Death’s End (死神永生) is a science fiction novel by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. It is the third novel in the trilogy titled Remembrance of Earth's Past, following the Hugo Award-winning novel The Three-Body Problem and its sequel, The Dark Forest.
This is an unforgiving book. Did you remember every detail from the last two novels? No - better go back and take some notes!
It is epic sci-fi. Bouncing between times, exploring big ideas, and gently bubbling techno-horror.
But it is uncompromising in how much work it expects you to do. A throwaway line towards the end of the book directly relates to a minor plot-point in the first.
Overall, the three books are a masterwork - but it requires a lot of effort to appreciate.
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ISBN: 9781466853454
2 thoughts on “Book Review - Death's End”
Alex Gibson
Fantastic series. Very deep, if slightly pessimistic, universe view! Did you find that by the third novel the characterisation of individuals and whole populations of people was getting a bit sparse, as we were fast forwarded through increasing time periods? I found that a little frustrating, and the later female central characters less believable than earlier male characters. But still, epic books that are well worth finding good undisturbed time to get really into.
Have you already read/reviewed: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky Dark Eden trilogy by Chris Beckett [if not, do!]
Pavel
I feel like a grumpy old guy, but I feel like a lot of concepts in Death's End have been done better by other authors, especially the out-there ideas - I don't want to list them, lest I spoil things for people.
Given that Alex above has thrown in some recommendations, based on your interest in the ideas here I'd throw in:
just about anything by Greg Egan; if you want crazy physics, go for Clockwork Rocket. If you want more humanity, go for Diaspora. anything from the Xeelee Sequence by Stephen Baxter. Ring is a good start; Vacuum Diagrams is a good collection of stories. (None of these are happy stories.) Blindsight, by Peter Watts