Supernova Era

It's impossible not to compare this book with the Three Body Problem, but I think it's not as epic as that trilogy. It's still good, but not mind blowing.

At first it was a fun concept and very interesting to read the authors view on this post apacolyptic era with only children, but later on it became too longwinding, highly detailed and I became less and less interested in what would happen.

There are some really interesting sci-fi concepts coming out of China at the moment, and Cixin Liu is pretty much the author leading the field there. This is one of his earlier works, and not as well regarded as his more famous ones (ie The Three Body Problem).

The Supernova Era postulates the question what would happen if the world were run by 13 year olds? The answer follows along the lines of Lord of the Flies/Battle Royale but with an underlying somewhat propagandist undertone. The first 3rd of the book dealing with the preparations for a new world populated only by children is a fairly measured treaty into what response adults might take knowing they will all die within a year leaving the world to just their kids. The last 2/3rds is a much more dystopian, dark and bloody imagination of what kids might do if they are allowed to treat the weapons of adults as toys. It is just the right side of believable, which makes it scary enough as a concept.

The main issues with this book come from the underlying propaganda messages (China vs US) and the stilted translation. This book is definitely told with a slightly haughty cultural superiority of tone which is somewhat offputting. On the translation side, all translations suffer, but this one does seem somewhat detached, which doesn't help draw the reader in especially well.

An interesting read, but with flaws.

There were large parts of this book that were good. But there was large sections of describing battles in details that were not gone into in any other section of the book. I was more interested in the broad themes of what was happening. It is a interesting thought experiment. It's hard to get into the mindset of a kid but I doubt this is how a world of children would go down.

3.5 stars for me.

The premise is nice (end of the world as we know it) and I loved the entire first half of the book: the ramp up and preparation for the new era, the first challenges the new leaders encounter, how it devolves and evolves. It then shifts focus from China to the US and it's still interesting to some extend to see the parallels in development. However for me that's where the book starts breaking apart.

The remaining half of the book is a heavy-handed summary of stereotypes about China, US, Europe, Japan, interspersed with the actual plot (or the actual development of the “what ifs”). The resolution does not seem to be very well developed. The key idea at the end of the book is indeed a nice “what if”, but it does not seem to be extremely well executed in terms of narration. Add to that a megaton of loose ends (whatever happened to the AI?) and it feels like at some point Liu Cixin (or his editors?) got bored and decided to cut the book short. The Epilogue redeems things a bit by providing a slightly more distant analysis of things (and is quite humorous to boot).

Overall the book feels like a great initial idea with a very good setup, some not very nuanced developments and a weak ending. Still a good read if you like to explore where a society might go if something goes very wrong.