Death's End
Ratings538
Average rating4.4
I am lost for words after finishing the final entry of this trilogy - it took every expectation I had of it, destroyed it to smithereens, and came up with something unprecedented.
With this concluding work, Cixin Liu has cemented his place among the greats - this is the best hard sci-fi work written since Asimov's ‘The Last Question'. The works of sci-fi landing in ‘unprecedented scope' was generally mutually exclusive with ‘actually mind-blowing for once', but Cixin Liu has demolished those barriers effortlessly.
It moves so much beyond its initial foundations of first contact that it is barely recognisable - but it is all the more better for it, as it is not chained to a particular niche. Exploring concepts as varied as dimensional flattening and time warping, and making sure that the plot stays on track, is an underappreciated talent that potential sci-fi writers would do good to take note of.
This series is the closest I've seen a sci-fi series come to the platonic ideal of ‘sci-fi' - the literature of ideas. The trilogy is a must read for anyone who has ever read sci-fi and would like a more serious take on it.
Best book in the series. Very interesting ideas and concepts, but a bit longer than necessary and the characters are mostly uninteresting and flat. Overall great finish to the series which constantly dialed it up.
Certainly more satisfying than book #2. Explores great many ideas however , for a book that relies heavily on Game Theory he does seem to make a lot of “conclusions” that are open, instead , to wide interpretation. I would definitely be interested in a possible book #4 or spin off that investigated the 2D universe introduced in this book
Reading this was like going on a waterslide down a waterfall that lead into a maelstrom with a sharp rock at the bottom.
Despite the death on every level, Tianming's romantic gestures and payoff were both incredible and tragic. My favourite parts to read were regarding Tianming's fairytales being realised into strategies for humanity. It was painful, but in a real way, the futility of humanity against the vast cruelness of space.
Yun Tianming tu es ce chinois que tu penses être. Cheng Xin tu n'es pas cette chinoise que tu penses être, Ye Wenjie l'était.
Confusing time jumps
There are some nice features—grand, fascinating, new sci-fi ideas like dark forest deterrence game theory and other dimensions, interactions with 4th dimension, dark forest proof, sophon in human society, shocking action episode with heavy consequences, some creepy anomalies. But these features happen so rarely over the course of the 700 pages book and are made insignificant by everything else in the book. Like Singer is so interesting, unusual and excellently shows a perspective of a super powerful civilization. Why is there only one small chapter about him?
It reads like a documentary in some chapters describing a character's biography and history and jumps around time periods that were already explored in the previous books. Overall there are a lot of time jumps here with too many explanations. And the very long and vague fairytales holding some very important secrets that require too much time to decipher, yeah, that’s what we need in a sci-fi story about dark forests and aliens. And author being too sexist in places—introvert scientist who "had never even touched woman", very feminine men who look strange to the main character who is a woman—like it’s from 1970s, not 2010.
Also after a few disasters with the same kind of solution in a row it becomes really hard to care, especially when the main character who is much less interesting than those in the previous books and with the dialogues being terrible in places. The last part of the book, about 100 pages, being really dark doesn’t help at all.
I hope this story can be presented in a more exciting way in the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the series as this world has a lot of potential.
After reading 1,900 pages, I can’t believe the ending is ambiguous - Do I laugh or cry? 3 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️!
i read the entire trilogy one book after the other, and towards the end i was really running out of steam.
My feelings about the series are mixed: I liked the way science concepts are introduced. The story in the first book starts from 1960s and with each time-jump, new technologies are introduced. The new science/technologies seem consistent, well-explained, believable, and build upon the previously introduced ones. The scenes in Gravity and Blue Space feel genuinely mystifying and extremely well-thought of. I also liked the fairy tales and guessing at deciphering the message.
Since this is a translation, I didn't expect natural or powerful prose. But even with this low expectation, the story feels like reading summary of the story. I also didn't like the main characters with the exception of Luo Ji and Da Shi. The main character of this book makes weird decisions that made her hard to root for. The overall tone of the narration seemed to glorify authoritarianism, sexism ( males are all for conviction and discoveries, females apply brakes on the progress by favoring love ), and herd mentality (population is neatly divided into groups whose members all think alike).
Loved the way the story unfolds until the end of the universe.
FUCK OFF THAT WAS SO GOOD.
Time, the great equalizer.
I think it was a perfect ending to this science-fiction epic. The scope of this book is insane from the setting to the concepts. I cannot adequately express how impressive it is, you just have to read it.
