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missai 's review for:
The Wandering Earth
by Cixin Liu
“‘When will it end?’ Kayoko mumbled into the dark.
I did not know whether she meant our journey or our miserable and adversity-ridden life. It wouldn't have mattered anyway; at that moment, both seemed equally everlasting.”
HUMANITY is faced with an impossible decision: when scientists discover that our Sun will explode and destroy all its planets, governments around the world unite to launch The Wandering Earth Project. Over the course of over 2000 years, the Earth will be pushed out of its current orbit and into the solar system orbiting Proxima Centauri, the next-closest star. Such a decision has come with immense sacrifice, physically, emotionally, spiritually, for billions of Earth's inhabitants. In just a few dozen pages, Liu Cixin has delivered a sci-fi story quite unlike any I've seen before.
“We must trust the Unity Government! How many times have I told you? Even if you don't believe, even if worst comes to worst, ‘At least humanity died with pride, fighting to the end!’”
READING through his translated work, it is interesting to try and spot where certain ideas are the spawn of his cultural-political environment and which ideas are idiosyncratic to the author. In particular, Liu's take on the rationality of individuals is intriguing. Unlike other titles I've read, such as [b:The Giver|3636|The Giver|Lois Lowry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1342493368s/3636.jpg|2543234] or [b:The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas|92625|The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1389866872s/92625.jpg|89324], there is no moral quandary contained within many of the Unity Government or the new society's decisions. Rather, the most pressing concern is: Based on all available evidence, did humanity make the right choice? Were the calculations correct? Should we have remained in the Sun's orbit? Should we have left Earth on spaceships instead?
“Back then we were baffled when we watched films and read stories from the Pre-Solar Age. We just could not understand why people should invest so much emotion into matters that had nothing to do with survival. Watching a protagonist despair or cry over love was strange beyond words to us. In those days, the imminent threat of death and the desire to escape alive overwhelmed all else. The daily updates on the condition of the Sun and position of the Earth all but devoured our attention and ruled our emotions. This all-consuming focus gradually changed the essence of human psychology and spirituality. Love and all its foibles became mere distractions, just like a quick swig of a drink was for a gambler who cannot take his eyes off the spinning wheel.”
THIS degree of rationality made all the characters wholly unrelatable but made for an extraordinarily thought-provoking hypothetical scenario. Considering that he didn't set out to write a human-interest story, I can forgive the rather poor character sketches. (It is interesting to see how the film adaptation attempted to work a human element into the premise of this story.) Additionally, as this was one of Liu's first popular works, which came out in 2000, I am impressed and inspired by his imagination. I would recommend anyone to give this short read a chance if you have the time!