Remembrance of Earth’s Past Trilogy – A Mind-Blowing Science-Fiction Epic

“It’s a wonder to be alive. If you don’t understand that, how can you search for anything deeper?”

 

“Weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is”

The English translation of Chinese author Cixin Liu’s SF series, collectively known as ‘Remembrance of Earth’s Past’ – comprising ‘The Three-Body Problem’, ‘Dark Forest’ & ‘Death’s End’ – is purported as a milestone in the history of sci-fi literature. The Three-Body Problem (translated by Ken Liu) became the first non-English novel to win the Hugo Award (for best sci-fi). Soon, everyone from Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama to established authors like George R.R. Martin and Kim Stanley Robinson heaped praise on the Cixin Liu for masterfully weaving a complex web of science, philosophy, and history. The three books were published in China between 2008 ad 2010 and its English-translated counterparts were released between 2014 and 2016 (Ken Liu translated the 1^st & 3^rd books, while Joel Martinsen translated the middle part, and all 3 books published by Tor Books).

Cixin Liu’s multi-layered novels are exactly the kind of books that immerses its readers into the highly imaginative, confounding issues of galaxies and cosmos that our very reality and suffering becomes a trifling matter during that time. It was a torturous nine days for me, because I had to count the passing of hours and minutes dedicated to fulfill the day-to-day obligations, before getting the chance to sit peacefully and read the riveting SF epic. I got chills from going through many of the spectacular, pull-the-rug-from-under kind of moments. It’s important to note that the trilogy is a tragedy of epic proportions. The tone alternates between lyricism, somberness, hope, passion, and despair. The foremost question of the books has been asked for many decades by people of science: Will humanity reach for the stars or face ruthless decimation by confining itself to home-planet? The answer Liu provides is by turns terrifying and subversive. Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy presents a dazzlingly complex scenario to postulate on the future of humanity, solar system and even the cosmos. Despite the vast, macro scale of issues dealt in the novels, Cixin Liu elegantly guides into this imaginary realm, contextualizing high-end, theoretical physics for readers only armed with basic scientific knowledge.

Author Cixin Liu

The three novels are best read without getting acquainted with great number of its plot details. Even divulging what Three-Body Problem is about would somehow affect the thrilling reading experience. Those who’d like to receive maximum thrills from a hard sci-fi could just skip any reviews (including this one) and even avoid reading the blurb at the back of the book or in wikipedia, goodreads pages. ‘The Three-Body Problem’ purports a grimly fascinating scenario, already familiarized by Hollywood high-budget features: Alien Invasion. But the book doesn’t open straightly from the threat. It rather commences from the era of China’s merciless Cultural Revolution (between 1966 and 1976, following the ‘Great Leap Forward’). Cixin Liu brings us to witness one cruel moment in the Cultural Revolution: a distinguished physicist and university professor is tortured and humiliated by Red Guards in front of his family and delirious mass of students. Ye Wenjie, the scientist’s daughter, watches her father’s persecution and death at close range. Skeptical of Ye Wenjie’s political stance, Mao’s China ostracizes her to a remote rural mountain region to do hard labor. The rapid deforestation she sees there alongside the government’s stringent economic, political policies totally erodes Ye Wenjie’s hope in humanity.

Nevertheless, chain of events allows her to join a secret science project. It’s similar to America’s SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) institute, although the Chinese heavily lack in terms of technology and proper knowledge. Ye Wenjie’s recruitment renews the project’s scope for development and the political prohibition placed upon her is easily bypassed. Using her knowledge and newly-gained power, Wenjie craftily sends a message, announcing human existence, to perfectly reach into the distant corners of universe, unlike the usual radio-wave messages. To her surprise, eight years later, Wenjie receives a message back, which starts: “Do not answer! Do not answer! Do not answer!”. An alien pacifist warns her about reaching out to other intelligent life in the universe. But Wenjie’s complete loss of faith in humanity makes her ignore the warning and to send another clear-cut message into space. What follows is utter chaos and forces Earth civilization to comprehend the darkest rules driving the cosmic civilization at large.