This book contained a scene that STILL gives me full body shivers when I think about it and one completely different scene that was so devastating that I had to put the book down for a bit.
Absolutely victorious. I feel like I ran a marathon.
If I had to rank the series it would be:
1. Death's End
2. The Three Body Problem
3. The Dark Forest
But you absolutely must read all 3. You have approximately 29 days from today to read all 1700ish pages before the Netflix series butchers it, if you do 100 a day you might just make it.
I'll just end with Cixin Liu is a genius and Ken Liu did a FANTASTIC job with the translation. Kudos to everyone involved, an absolute banger.
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!
“Nella quarta dimensione” è un libro magnifico, che non potrebbe esistere senza i precedenti due ma che eleva tutta la trilogia.
Avevo apprezzato, ma non fino in fondo, “La materia del cosmo” e forse nemmeno questo terzo capitolo può dirsi il mio preferito della serie. “Il problema dei tre corpi”, nonostante una parte finale un po' trascinata e didascalica, sapeva essere travolgente in maniera unica.
Eppure non posso che adorare la coerenza e la compiutezza che “Death's End” (titolo molto più evocativo rispetto a quello italiano) porta a tutto il racconto.
Beninteso, sebbene la prosa di Liu Cixin sia nettamente migliore, ha sempre il piccolo vizio di “spiegare” anziché mostrare e raccontare. La densità di dettagli e di nozioni (pseudo-)scientifiche ovviamente mette(rebbe) a dura prova l'intuizione del lettore, che talvolta deve essere aiutato e guidato. Ma ogni tanto ho avuto l'impressione di trovarmi di fronte ad un libro di storia e non ad un romanzo.
Detto questo, “Nella quarta dimensione” è un enorme e fantastico esercizio creativo e immaginifico.
Spesso la fantascienza si pone in un presente alternativo o in un tempo molto lontano rispetto a noi, in cui magari il cosmo è già stato colonizzato ed esiste una qualche forma di stabilità diversa da quella che conosciamo.
Ciò che ho sempre apprezzato di questa serie è l'ambizione di affrontare le premesse più complesse e difficili da immaginare, legate ad un futuro molto prossimo in cui ci viene tolto il tappeto da sotto ai piedi.
Ovviamente molti degli aspetti della fisica e della scienza del racconto non sono né veri né verosimili, ma sanno essere credibili, che è la cosa più importante. Qui, il background da ingegnere dello scrittore aiuta molto.
Tutta la trilogia e in particolare questo libro immaginano in maniera credibile il nostro prossimo passo alla scoperta del mondo oltre la nostra Terra, dai primi contatti con altre civiltà alla sempre più profonda consapevolezza di quanto siamo piccoli, fragili e indifesi.
Il cuore di tutto il racconto conserva anche un'innato desiderio di seguire e osservare il progresso scientifico e tecnologico. Da ingegnere, più volte nel corso della lettura ho desiderato anche io di dormire per qualche secolo e sbirciare avanti nel tempo, con la speranza che almeno la nostra Storia non venga sigillata da sofoni o minacce aliene così terribili.
Il racconto è anche una lunga parabola sull'arroganza dell'essere umano, e dal mio punto di vista Cheng Xin ne è l'esempio più vivido, diventando a tratti quasi un villain.
Il romanzo e in particolare le ultime cento pagine, sono un condensato di rassegnazione e depressione di fronte all'inevitabile fine a cui è destinata la nostra civiltà fin dal controverso scambio di messaggi di Ye Wenjie.
A ritroso, pensare che la Rivoluzione Culturale cinese sia stata il primo sassolino di una valanga durata secoli e che ha portato alla rovina almeno due civiltà su scala cosmica dà il senso dell'ampiezza del respiro di questa storia.
Ecco, il respiro è forse l'aspetto più affascinante di “Memoria del passato della Terra”. Per quanto si focalizzi su una manciata di personaggi, tutto il racconto è coeso, a distanza di anni luce e di secoli.
Ogni balzo temporale è caratterizzato da un punto di vista tecnologico e soprattutto sociologico.
Ogni balzo scientifico è giustificato dalle necessità e dalle emergenze contingenti.
Ogni scoperta si confronta, con una giusta e inevitabile dose di fantasia, con la fisica che conosciamo oggi.
Immaginare con cognizione di causa non solo l'incontro con una civiltà aliena, ma anche il contesto in cui esso avviene è ai miei occhi uno sforzo d'immaginazione veramente immenso.
