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Death’s End Book Review

Death’s End is a 2010 science fiction novel by Chinese author Liu Cixin. It’s a mind-blowing sequel that just might be the best entry in this exceptional trilogy.

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“Time is the cruelest force of all“

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Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the 21st century, emerges from hibernation into a world transformed by the uneasy peace between Earth and the Trisolarans. However, this peace is fragile and soon enough a new threat emerges and humanity finds itself at a huge risk. This sequel got strong reviews and deservedly so as it’s incredible. This series has always been fantastic, but it became more ambitious with each entry, culminating in this epic showcase of the author’s imagination and brilliance.

This novel is so rich with ideas that I cannot really decide where to start discussing it, but let’s first state that the romantic subplot came out of nowhere and I actually really admired it. The romance between Cheng Xin and Yun Tianming was the driving force of not just the plot, but the purpose of humanity as a whole. These characters weren’t fully developed as Cixin continues to struggle with characterization, but the romance worked as it pinpointed the importance of love and perseverance in our human experience.

Another theme strongly explored here is the power of choices and how hugely consequential even the seemingly smallest choices can prove to be on the future of the human race. Just one person can change the trajectory of humanity and a certain action can have a ripple effect on not just Earth, but the rest of the universe. But once again there is a strong emphasis on the limits of human understanding of science and the cosmos at large and how we simply fail to grasp many of the concepts that other alien races have potentially already deduced.

Every novel in this trilogy had one revelation that changed everything. The first one had that revelation about the existence of Trisolarans. The second book had that horrifying twist that put humanity in its place and confirmed just how powerful this threat really is. But this third entry changed everything by pretty much wiping out the Trisolaran threat and introducing an entirely new threat from a whole another alien race. This opened up the world of the books vastly, leading to by far the most ambitious entry in the series and one of the most epic science fiction stories that I have ever witnessed.

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It’s an emotionally exhilarating read in spite of the lack of characterization because it focuses on the biggest threat possible and the author effectively depicts the paranoia and despair, but also hope that may arise from these horrifying circumstances. Yes, Liu Cixin has a very paranoid mind for sure, but his idea of the universe, although immensely scary and nihilistic, makes sense in the context of our own human history where even today wars are being waged across the globe. I also hugely respected him pinpointing the importance of culture and how that should be preserved at all costs.

He continued his hypothesis here that the universe is this dark forest where other civilizations are hiding out of fear of being attacked and everybody is living on the edge. This showcased just how dangerous huge technological advancements can be, but also that no matter what technology can’t save you if you are up against an even more powerful civilization. What even is humanity’s place in the universe is the existentialist thread that was the core of this particular book as Cixin signified just how fragile not just our existence is, but the existence of the universe itself.

Death’s End did have a somewhat slower first half that was rich with scientific ideas, but also overwhelming in the number of details in the areas of physics and astronomy that rendered it a bit cumbersome to read at times. But the second half became much more engaging and it was genuinely riveting at certain points. That moment when that unknown alien race attacked and pretty much destroyed the entire Solar System was unprecedented. I couldn’t see it coming and I was shocked by just how daring and brutally dark this turn was.

Liu Cixin truly has a unique mind and his ideas are unlike no other in the genre. The very idea of a dimensional war was immensely original for the SF genre. The existence of the fourth dimension had already been quite out there, but the idea that you can jump between dimensions and how you can collapse from a higher to a lower dimension was pretty mind-blowing. Those moments in the book made my jaw drop how shocking they truly were.

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The ending was just perfect as the novel went through all of these different emotions, ending both positively and negatively. How the author managed to execute this was impressive as it’s not at all easy to pretty much destroy everything and yet leave you with a bit of hope. These complex emotions and tones were the most impressive aspect of this novel for sure. Certainly the characters needed to have been stronger and Thomas Wade was a very frustrating black-and-white villain, but the novel managed to rise above its limitations in terms of pacing, structure and character development to deliver genuine thrills in story and spectacle. His writing style can be overbearing in the amount of details included and the sometimes overly didactic dialogue, but he has a strong grasp of world building, he knows how to create memorable imagery and he explores his ideas fully and potently.