The Wandering Earth

Liu is one of the most prominently-exposed, to English-speaking audiences at least, contemporary Chinese SF authors. This collection includes several stories which won Galaxy Awards, and the quality level is naturally very high.If there is a unifying theme here, it’s the fate or future of the Earth and of humanity. This isn’t as obvious as it might seem, since not all SF goes quite that deep. But Liu does go deep, and comes up with a variety of future scenarios that range from cautiously optimistic ("Sun of China" and, maybe, "Mountain") to dark and deeply pessimistic ("Taking Care of God" and "Devourer", although in very different ways.) The duo of "With "Her Eyes"/"Cannonball" manages to span both extremes.This continues a tendency I noticed in reading other Chinese SFF anthologies: no one is entitled to a happy ending. It's not that everything in the collection is dominated by the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, although there is a bit of that in some places. It’s more SF as realism: Liu seems to feel that the chips should fall where they may in terms of his storylines.This is largely a good thing but can be jarring at moments. In "Mountain", for example, the protagonist’s new-found desire to climb a universe full of new and every-higher mountains comes about only after, and because of, his earlier involvement in a tragedy while climbing. Liu’s not having it with forced optimism or deployment of a deus ex machina ensuring happy endings. Quite the opposite: it seemed like any deus making an ex machina appearance here probably was on the way to destroy the Earth, Sun, or humanity. The writing is strong. "Devourer" was one of the few stories that didn’t resonate with me–it started strongly, but descended into a bizarre pastiche of cuteness and doom that was jarring and seemed underbaked. But aside from that, I felt Liu had infused the other stories with a gravitational force that made me want to keep turning pages even when I really wasn’t sure where he was going with things. Credit here also goes to the translators who handled the stories. In the end, though, it’s fundamentally the author’s burden to create readable works. Liu’s ability to spin stories and perspectives from the diverse and divergent perspectives here is a credit to his versatility and skill.

This book was published after the three body problem, but it is clear that it was written by the same author. Some of the same challenges and ideas that were expressed in that book were also expressed in this one. Overall, an intriguing set of stories.

Cixin Liu’s “The Wandering Earth” collects ten short stories from the Hugo and Nebula Award winning author. The titular first story begins four hundred years in the future, where the world’s scientists have discovered that the sun will soon use up its supply of hydrogen and begin fusing helium, expanding into a red giant in the process. To save the planet, the nations of the world build massive engines to push Earth on a 2500-year journey to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system. Liu uses this premise to imagine how society would change if every human were motivated only to preserve the species on a generations-long perilous journey. The story was successful enough that Frant Gwo adapted it as a 2019 science fiction film, though Gwo primarily focused on Liu’s premise while telling his own story.The second short story, “Mountain,” recalls the work of Arthur C. Clarke as Liu uses the encounter between a human and an alien intelligence to posit how a society of artificial lifeforms might arise and how both their society and their environment could differ from ours. In “Sun of China,” Liu explores the possibilities of space industry and how it both democratizes space travel and can improve conditions on Earth. Liu further shows that such business would make near-Earth orbit profitable, but a lack of inherent profit might dissuade human exploration further into the solar system. In an unfortunately dated moment, Liu portrays a centenarian Stephen Hawking retiring to near-Earth orbit, though events in the real world have outpaced Liu’s storytelling ability with Hawking recently dying aged seventy-six (pg. 139). Despite this, what Hawking represents to the story still makes an impact and the narrative offers a good legacy for the late scientist. “For the Benefit of Mankind” is a futuristic crime noir story set against the backdrop of a conquered Earth and social inequality.In “Curse 5.0,” Cixin Liu tells a story set in the future about a computer virus run rampant in an increasingly-digitized world. In a particularly nice touch, he includes a lucky vagrant version of himself in the future. “The Micro-Era” recalls the best of pulp sci-fi with the last survivor on an ark ship returning to Earth thousands of years after a cataclysm only to discover that humanity has shrunk to microscopic level and lives in domed cities to survive the nearly-uninhabitable conditions. “Devourer” is another first contact story, with the appearance of a crystal seemingly portending destruction for the Earth. “Taking Care of God” focuses on the aliens who created humanity returning to ask for our care in their dotage. The twist is that the alien species looks like little old men with white beards and canes. In “With Her Eyes,” Liu tells the story of a pair of cybernetic eyes and their owner seeking to fulfill the wishes of the previous owner. Finally, “Cannonball” focuses on a man awakening from cryogenic sleep to find his world changed.Liu’s writing closely resembles that of Asimov or Clarke, examining big ideas in the style of someone recounting momentous events. Like those authors, however, he relies extensively upon exposition, often to the detriment of fully-developed characters. His human characters exist mostly to forward the big ideas Liu wishes to explore. For those used to this style of science-fiction, he is a valuable addition to the genre. Newcomers or those more familiar with contemporary styles may find it alienating.

