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thecasecloser 's review for:
Death's End
by Cixin Liu
How am I supposed to read another book after this? I remember watching Interstellar (I went on a date, bought tickets for reserved seats in advance, then got there to see one of my best friends, also on a date, had coincidentally bought the seats next to me) and my jaw literally dropping at the end. I sat there in the theater for probably another 15 minutes just processing my thoughts and emotions. Now after most movies I watch, especially science fiction, I think "that wasn't as good as Interstellar." Has Interstellar ruined movies for me? No, but I've probably leaned towards the unhelpful side of comparison. 10 years later reading this series is the closest I have come to that feeling. I will try to compartmentalize and not compare every book I read over the next decade to this series.
It's no coincidence that this series and Interstellar have stuck out so prominently for me. I love space, I love weird theories about time, dimensions, and other physics, and I need enough scientific explanation that I can't articulate why it wouldn't work. Of course almost 1600 pages has the space to be far more elaborate, cunning, and expansive than a 3 hour movie; this story is so long, so much happens, and it escalates to a level so grand that it no longer even tries to explain, but already won me over with enough successes that I'm willing to grant some leeway. Multiple times something I have wondered about for years comes up and then is pushed way further than I could have imagined. No one could accuse Cixin Liu of thinking too small.
This series is definitely not perfect, but the main weaknesses are storytelling elements that I think are only going to be better in a non-science fiction story anyways. For as long as the series is, there are only 1-2 compelling characters in each book and some are still pretty one-dimensional despite lengthy back stories.
Much of the storytelling worked for me though. I felt like if someone were smart enough (I wasn't) they could deduce the plot in advance with all of the clues and foreshadowing. By the third book I had caught on to the structure of the foreshadowing and anticipated some plot points, and that helped the story flow naturally rather than shaking my head at plot points that feel random.
In order to create real tension in a story, the audience has to believe there are real consequences. As soon as a story has a serious obstacle that the main character easily overcomes (reference the "Pitch Meeting" YouTube series where each movie has an obstacle that turns out to be "super easy, barely an inconvenience") then the audience will no longer trust when there is real danger. That is not a problem with this series - when there is danger, you better believe it. Where there are choices, there are irreversible consequences.
I prefer tidy endings and it's hard for me to imagine a grander scale ending than this - the clue is again hidden in plain sight in the title, what could be after death's end?
It's no coincidence that this series and Interstellar have stuck out so prominently for me. I love space, I love weird theories about time, dimensions, and other physics, and I need enough scientific explanation that I can't articulate why it wouldn't work. Of course almost 1600 pages has the space to be far more elaborate, cunning, and expansive than a 3 hour movie; this story is so long, so much happens, and it escalates to a level so grand that it no longer even tries to explain, but already won me over with enough successes that I'm willing to grant some leeway. Multiple times something I have wondered about for years comes up and then is pushed way further than I could have imagined. No one could accuse Cixin Liu of thinking too small.
This series is definitely not perfect, but the main weaknesses are storytelling elements that I think are only going to be better in a non-science fiction story anyways. For as long as the series is, there are only 1-2 compelling characters in each book and some are still pretty one-dimensional despite lengthy back stories.
Much of the storytelling worked for me though. I felt like if someone were smart enough (I wasn't) they could deduce the plot in advance with all of the clues and foreshadowing. By the third book I had caught on to the structure of the foreshadowing and anticipated some plot points, and that helped the story flow naturally rather than shaking my head at plot points that feel random.
In order to create real tension in a story, the audience has to believe there are real consequences. As soon as a story has a serious obstacle that the main character easily overcomes (reference the "Pitch Meeting" YouTube series where each movie has an obstacle that turns out to be "super easy, barely an inconvenience") then the audience will no longer trust when there is real danger. That is not a problem with this series - when there is danger, you better believe it. Where there are choices, there are irreversible consequences.
I prefer tidy endings and it's hard for me to imagine a grander scale ending than this - the clue is again hidden in plain sight in the title, what could be after death's end?