I Enjoyed My Introduction to This Author!

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I was not familiar with the works of Cixin Liu despite his fame in his home country of China, and I looked forward to reading his science fiction tale, SUPERNOVA ERA. The English translation is, apparently, new, but it was published in China 15 years ago. The author wastes no time in establishing a sense of doom: a teacher is very ill at ease and people are referred to as “carbon life forms.” When scientists start panicking after taking blood samples from random citizens and 43 students in China are suddenly loaded onto a bus at the order of a totalitarian government, it still is not clear what world event is unfolding. The author peppers his story with enough scientific jargon to lend credibility to the crisis – massive doses of radiation from a dead star.

The rest of my review from this point on might contain some **spoilers ** Older people (parents) seem destined to certain death in a short period of time, but children for some reason are going to be able to survive. For this reason, there is a frantic effort to teach them all of the adult information they need to keep society going and not fall back into the Dark Ages. Is it possible in a one-year period? However, the world is not going to go on as it has been in modern times because children become frustrated with the work; it is not just a game after a while. About one-third of the way into the novel, some children even say to go ahead and do them a favor by shooting them. Sadly, the world is losing a wonderful part of life on planet Earth because animals start to die. This is not just a dystopian science fiction world but also a bit of a political commentary: the children of the United States are obsessed with guns. They were, in fact, provided with them to shoot children. Migration begins to other planets. If I were a die-hard science fiction fan, I might have rated this a 5 instead of a 4. I think the book is worth reading, and I always enjoy learning an introduction to an author that was not previously on my reading list. I sincerely appreciated the ARC from Tom Doherty Associates and Bookish.