Great collection of hard sci-fi.Every tale took me somewhere amazing and shook my soul profoundly. A great read! Cannot recommend enough!

É uma coleção de estórias curtas mas que são surpreendentes e carregam a qualidade do autor. Só uma delas que achei meio bobinha, mas outras superam. Recomendo a leitura.

It's a fine collection of stories. The author displays a great sense of imagination. The technicalities are always there but in less amount than in his trilogy, so the read is more pleasant.

Keine Ahnung, wie manche darauf kommen, das als Hard SciFi zu bezeichnen. Einige der Geschichten sind absolut hanebüchen. Mikroskopisch kleine Menschen, die haargenau so sind wie normalgroße Menschen, nur kleiner und normalgroße Wasser- und Nahrungsmoleküle zu sich nehmen, Aliens, die die Erde besuchen, nur um sich mit einem einzelnen Menschen zu unterhalten, der zufällig vorbei kommt, und dann einfach weiterfliegen ... Was ist daran überhaupt SciFi, geschweige denn hard?Außerdem laufen mehrere Geschichten nach dem gleichen Prinzip ab: Aliens kommen vor irgendeinem wahnwitzigen Setting angeflogen und erzählen die Geschichte ihrer Spezies, die rein zufällig eine Analogie zu irgendeinem Menschheitsproblem darstellt.Ich habe das Buch gekauft, weil mich die Idee hinter der Titelgeschichte fasziniert hat, aber die Umsetzung hat mich enttäuscht.

Creo que es el heredero más fiel del estilo Arthur C. Clarke en la narrativa Hard CF: totalmente apegado a la ciencia y su desarrollo, lleno de ideas aunque sin ponerle mucha atención al desarrollo de la trama (si uno, como lector, le pone un poco de atención, empiezan a surgir hasta ilogicidades y contradicciones), usando una personalidad muy plana y estrictamente apegada a la lógica de los personajes (aunque hay que notar que Clarke siempre los retrataba en un plano limitado, como dibujos bidimensionales, haciendo lo que deben hacer sin sueños ni esperanzas futuras y sin remordimientos o reflexiones pasadas. Cixin Liu logra hacerlos un poco más tridimensionales, aunque acartonados, como robots o androides).Obviamente que el cuento que más llama la atención es el primero, "The Wandering Earth" - "La Tierra vagabunda" debido a la producción cinematográfica china del mismo nombre, basada, vagamente, en la trama del cuento. Liu, fiel al estilo hard, desarrolla una narración lógica, dura, llena de datos y propuestas científicas, muy alejado de las inconsiencias y choros chinos de la película.Mi cuento preferido es el tercero, "Sun of China", lógico, duro, real y con la ventaja de un tratamiento más completo de los personajes principales. Todos los demás cuentos,en mayor o menor medida, contienen ideas científicas muy avanzadas pero son ilógicos, contradictorios..., pero todos muy entretenidos.Destaca mucho el cuento "Taking care of God" - "Cuidando a Dios" principalmente porque fue el primero que leí de Cixin Liu en la antología "Terra Nova 3", ya traducido al español bajo el título "¿Quién cuidará de los dioses?", con una traducción terrible, principalmente porque se aventaron el chistecito de traducirla directamente del mandarín. Esta traducción al inglés (equipo de traducción encabezado por Ken Liu) está mucho mejor y, supongo, más fiel al original.