Jenseits der Zeit

I loved this series. Haven't read this much fiction in a long time, and it was a great reprieve. He takes scientific concepts I've long enjoyed mentally playing around with and applies wonderful creativity to write stories full of surprises. (EDIT: That said, the beginning was slow, with the story getting more interesting over time. Much like the second book. Also, if you want deep connection with characters, he's not your writer, imo. He's about taking interesting scientific concepts and applying imagination to them.)

In diesem Buch schraubt sich Cixin Liu in unglaubliche Höhen, um die Trilogie abzuschließen. Nachdem mich der zweite Band doch eher enttäuscht hatte, finde ich dieses Buch dem ersten ebenbürtig, vielleicht so gar noch besser.

Das erste Viertel des Buches rekapituliert, was im vorherigen geschehen ist. Das fand ich ganz sinnvoll, denn ich hatte vieles schon wieder vergessen.

Inhaltlich geht es diesmal nicht nur um Existenz bzw. Untergang der Menschheit, der Trisolarier oder des Sonnensystems - nein, es geht um nichts geringeres als die Existenz des Universums selbst.

Die Last der Verantwortwortung für all diese Dinge liegt auf den Schultern der Raketeningenieurin Cheng Xin, die lange Zeit im Kälteschlaf verbracht hat und während der Geschichte auf immer wieder dahin zurückkehrt, teilweise sehr lange.

Diese Zeitsprünge haben mir dann auch das größte Problem bei der Lektüre bereitet. Irgendwann wusste ich nicht mehr, wann was passiert und wieviel Zeit zwischen den Ereignissen vergangen war.

Aber was ist schon Zeit ;-)

Man könnte dem Autor vorwerfen, dass seine Phantasie mit ihm durchgegangen ist, aber ist das wirklich etwas negatives? Hard-SciFi-Fans werden mal wieder herummäkeln, dass nicht alles wissenschaftlich begründbar ist (natürlich ist es das nicht - es ist keine Dissertation, sondern Unterhaltungsliteratur).

Ich bin begeistert.

I read this one for completeness, but the series got less good over time, with too much Malthus and just so game theory stories. The later books treat physics like poorly done fantasy magic, where the resolution to the previous dilemma is some new hand waving loosely justified by terminology.

Von den drei Büchern war es das Schlechteste. Letztlich ein "normales" Science Fiction-Buch. Wer wenig Zeit hat, sollte nur die ersten beiden Bände lesen.

I'd call this maybe 2.5 stars.

Oh boy this book did not work for me. I really dug the first book in the series, I found the second disappointing (I think the change in translator was not helpful), and this third book we're back to the original translator and I was left cold for almost the entire book. It's got some great hard scifi ideas and scale that I've never thought of before - but especially in the last third of the book I was starting to skim paragraphs of descriptions that I wasn't interested in; I didn't have the characters to follow to keep me engaged maybe? It seemed like the author wanted to cram in so many different times and locations and situations that we were jerked around from one to another in rapid succession -- we'd be approaching a critical juncture and then, No, nevermind, critical juncture averted, we're on to another critical juncture, and so on.

In my heart I'm a bitter-ender with books and especially series, but I was starting to want to bail on this book about half way through and I'd probably have been happier for having done so.

It's a gigantic trilogy, but so worth the time. Let me entice you, the interested reader of science fiction, with three facts:

1) This is the first major work of Chinese science fiction to reach a mass American audience, and the first book won the Hugo.
2) It contains a terrifying, but plausible, answer to Fermi's Paradox.
3) Despite this, it can also be read as an extended metaphor and exhortation to hope, kindness and love in the face of global catastrophe.

The story is gripping, the perspective is unique, and the reach impressive. I'm glad I made room for it on my shelf.

This one was a bit overwrought, I thought. There was lots of handwringing and very obvious injection of Communist ethos into the writing, which was very interesting to see in the first two but in this one it felt forced and unnecessary. It was also about 30-40% longer than it had to be.