Death's End

About the book

Book author: Cixin Liu

Book #3 of the Rememberance of Earth’s past trilogy.

I can’t really write much about the books content without spoiling things. But we get the conclusion of the story set up in #1 and #2. But it was a good book with real novelty and incorporation of game theory.

== SPOILER WARNING BELOW ==

Reflection and takeaways

Luo Ji keeps being a baller in this book. I’m so glad he was in it.

There are some massive events: the end of the Deterrence Era when the new protagonist becomes the new Swordholder. The Trisolarans attack immediately, forcing Earth to reveal the location of Trisolaris. Then they just left, saying “it’s no point, this location will be destroyed”. Trisolaris is destroyed within a few years.

I still do not understand why the Trisolarans didn’t immediately broadcast Earth’s location after Earth revealed theirs. They left it to be inferred. It was revealed that they were lying about the physics et cetera, and they were really planning to conquer everything. Instead the solar system was given a gift through some stories through the brain sent away in The Dark Forest. Apparently, Trisolaris captured and revived him and he was allowed a conversation with the protagonist. These stories I really liked: analogies and hidden layers all over the place. Fantastic part of the book. The “paintings” narrative was so much clearer with the dual-vector envelope.

The bunker era is when Earth’s location can be inferred. It’s not immediately done, but Earth knows it’s toast, so they move humanity into Space, hoping to take refuge behind Jupiter. However, some entities eventually infer the location of Earth and destroy it casually, like it’s ordinary business. That was a fascinating chapter. We were just ants.

The alien Singer uses a different method to destroy the solar system than a photoid. It’s interesting, because the entities that destroyed Trisolaris were not the same that destroyed the Solar system. This means that Trisolaris had probably already mistakenly broadcasted their location long before invading Earth.

Anyway, Earth gets screwed and collapsed into 2 dimensions. I think the story derailed a little bit with all the extra dimensions and such. It also got a bit crazy due to relativity and timelines. This is the part that I liked the least, but maybe it is somehow all possible.

I feel like there is more, hidden content in this book that I might have missed. But I still loved reading it. I thoroughly enjoyed the rawness of the whole trilogy, and the incorporation of game theory elements. It was a “new” type of story.

Why did I pick it

Had to finish the series.

Verdict

4.0 /5. Glad I read it.