Supernova Era

by Liu Cixin

Book Overview

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....

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250306035
• ISBN13: 9781250306036
• Release Date: October 2019
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Good setup, horrible follow-through

I rather liked Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past series, so I picked up a copy of this one in hope of another good read. However, I found that the good setup (radiation kills all the adults and leaves behind only children) led into a hideous unbelievable mess. Virtually nothing that happens aside from that radiation burst makes any sense. I've read enough Chinese fiction to know that the approach to characterization is different than what we're used to in American fiction, but none of the characters in this book feels remotely like a real person, and their actions are completely ridiculous. And the "science" of the radiation sickness is laughable.

A world run by children

This story imagines a world run by children. The story is sad and crazy and hilarious and wondrous. The quantum computer was such a great story tool all on its own!

1 dimensional characters, mind numblying boring. Unbelievable plot & storyline. Don't waste your $

I was very excited to read this author's work. Not any more. Kids take over the world after a supernova kills anyone over 13yrs. of age. Character are 1 dimensional & really boring, sounding like 13 going on 40. Couldn't stand any of them. A giant supercomputer is the only sci fi in this book. Tedious & boring, describe this book in a nutshell.

Not my style

I love sci-fi books, and I was so excited to get my hands on this one. I really wanted to love it and I was so disappointed when I didn't. I'm not even really sure why it didn't quite mesh with me, but something didn't work out right. I thought the style was pretty confusing, and I wasn't really sure where the story started. There seemed to be a lot of random scientific facts that apparently served and the exposition. The first encounter with characters introduced way too many at a time, and I was honestly confused. I was so excited for this book and I'm so disappointed I didn't love it. Hopefully, if you read it, It'll work better for you than it did for me. If you love it, that's great. But I can't say that I did.

there were good spots

I don’t even know where to begin with this. It started out harshly for the first like 75 pages as a 1 Star read, then the next 150 pages were easily a 4-5 star, and then the last 100 pages was a 1 Star. So I’m giving it a 2 star rating. The beginning was slow. A lot of buildup for very little happening. The parts at the beginning of the supernova era were super interesting, to know how the kids took on becoming the government, and saved them. The candytown and slumbertown sections were super interesting, and real sounding, and then I was super hyped for the Olympic Games, and then I wanted them to be over. And then the was the section on switching countries, I’m still confused by that. 1.) why was that necessary? 2.) a country that already killed 500,000 kids comes to you with an idea that doesn’t make sense, and they admit it’s because they think they can get their territory back in 5 years, also they nuclear bombed you during the games despite that heavily being against the rules, why would you agree??? Wins: - I loved the characters. They were all very complex and very different, despite being 13 or younger. They had good storylines, and even their teacher was a really good character, until she wasn’t in the story anymore. -unique. Honestly part of me sat here thinking “another book where adults die and kids take over, here we go again!” But it was really different from every book with the same synopsis. I really enjoyed the idea of it, and that were just getting a brief history look. -written like a futuristic history book. That was honestly a really cool way to do it, it reminded me of World War Z, which is an all time favorite of mine. Opportunities: -I know they’re children, but the juvenile ness about their attitudes, and how not a single one of them cared about their existence, didn’t want to work, didn’t store up food. There was 100 pages of the adults handing over the reigns slowly, and apparently they didn’t mention how crucial them working was to them living, I doubt that. -the Olympic Games. I don’t think in any situation, a kid is going to run forward after all of his friends have died in the same activity and want to do the same thing. It was 82 pages (ONE CHAPTER WAS 82 PAGES!) of death that didn’t make sense, there was an attempt to justify it saying kids didn’t care about living, that I strongly disagree with. If I got blown up in a tank and survived, no ones reaction would be “let’s do it again”. I thought I was going to love the Olympic Games, and they were obnoxious and dragged for almost 90 pages. -everything, and I mean EVERYTHING was over explained. Paragraphs and paragraphs of senseless writing that you could skip and wouldn’t miss any plot lines. It got super tedious towards the end, against during the Olympic Games, that i was seconds away from DNFing this book, until skimming it for vital info saved it. So recap, this wasn’t my favorite, nor was it my least favorite book ever read. The writing grew super tedious, the main plot just kinda wasted into a pointless section of the book, that followed through to another pointless exchange that just made me roll my eyes and cringe. And that’s how the book ends, with an event happening that was very unnecessary. There were good elements. I really liked the Chinese government, pages 100-200 were pretty good, lots of good plot going there until it genuinely went nowhere that mattered. 2/5 stars is my final verdict.