Cixin Liu’s narration is RR Martin-esque, especially in the way he wipes out little rays of hope through sudden onslaught of unpredictable dark turns (and of course, he kills off large number of characters). Apart from efficiently presenting complex scientific theories, some of Liu’s speculations seem scientifically plausible. He also excels in portraying the reality of political machinations that would plague and distort human societies forever. The foremost joy in reading the trilogy rests in the clever depiction of series of ideas that would even amaze seasoned sci-fi readers. Cixin Liu’s narration is unparalleled when it comes to delivering the big, unprecedented ideas about life's expansion in cosmos. He also conveys a sound macro picture so as to explore how human civilization would contract and expand, in the face of disorder.  In fact, the trilogy of novels is all about mesmerizing large-scale ideas, whereas the character realizations are mostly uninteresting or blank.

Of the three protagonists in the three novels, I only liked Luo Ji, who despite his hedonistic and nihilistic streak stays as a complex human being till the end. His despair, dilemma, and craftiness raises acute philosophical questions . Ye Wenjie & Wang Miao in ‘Three-Body Problem’ and Cheng Xin in ‘Death’s end’ don’t have much of a personality (Liu’s ideas about gender has attracted many criticisms too). At times, they seem to be just there to acclimatize readers to each ‘New Age’ and confounding scientific theories. The sensitive and lovely Cheng Xin is the blandest central character in the series (of course, the worst decision-maker in the whole universe), making us experience her leap through time only from an emotionally detached point. However, as I mentioned earlier, it’s the brilliant ideas that drive the three novels. I liked ‘Dark Forest’ – middle book – the most. It swiftly escalates the complexity of the scenario developed in ‘Three-Body Problem’. Particularly, the last third of Dark Forest is not only one of the best segments in the series, but in the whole of SF literature. Starting from the international star fleet’s rapid annihilation to Luo Ji’s spine-chilling delivery of ‘dark forest theory’, I was suspended on a state of unease and tension. The game universe in ‘Three-Body Problem’ and the space-fleet crew members’ trip into the fourth dimension in ‘Death’s End’ are some of the other spectacular portions to originate from Cixin Liu’s superior imagination.   

I didn’t much enjoy the conclusive chapters in Death’s End. The ideas were ambitious but it also felt over-stuffed. The light-speed travel, Black Domain, Universe 647, etc were all immense in terms of scope and conception, but it didn’t possess a shred of emotional underpinning, found in the ending portions of the first two novels. Eventually, the author attempts to not only tell the whole story of humanity’s future, but also travels across billions of years to envision the future of cosmos, which unexpectedly feels a bit frivolous and tedious (I had the same feeling while reading the final part of Neal Stephenson’s thought-provoking hard sci-fi ‘Seveneves’). But even after taking all its flaws into account, Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy is a great spectacle, which couldn’t be easily outmatched in terms of narrative magnitude and scientific notions. Amazon’s $1 billion dollar TV adaption might hopefully release this year, but books are generally the better choice.

The People in the Trees – A Vividly Unsettling Journey into the Mind and Land Suffused with Horror

"Gods are for stories and heavens and other realms; they are not to be seen by men. But when we encroach on their world, when we see what we are not meant to see, how can anything but disaster follow?"

Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life is one of the much talked-about novels of recent times. It’s a heartbreaking tale about abuse, memory, and male friendship. The intense reading experience naturally pointed me towards Yanagihara’s debut novel The People in the Trees (published August 2013), which was actually not written in the traditional novel form. The People in the Trees unfurls as a memoir (marked with footnotes), written by the fictional Nobel Prize-winning scientist A. Norton Perina from prison after being convicted of molesting his adopted son. Surprisingly, the novel is cited as medical science-fiction, but tagging this captivating and disconcerting novel under a genre would undervalue its profound exploration of power, culture, morality, and obsession.

