A review by glenntheglenn
The Wandering Earth: Classic Science Fiction Collection by Cixin Liu

4.0

I came to this anthology after reading Liu's Three-Body Problem trilogy, and in many ways, this anthology functions as a prototype. It uses many of the same sci-fi concepts that end up getting used in the trilogy. For the most part, these stories just feel like physics thought experiments. Characters and dialogue aren't Liu's strong suit (he does big story beats and hard science best), and that's even more the case here than it was later in his career. That said, this is a pretty minor criticism. I kind of knew what I was getting into here, that the characters would exist to serve the physics sandbox that he felt like playing in, and not vice versa. Often the characters don't even have names. And really, that's fine, as long as you know to expect it. Tom Clancy did basically the same thing, and I didn't feel nearly as intelligent while reading his books.