Imagine a life in a bubbling lake of
hot tar. Is that even possible? Surely, life cannot exist at such a
place, right? Yet, scientists discovered, at Pitch Lake, the world's
largest naturally occurring asphalt lake, up to 10 million microbes
live in every gram of this black, sticky goo. But Pitch Lake is just
one of the many unthinkable places where scientists have discovered
life. On the other hand, I think we can say, life finds a way to
adapt and survive in the harshest circumstances - Life IS survival,
those who didn't aren't alive anymore.
There are, however, many says to
survive, and not all life forms are the same, so what is the best way
for the intelligent life to meet the adaptive challenges? In Death's
End, the conclusion to the phenomenal sci-fi epic, Remembrance
of Earth's Past, author Cixin Liu explored this question, not
only for the humankind, but for the survival of the entire universe.
This book's scope is breathtaking, I have never read a book as vast
as Death's End. This novel brings the trilogy to a satisfying
(and mind-bending) conclusion. Meanwhile, I think this trilogy is a
magnum opus in the science fiction genre.
Like its 2 predecessors (The ThreeBody Problem and The Dark Forest), the plot in Death's
End revolves around a mystery. I racked my brain and I am still
unable to write a spoiler-free synopsis for this book, so my review
will just have to go without it. I think it will suffice to say, we
meet a new protagonist in Death's End. Her name is Cheng Xin,
an aerospace engineer. From here, we follow Cheng Xin to the end of
the universe.
Author Ken Liu once again took the helm
for translating the book from Chinese into English. I have not read
Death's End in Chinese, but I thought the English translation is
seamless, it is very smooth and well written. The book made
occasional references to Chinese cultural items unfamiliar to the
western readers, but Ken Liu included useful footnotes to helping
English readers understanding its significance.
This trilogy is “hard” sci-fi. The
first book, The Three Body Problem, was about theoretical
physics. The second installment, The Dark Forest, was about
evolution and sociology. In Death's End, it talks about both
theoretical physics and evolution. From evolution to the string
theory, Death's End covered a broad range of theories in
science! Some of the sciences mentioned in this book are established
theories, while others are probably speculative. There are a lot of
hardcore science theories in this book. Yet, Cixin Liu has this
amazing ability to graft a scientific theory from its
spatial/mathematical presentation to the bone and marrow of
literature, allowing his readers to envision the extent of it through
literary devices.
Let me put it this way, you can read a
journal paper about the string theory, or the 26 dimensions of the
universe. You can read the mathematical equations that model these
theories, but it is impossible to “visualize” what it actually
looks like. For example, we can visualize a 2 dimensional world,
something like a painting, from our 3 dimensional perspective. But can
you imagine what a 4 dimensional world looks like from our dimensional perspective? It is impossible, right? But in this book,
Cixin Liu transplanted these ideas into literary terms, which helped
his readers to visualize what it “could” look like. His writings
captured the grandeur and the vastness of the mysterious universe, it
made me reflect on the reality that by comparison, humanity is so
small and our history within this universe is so very, very brief.
The story in Death's End is rich
as its scope is expansive. There are many characters in this book,
and every one of them received a vivid and well-rounded portrayal.
None of them are caricatures. Some parts of this book are outright
frightening, while others are hopeful. Throughout the whole book, it
depicted the characters' feelings and experiences genuinely. As
readers, we accompanied these characters on their journey through
despair as well as hope. By the time I turned to the last page in
this book, I found it hard to part ways with some of these
characters. I look forward to the day when I will be re-reading this
trilogy and visiting these characters again.
Death's End is an interesting
book. It is inherently thought-provoking. From my interpretation, at
its core is a story that unifies science and philosophy, to exploring
a question. That is, the question at the beginning of my review: What
is the way to survival? In our world, we talk about survival with
ideas such as altruism/love and selfishness. Some people assert,
altruism/love is incompatible with survival. These people claim, if
survival is the only thing that matters, then altruism/love is a
mistake so in order to love we must subscribe to some mystic/religious view. They want to force us into believing it is all or nothing!
Well, I strongly disagree!
Why? This is because these people forgot to mention, survival have 2 levels; individual survival as well as group
survival, and these 2 are not the same. Selfishness may benefit an individual's survival within a
group, but on the other hand, we all need group survival,
collectively, or our existence will cease; and group survival
requires altruism/love. We can observe this tension, between love and
selfishness, in humanity. To use an analogy, we are 90% chimps and
10% bees. The “chimps” part of us has allowed us to individually
thrive in the society, but the “bees” part of us has improved our
chance at survival by being collective as a group, as a civilization.
I think the truth is, our fragile existence in this universe stands
on the tension between altruism and selfishness, and we will
probably die out without either one of them. In my interpretation of the book, I think this is
where Death's End is pointing a direction to the answer to survival. I think this book provides a thought experiment, showing us
that love doesn't come from some mystic/religious origin. In the face
of survival, love is not a mistake.
Instead, the instinct of survival
dictates that we ARE love.
Love may appear counter-intuitive and
impossible, but to survive we have become love (and selfishness), just like the microbes at
Pitch Lake has found a way to adapt and live in a sea of bubbling hot
tar. It is mind-bending, rendering this naturalistic view about love
equally as majestic as (if not more majestic than) the
mystic/religious view about love.
I highly recommend this trilogy to the
fans of the sci-fi genre, especially to those who are fond of hard
sci-fi stories.
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