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Summary
Summary
From science fiction legend Cixin Liu, the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Three-Body Problem , comes a vision of the future that reads "like Ursula K Le Guin rewriting The Lord of the Flies for the quantum age." (NPR).
In those days, Earth was a planet in space.
In those days, Beijing was a city on Earth.
On this night, history as known to humanity came to an end.
Eight light years away, a star has died, creating a supernova event that showers Earth in deadly levels of radiation. Within a year, everyone over the age of thirteen will die.
And so the countdown begins. Parents apprentice their children and try to pass on the knowledge needed to keep the world running.
But when the world is theirs, the last generation may not want to continue the legacy left to them. And in shaping the future however they want, will the children usher in an era of bright beginnings or final mistakes?
"This audacious and ultimately optimistic early work will give Liu's English-reading fans a glimpse at his evolution as a writer and give any speculative fiction reader food for deep thought." -- Shelf Awareness
Author Notes
Cixin Liu is the author of The Three Body Problem, which won Best Novel at the Hugo Awards 2015.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Liu, author of the intellectually challenging Three-Body Problem trilogy, provides a more accessible look at humanity's future in this political thriller founded on a thought experiment reminiscent of classic SF. A supernova near Earth bathes the planet in radiation that has minimal effect on people 13 or younger, but will kill anyone older within a year. That provides time for the governments of the world to prepare the oldest children to assume the leadership of their respective countries. Liu focuses on a group of students in China who are assigned some territory to govern; they must plan to have adequate resources while dealing with their neighbors' territorial ambitions. The complicated role-playing game is used to identify potential leaders. After the inevitable deaths of all the adults, which is chillingly described, the adolescent leaders are left to grapple with an overwhelming set of responsibilities--and a population of even younger children who have their own ideas of how a post-adult world should look. There's more talk than action, and the global scale of the disaster leaves little room for individual character development. Plausible but surprising twists make this a memorable what-if tale. (Oct.)
Kirkus Review
Apocalyptic yarn from the celebrated author of the Three-Body Problem trilogy (Death's End, 2016, etc.).A nearby star explodes, hammering Earth with radiation that within a year will kill every person older than 13. Governments worldwide immediately grasp the facts, draw accurate conclusions, and make plans for parents and caregivers to rapidly teach their children the skills they'll need in order to keep civilization going. These developments may seem weirdly unreal when viewed from a non-Chinese perspective, as might the prospect of 13-year-old airline pilots, nuclear engineers, or doctors achieving competency after a year's training. The adults duly die off. Fortunately, China has just invented a supercomputer named China Quantum which helps out when the child executivesdreamer Huahua, intellectual Specs, and mature, practical Xiaomengbecome overwhelmed with the enormity of their task. The Chinese child nation creates a digital forum and decides that what it really wants to do is play, not slavishly attempt to keep the adult model functioning. Other nations come to similar conclusions. Tellingly, young America, which loves its guns, proposes live-ammo war games on Antarctica, which has rapidly melted. Liu wrote this tale in 1989, the year of Tiananmen Square, he says in an afterword. If it seems darkindeed, the premise immediately demands comparison with William Golding's Lord of the Flies, right down to the singular lack of female perspectiveLiu reportedly revised it several times before it was finally published in 2003, to avoid possible issues with officialdom. Imagine how much darker it must have been. The book as published stresses the competency and forethought of the older generation and downplays the inability of children to understand and anticipate consequences. Readers may draw their own conclusions about the politics behind all this.A hardworking but uninspired early novel, wholly overshadowed by Liu's later masterpiece. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
This novel from the widely acclaimed author of The Three-Body Problem (2014) imagines a world in which radiation from a supernova results in the eventual death of all humans over the age of 12, leading to a mad dash for the swiftly dying adults to prepare their children for the future. Primarily focusing on the children selected to be the new Central Committee in Beijing, Liu presents a world where the values of adult society are swiftly replaced by the new priorities of young children who long for a world based around play rather than work. With the wildly different concepts of play imagined by Chinese children and their more trigger-happy American counterparts, the safety and stability of the new ""Supernova Era"" is quickly thrown into question. Unlike Liu's more space-based fictions, Supernova Era's world of children begins to wear a little thin, particularly when the various other nations and their broadly drawn preteen leaders are introduced. Nevertheless, this latest translation is sure to interest readers who want to explore more of the Chinese-language sf canon.--Nell Keep Copyright 2010 Booklist
Table of Contents
| Prologue | p. 13 |
| 1 The Dead Star | p. 17 |
| The End | p. 17 |
| The Midnight Sun | p. 23 |
| 2 The Selection | p. 30 |
| A World in a Valley | p. 30 |
| The State | p. 51 |
| 3 The Great Learning | p. 56 |
| The World Classroom | p. 56 |
| The Chief of General Staff | p. 73 |
| MSG and Salt | p. 81 |
| 4 Handing Over the World | p. 88 |
| Big Quantum | p. 88 |
| Dry Run of the New World | p. 91 |
| The Epoch Clock | p. 96 |
| The Supernova Era | p. 104 |
| 5 The Era Begins | p. 109 |
| Hour One | p. 109 |
| Suspension | p. 125 |
| 6 Inertia | p. 138 |
| Inspection | p. 138 |
| The National Assembly | p. 143 |
| A Country of Fun | p. 152 |
| Debate | p. 164 |
| 7 Candytown | p. 169 |
| Dreamtime | p. 169 |
| Slumbertime | p. 177 |
| 8 Candytown in America | p. 188 |
| The Ice Cream Banquet | p. 188 |
| Candytown in America | p. 210 |
| World Games | p. 221 |
| 9 The Supernova War | p. 225 |
| Antarctica | p. 225 |
| Games of Blood and Iron | p. 248 |
| A Thousand Suns | p. 274 |
| The CE Mine | p. 284 |
| Counterattack | p. 287 |
| Blizzard | p. 292 |
| 10 Genesis | p. 303 |
| A New President | p. 303 |
| A Visit | p. 310 |
| New World Games | p. 313 |
| The Exchange | p. 317 |
| The Decision | p. 320 |
| The Great Migration | p. 324 |
| Genesis | p. 334 |
| Epilogue: Blue Planet | p. 336 |
| Afterword | p. 345 |
