China - The Redemption of Time - Baoshu

Being a massive Three Body Problem trilogy fan I was shocked to discover I had missed this book. It's a fan fiction book that sits after The Dark Forest, and before Death's End chronologically. 

Baoshu's book was approved by Cixin Liu and is incredibly popular, which adds to my frustration that I didn't find this sooner (Jan 2024). But as soon as I saw someone mention it online, I purchased a copy via my local bookstore.

The book focuses on the brain on Tianming that was fired towards the incoming fleet of Trisolarians in an attempt to start a line of communication. In the Original trilogy the brain was fired into space via a series of exploding nuclear blast that propelled the ship faster towards the speed of light. However the project was unsuccessful and Tianming's brain drifted off into space.

The Physical Book:

I was a little disappointed that I could find a published version that followed the same artwork as the copies of the trilogy I have. As I love those designs so much I had them tattoo on my right arm. This isn't me being a super fan. It's more that I love the artwork and it fits very well with the rest of my tattoo pieces. The book cover is a little busy for my taste. But blasts SCIENCE FICTION right between your eyes.

The Story:
In The Redemption of Time Tianming is picked up by a different alien species that is more concerned with bigger picture rather than just the fate of two alien races that are due to start a war. The story is very in depth and focused, had had a very similar 'feel' to Cixin Liu's work. The ending was good fun, if not, a little too heavy on the 'fan boying' of Cixin Liu himself. Its a great addition to the Trilogy, and glad I found it!

China - Death's End - Liu Cixin

There was no pause between putting The Dark Forest and picking up Death's end. I was excited to see where the story went and how it could possibly end. I was slight worried as Death's End had the same translator as The Three-Body Problem and found the translators footnotes a little distracting. But footnotes were very infrequent and only used to explain nuances in the Chinese language and puns that only work in Chinese, so in this book they did add to the depth of the writing style.

I was also concerned that the previous two books slowly built up to introducing new concepts and jaw dropping moments. But this book was packed with full blow WTF moments chapter after chapter. Also the chapter were much shorter in this book. I think shorter chapters always engage me more. I think; "that was only a short chapter, I'll read another one". I read this book faster than each of the two prior books even though this book was much longer. I didn't just pick up this book for 30 minutes in bed before nodding off, I went to bed an hour early so I could read more of it!

The concepts in the third book were just as incredible as the rest of the books in the series, and concepts brought up in the first and second book were neatly tied up also. The third book was outstanding. It is one of my favourite science fiction books of all time. It is quite a commitment of time and effort to read all three of the books, and you really can't read them out of sequence or just pick a single book to read. 

It is this series of books that inspired me to expand my reading of Sci-fi to authors outside of England and USA. I quickly realised when looking at my bookshelves, that the cultural heritage of the authors were predominately English and American. Am I missing out on an entire world of science fiction? Let's find out!

China - The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin

This book was a gift from my son who had heard about in one podcast / YouTube channels he watches. I was excited to read a Sci-fi book from China, as China's history and politics is so different from my home country of England. And when a book comes with praise from former President Barack Obama, you're probably in for a treat.

I did find the book a little slow to start, but I found the history of China's cultural revolution an interest backdrop to the characters. But the book really started to gain momentum when the alien civilisation was introduced. The concept of having an alien civilisation, arriving to destroy earth in 400 years was just amazing. I love this simple and more 'believable' concept of an alien invasion.

The book really picks up the pace in the final third of the book, introducing some incredible concepts and ideas. Earths ensuing crises and defence ideas are equally incredible as the alien ones. It's hard to talk about the book without crossing over on to the second and third books as they have started to merge in my memory.

Either way, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Really enjoy the concepts. I can't really comment on the merits of the writing, but I found easy to read and very compelling. One slight distraction was the amount of translator's note, in places these broke up the flow of the story, as I was looking up the foot notes. Don't get me wrong, there were interesting and informative, but didn't always add anything to the story. 

China - The Dark Forest - Liu Cixin

After the fast paced finale of The Three-Body Problem it was a little frustrating for the second book in the series to slow things back down, and retell parts of the first book from different view points. But the story really started to pick up pace in the second half, introducing some amazing concepts once again.

I was totally hooked on the second book and massively invested in the fate of the earth and the alien civilisation. At this point there was no way I wasn't going to buy the third and final book and have it lined up to start as soon as I finished book number two.

The translators footnotes were not as frequent in the book either, which I (wrongly) assumed was due to a different translator. However one of the translators footnotes pointed out that 2 of the characters were talking about a fictional character. The translator pointed out the fictional characters were referencing a commander in a Japanese series of books called Legend of the Galactic Heroes which I put on my wish list for the family Secret Santa (gratefully my Secret Santa purchased me the first 2 books in the series).

As soon as the book finished it was straight onto Death's End for the final instalment of this epic saga.