‘The People in the Trees’ is primarily an interesting character study of a self-serving man, embellished with power and superior intelligence, who nevertheless sees himself as a victim. I didn’t feel there was much ambiguity in Norton Perina’s ultimate intentions so as to use the word ‘unreliable narrator’. Early in the novel, Ronald Kubodera – Norton’s protege, friend and editor of the memoir – admits that he has “judiciously cut passages that I felt did not enrich the narrative or were not otherwise of any particular relevance”.  Therefore, Yanagihara doesn’t employ the unreliability of her central character to conjure cheap tricks in the end. Right from the beginning of Norton’s accounts, we find clues to his character not just through what he clearly states, but through information or emotions he deliberately chooses to withhold. We also slowly determine the hidden layers of truth behind things he depicts in an unambiguous manner.

The People in the Trees doesn’t provide thrill of a discovery as in a sci-fi thriller. Norton Perina’s rise, achievements, and eventual fall are briefly stated before immersing ourselves into his viewpoint. In 1950, Norton, shortly after graduating from Harvard Medical School, accompanies an anthropological expedition into the dense jungles of a remote fictional Micronesian island known as ‘Ivu’ ivu’. There they encounter some members of a tribe who may possess the key to attain immortality (or at least extended life). After consuming a rare species of turtle, the locals live well beyond 100 years. However, only their bodies remain energetic and youthful, whereas the minds deteriorate gradually. Norton’s thorough research and identification of this biochemical effects on the natives bestow upon him a Nobel Prize in the early 1970s. Norton’s narrative simply expands this gist mentioned earlier, providing front-row seats to witness the scientific wonder amidst lush forests and its slow-destruction due to the same factor.

Ronald Kubodera aka Ron strongly insists on the greatness of Norton’s contribution to science (although the rare species of turtle are long declared extinct and scientists failed to convert the discovery into a marketable, consumerist product).  He also calls to attention about Norton’s ‘humanitarian’ activities at the island: Norton has adopted 43 island children over the years, plucked them away from life of penury to provide them a sophisticated lifestyle at United States. One of those children, now a grown-up, has hurled an accusation of sexual abuse at Norton. What troubles Ron is how quickly they have ostracized Norton, the same people who once waited for his fleeting gaze to rest over them. Norton starts his memoir from his early life spent with farmer-father, taciturn, mentally-afflicted mother, and impressionable twin brother. His narration is a lot stand-offish and brashly unapologetic. The story picks up momentum with the incursion into remote and primitive place and painfully details Norton’s experimentation that inflict dire cultural and ecological consequences on the native population.

Hanya Yanagihara

Hanya Yanagihara was a publicity assistant in book publishing, editor at Conde Nast Traveler (a luxury and lifestyle travel magazine) before becoming a full-time novelist. Her father was a research doctor at the National Institutes of Health, which naturally would have provided her knowledge about Carleton Gajdusek, Nobel-Prize winning medical researcher, who was sent to prison for sexually abusing some of his adopted children (Gajdusek adopted more than 50 children from Papua New Guinea and Micronesia). Yanagihara took inspiration from that devastating true story and added elements of horror and marvel to ask some tough questions about the notion of ethics in the practice of science, Western cultural arrogance, and neo-colonialism. The superb quality attached with Yanagihara’s writing is her ability to juggle between the macro and micro aspects of the story. She elaborately portrays the phantasmagorical atmosphere and later laments over the sad fate of the abundantly fertile Ivu’ivu forests and its inhabitants. But at the same time, she never loses sight of the personal narrative of the genius with a crooked moral center. The author’s story-telling technique is so absorbing at times that despite the moral uncertainties surrounding Norton, we do wonder if he is just a victim of false accusation and misguided resentment.

