golden halo, and as rays of tender hope peek through, one is almost surprised to see them come forward - because the painting Cixin Liu has rendered is so dark, it is a miracle there is anything else to be gleaned at all.

And yet it renders a beautiful hope. 

At the end of the book one must ask if the universe is as he describes it, and it is terrifying to say that it may very well be. Nothing of his depictions exists in the clear of fiction - in fact, stretch some physics enough, and all may be possible. This is a terrifying, deeply upsetting thought.

I find myself mulling over the question Ceng Xin posed:

“Why?”

“Because the universe isn’t a fairy tale.”

And wonder if Cixin Liu upholds this axiom, or challenges it.

It must be noted that of the three books I found the lest investment with this main character. It was missing overall the personality of the first books character driven narrative, or the thrill and joy of the second. However, it takes those seemingly simplistic narrative tools out of your hands, and as you slam your fist in a fit of rage, it trades them out for far more novel, far more complex and rewarding narrative elements. So I guess if this isn’t your cup of tea, then so be it.

Is this book better than the second? In many if not most ways, yes. However, the second one may continue to be my favorite, if only because I loved Luo Ji, and loved the drama and the thrill and the psychological warfare.

Malcolm Reddoch

Excellent, but had to go down a star to differentiate from The Dark Forest, which was easily my favorite of the trilogy. Really wish Goodreads offered half-star or even decimal increments, because it’s definitely better than a 4.0.

Avery

I'm not sure if it written differently, or just that I've gotten used to the style, but I found the third book in this series much easier to read than that first two. The pacing seemed a little more even, with the exciting events spread out a little more. The tradeoff is that the reveals didn't have quite the same impact as in the last two books, but that didn't bother me too much.
I'm glad that I read it before I forgot too much of what had happened earlier in the series!

Eugene

I think because of the scope and timeline of this book the human drama that I appreciated about the first two books is somewhat lost. Nevertheless, it’s a nice way to finish the trilogy

Allison Dempsey

Coming in at a whopping 1,515 pages, this trilogy was an exceedingly heavy lift (no less as someone who has never had an aptitude for the hard sciences) - but it was worth every second. It's hard to put into words exactly all of the new ways it made me think about politics, history, the universe, and other dimensions I've never before considered, and for that reason extra credit is due to the translators who were able to bring the series to life in English. A truly life-changing read.

Steve C

Coleman McCormick

Tuago

Not sure I can review this book. Most mind-blowing book I think I'll ever read.

This series was far more gripping than I thought it would be after the first book (which got 3 stars from me). It got better and better. There are lots of flaws in this series (weird pacing, flat characters - though that gets better as the book goes on - and a really strange attitude to women at times). But Liu Cixin’s 

 here are incredible - both as cosmic sci fi, and as a metaphor for surveillance state China in the wider world. The writer quite often stops in the storytelling just so he can wander into a physics thought experiment, but in this book, the cosmic scale of what he was describing was so cool that this actually worked. And I couldn’t 

 a series that took these ideas all the way to the end. Oh, and the writer had a lot of fun undoing the ending of Book 2 that I’d found a bit too unbelievable. A weird series, but really worth reading to the end.

This series was far more gripping than I thought it would be after the first book (which got 3 stars from me). It got better and better. There are lots of flaws in this series (weird pacing, flat characters - though that gets better as the book goes on - and a really strange attitude to women at times). But Liu Cixin’s ideas here are incredible - both as cosmic sci fi, and as a metaphor for surveillance state China in the wider world. The writer quite often stops in the storytelling just so he can wander into a physics thought experiment, but in this book, the cosmic scale of what he was describing was so cool that this actually worked. And I couldn’t not like a series that took these ideas all the way to the end. Oh, and the writer had a lot of fun undoing the ending of Book 2 that I’d found a bit too unbelievable. A weird series, but really worth reading to the end.