Immaginare le dinamiche di un universo oscuro, ostile e misterioso e stimare la distanza tecnologica tra noi e il resto della foresta oscura è ancora più difficile.
In questo senso la fiaba di Yun Tianming è forse il momento più alto di tutto il romanzo, perché esplicita la profondità delle capacità creative dello scrittore e congiunge le necessità narrative del racconto con quelle esegetiche del personaggio.
Insomma, questo non era un libro semplice da scrivere e Liu Cixin è riuscito in un piccolo miracolo.
L'imminente adattamento di Netflix è il motivo per cui sono qui (altrimenti non credo avrei mai scoperto questi libri), ma in cuor mio sono convinto che l'animazione sia l'unico modo per rendere veramente giustizia allo scopo e al potere immaginifico di questa storia, oltre alle parole su carta stampata.
Quello che mi rimane, al termine di queste letture, è un grande senso di meraviglia e una sete di scoperta, accompagnata anche dall'amara consapevolezza che “il tempo è la forza più crudele di tutte”.
“Memoria del passato della Terra” è probabilmente una delle mie trilogie preferite.
Sento già ora la necessità di tornare indietro e ricominciare dal primo capitolo per apprezzare fino in fondo la complessità di questa storia.
Nonostante non abbia amato tutti gli aspetti dei tre libri, ciò che mi ha affascinato lo ha fatto profondamente.
Re-read the very first excerpt from Past Outside of Time at the very beginning after finishing the book and had to just sit and think for awhile. Wow man
Cixin Liu's imagination is on full display in the last book of this series; this book was a blast to read!
I liked this the least of the trilogy. It felt less cohesive than the others and I was just less invested in what was happening.
There is an interesting cloud of dread and nihilism over the whole thing, and like the other books it is still full of a bunch of wild little ideas and scenes.
This is a fascinatingly unique trilogy though that will stick with me for awhile!
Did I understand this book? No. Do I know how to review it? No. Do I understand how they're going to make an adaptation of it? No. Is existence pain, merely interlocking seconds across a vast tapestry of space and time in which we are all meaningless specks of dust floating through the universe with no meaning and no importance and doomed to an eternity of insignificance and nothingness? Perhaps.
I have never felt like putting a GIF into a review before, but my entire review of this book is just the meme of Troy Barnes from Community saying, “YOU'RE WRINKLING MY BRAIN”
There was a bit of silliness in here and I felt like the book was a bit longer than it should have been, but otherwise....damn.
9/10
Just like the last book, this one is riddled with plot holes and narrative inconsistencies. I think my biggest issue is that a lot of the major plot drama is driven out of sheer human incompetence, and I just don't think humanity is as incompetent as the caricature of it portrayed in this book. Also the main character of the book is maybe its weakest character in more meanings than one. Her biggest relevance to the story is being the sole person to make a decision where if she makes the wrong one, all of humanity will die. Literally fate of the world kind of stuff. And she makes the wrong decision... TWICE. And it's supposed to be out of “love” so her decisions are supposed to be “okay”. But no, the real world doesn't work like that... And for the record the second time she has to make the decision, it did in fact lead to complete annihilation of humans in the solar system, so she's basically responsible for the genocide of the human race?
Anyways given all that, this book I still rate at 4 stars because I guess its not really the point of the novel, it was still a very gripping read, and has really interesting science fiction concepts.
I would still recommend the series as a whole for anyone interested in sci-fi for its interesting concepts and world, and all the books are page turners. I just think the literature gets lost in the spectacle.
What a journey of humanity. From a contact to an extra-terrestrial intelligence to the end of time. When i finished the book, my world seems so miniscule compared to grand universe introduced by Cixin Liu. All ideas presented in the book are just beyond imagination. Death's end is not your typical science fiction, it pushes what science fiction could be.
One critic: this book has a lot ups and downs. It is not like typical story: building up tension until climax arrives; it is more like a journal, describing grande events, memories of humanity in the universe. Some might don't like this type of story telling, but it is still enjoyable for me. All unimaginable brilliant ideas compansate the downside.
это просто ууух! давно я не “глотала” книги. головокружительный сюжет просто с вселенским размахом, куча проблем научного, политического, этического и еще какого хотите характера. чересур длинные описания технических и научных подробностей, на мой взгляд, но в целом прекрасная научная фантастика
Increíble, un desenlace espectacular. Si bien, en mi opinión, no supera a la segunda entrega, este final me deja con el corazón llenito y lista para revivir la historia con todas las adaptaciones que vienen en camino.