After hearing so many positive reviews about this book there was no question of not reading it. I love reading science fictions. But sometimes Science fictions becomes science fantasies. The authors goes too far to please the readers, to create a sensational story they ignore the fundamentals facts and create there own laws. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes this makes his work loosing the sense of realism which he tried to create.
I’ve read this famous quote by Mark Twain in one of the book I read
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please
So, this time I decided let’s scrutinize the book and see how closely it create fiction around non-fiction(fundamentals).
So coming back to the book, it is hugely ambitious and well imagined. The backdrop of the story is China, and the story is setup against the cultural revolution and current day China. Ye Wenije, an astrophysicist who is accused of being a “reactionist” is assigned to work on a top secret government project. Wang Miao, a nano technologist, who one day unwillingly becomes a part of a conspiracy which can very well eradicate humanity. And how the story unfolds and the connection between Red coast(where Ye worked) and “the conspiracy” is really intriguing.
The story is fast paced and intricate. But with a little background of quantum mechanics and astrophysics it’s not that difficult to follow. There are places where Liu Cixin uses his full imagination – the way he has explained dimension unfolding and working of sophon(proton supercomputer) is absolutely brilliant and mind bending. This surely had some loopholes as I was able to find out. There were other places where he out rightly ignored very basic fact(one place Ye discovers Jupiter has started a fusion at its core, which even I knew is not possible and I later found it has to be 70 times more heavier to be able to do so.).
There are so many fascinating theories in the book which are really thought provoking, just the idea that one day you wake up and come to know all your efforts of finding out laws of nature is insignificant as there are no laws, the universe is pattern-less, can break anyone. Which very well in the book throws the whole scientific community in disarray. He has raised some good points how humanity has become so self consumed and so ignorant towards the nature and humanity itself which later becomes the motivation for it to betray itself.
There were some loopholes that can be ignored, beside those it was a good read and one of the best science fiction I read. Looking forward to read The Dark Forest.
Rating: 4 / 5
wordsofbookradiant 