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series! “The War of the Worlds for the 21st century... packed with a sense of wonder.” – Wall Street Journal The New York Times bestselling conclusion to a tour de force near-future adventure trilogy from China's bestselling and beloved science fiction writer. With The Three-Body Problem, English-speaking readers got their first chance to read China's most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu. The Three-Body Problem was released to great acclaim including coverage in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and reading list picks by Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg. It was also won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, making it the first translated novel to win a major SF award. Now this epic trilogy concludes with Death's End. Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent. Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early twenty-first century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle? The Three-Body Problem Series The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Bouke van der Bijl

This trilogy might be my favorite fiction series now. Go read it

Micah

It would've been easier for the author to have just stated, "I hate women unless they serve my fantasies."

Dylan Garrett

I'm amazed how Liu Cixin managed to keep things fresh and interesting throughout this entire trilogy, just adding one insane concept after another. I think Death's End was my favorite out of the three books, probably just due to the crazy scale of it. Liu Cixin can really make you feel the impact of exponential technological development.

A thrilling ending to an amazing trilogy! Was a really nice wrap-up. It was almost too grand to even comprehend. 

Truman M Halladay

Ahmed Salem

This was a just a good end for an Epic journey. 

Just one silly comment here: an Author should know when to end hist story.

linda

I would have given this book a five star rating, but by the end, I felt tired, physically and emotionally. This book broke my heart repeatedly. I wanted to cry when reading the part about humanity’s forced relocation to Australia, because I was taken back by the abject cruelty of the conquerors, but also because I know many parts of this book are grounded in truth. In this case, Liu alluded specifically to the treatment of Native Americans in America.

The book spans nearly 19 billion years. By the end, it felt as if I had just gotten off a dizzying rollercoaster ride (and maybe wanted to throw up because of he information overflow). That being said, this book was bold and brilliant. I really enjoyed Ken Liu’s translations, especially compared to Joel Martinsen’s. His writing feels more emotive and moving. Of the reviews of Dark Forest, one criticized the series for lacking strong female protagonists. In this book, the two main characters are both female: Cheng Xin, the swordholder, and 艾 AA, her companion and business associate.

Maybe I’m reading too much between the lines, but a lot of the characters in the book seem to have punny names. Luo Ji literally means logic (逻辑) in Chinese. Another character has the name 高 Way, which can mean “highway,” haha. Cheng Xin’s name in Chinese sounds like the word 诚心, which has two meanings. The first is wholehearted, sincere, qualities which Cheng certainly exhibits through her love for humanity and overwhelming sense of responsibility. However, the word also suggest deliberate intentions which can lead to negative consequences; this second meaning of the word is reflected through Cheng’s repeated failures to save humanity: at the onset of the Trisolaran invasion and during the Bunker era. While the author makes it clear that Cheng holds the best intentions, her kindness is a form of naïveté and stupidity. Despite her resilience earnestness, I did not like her as a character. 

I loved this series for the way it effortless blended philosophy, history, and science into a compelling tale. I was incredibly impressed by the author’s imagination, perceptiveness, and wit. In addition, I enjoyed the big-picture themes which pervade through the series. Liu, Da Shi, Luo Ji, and the Trisolarans have all referred to humanity as ants. This really points our insignificance in comparison to the grand scale of the universe. While our arrogance, exceptionalism, and superiority complex may have contributed to our success, it may one day lead to our downfall. This book also spoke about the acceptance of death, the indelible nature of time, and humanity’s ultimate legacy. 

Though I wish I could claim to understand all the Physics concepts throughout the series, fictional or otherwise, they really made me wish I had paid more attention in class. And after all, who wouldn’t like a book in which the physicists and mathematicians are the superheroes? ;)

Katie Chua

i woke up with an email that said i had to return this book today (!!!) so i sat down and read the last 400 pages. after that, i took a long long walk and now i am here to write on goodreads that this was such an incredible book. i'm glad i stuck with this trilogy because holy shit it was so good!! it really is a matter of perspective taking and i mean that we are but a tiny dust mote in the universe and that's fucking terrifying and semi-soothing? i cannot believe one person had all these ideas in his head and he was able to write it down and convey it in a thought-provoking, well-paced, slightly misogynistic story. (minus points for that but i know i can go to some femme sci-fi writers for better imaginations) and thank god, because i feel like a smarter, better, more worldly person because of it. thanks to ken liu for translating as well!!! wow it's stories like these that make me love sci-fi

里森 &
Death's End by Liu Cixin

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Death's End by Liu Cixin