Released: November 2010 (Original Chinese Release)
Genre: Science Fiction
Number Of Pages: 721
After two entries of build-up, Cixin Liu’s most well-known series concludes with Death’s End. It’s a dark, often sinister final chapter, but one possessed with a greater amount of human emotion.
Half a century after humanity barely avoided annihilation by the Trisolaran fleet, an uneasy peace between the two sides has persisted. Neither faction wants to be revealed to deadlier foes in the universe and they aim to share each other’s knowledge. Growing tensions eventually erupt into another conflict but Trisolaris is just the beginning of the plight. As mankind pushes further into the future, a new series of threats puts a desperate timeline into motion. Our species advances in technology and knowledge while also being faced with cataclysmic events that really hammer home the scale of the oncoming destruction. We watch these events unfold through the eyes of a single character, aerospace engineer Cheng Xin, whose experiences are blended with excerpts from various in-universe literature.
In contrast with its predecessors, Cheng Xin serves as a primary and leading perspective. This allows the reader to share in her trials and tribulations. Throughout the book, she’s forced to make some dire choices that determine the fate of humanity on multiple occasions. Liu brings a great deal of poignant emotion to Death’s End and this contrasts well with the scientific theorisation. While the book never tips into full-scale interstellar war, the way it shifts between time periods and contained conflicts results in many gut-wrenching moments.
One issue with the book is how it delves into side tangents that put the main story on pause. At one point, the book looks towards a fantastical story that runs alongside the sci-fi action. This takes up a couple of chapters and while it does tie into the main narrative, it could have been condensed down to a simpler form. These moments of discussion played a role in The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest as well, but they can still be a little overbearing at times.
Recommended?
YES: Death’s End is the last and best of Cixin Liu’s trilogy, bringing things to a rousing close. It features the grandest set pieces in the series, often placing humanity in some unbelievably bleak situations as they fight for survival. On occasion, it does pause to make use of allegorical anecdotes that take up a chapter or two, but otherwise it’s an engrossing tale. If you’ve been reading the previous books before this, you’ll be satisfied with how it wraps up.
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