The People in the Trees contemplate the utter inability to affix a one-word description to an individual. Nowadays, we often come across stories about famous celebrities and indisputably brilliant minds facing serious charges of sexual abuse and other crimes. So how should we assess them: by balancing their crimes at one end and their contributions to society at the other end? Should we shun the genius for his/her devilry or should we champion them, irrespective of their deliberate mistakes? Then there’s also the larger question regarding ecological and cultural sacrifices we make for this so-called, bluntly described word ‘progress’. One’s pleasure of adopting strict binary moral positions does take a sort of heavy beating after reading the novel. On the whole, Hanya Yanigahara’s distressing, multi-layered debut novel digs deep into the question of moral and cultural relativism.

Six Four – A Spellbinding and Singular Work of Crime Fiction

At its best, crime fiction can serve as the window to a nation’s cultural and emotional landscape. Wrapped within the universal themes of morality, guilt, honor, and remorse are the specificities of particular settings. A good crime literature can take us deep into the conflicting social and cultural forces of a nation that’s otherwise not proudly displayed in the tourist pamphlets. The phenomenal Scandinavian crime writing (or Nordic Noir) has exactly been doing that; immersing us in the atmospherics and ethnographic data. Japanese crime authors have long been taking readers into the undisclosed, unsavory parts of their landscape and mindscape. Keigo Higashino, Natsuo Kirino, Fuminori Nakamura, Seicho Matsumoto, Kanae Minato, etc have their own unique style in depicting the mayhem and chaos, a result of central character’s relentless pursuit for truth. Hideo Yokoyama, my recent discovery, definitely occupies a prominent place among the Japanese crime writers. But his huge door-stopper of a novel (640 pages) Six Four (translated to English by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies) neither possesses a whodunit mystery at its center nor the procedural follows fingerprints and DNA to achieve the notion of justice. It’s an entirely different kind of page-turner, one that fuels suspense and tension by navigating through labyrinths of a bureaucratic institution.

Bureaucratic offices can be a perfect setting for satirical literature. But rarely do we come across novels like Six Four which employs office spaces and their hidden political warfare to diffuse a chilling reading experience. Initially, Six Four appears to be a familiar detective story. It opens in an autopsy room. A middle-aged prefectural Inspector Mikami (working in a province, north of Tokyo) and his beautiful, vulnerable wife Minako are searching unidentified bodies ever since their teenage daughter Ayumi ran away from home. Right before we think the novel is about the mystery behind Ayumi’s disappearance, we are introduced to a 14-year-old case involving the kidnapping and murder of seven-year-old Shoko (occurred in the year 1989). The novel's title refers to this case and the kidnapper-killer was never captured. The statue of limitations is about to go into effect in a year. Mikami was one of the detectives charged with retrieval of Shoko. After years of working as detective in Criminal Investigations, he is unexpectedly transferred to Administrator Affairs and provided with the job of Press Director. One day he hopes to move back to the detective role and work with his pals at Criminal Investigations.

Nevertheless, he has done a fine job so far as the head of Media Relations, avoiding the legal strictures to trample press freedom and does his best to keep things democratic. The ‘six four’ case is first mentioned in the novel, not because the police have attained a new clue, but due to the visit of  a powerful Commissioner General from Tokyo. The higher official wants to meet the officers still investigating the case, pay respects at Shoko’s grave, meet Shoko’s agonized father Amamiya, and give an interview to the press. The Administrative Affairs head Akama – Mikami’s boss – dubs it as an effort to renew the public interest in ‘six four’ case. The issue of Mikami’s missing daughter plays a pivotal role in shaping his current volatile emotional state. At home, Minako is remote and uncommunicative. They have received silent calls few days back, which Minako insists were from Ayumi and hence she has decided to not leave the house, waiting for the call. Mikami has dizzying spells and there’s more pressure from his boss to keep an iron grip on the subject of press access.

Novelist Mr. Hideo Yokoyama

If you think Ayumi’s current predicament and nabbing of Shoko’s killer is the sole focus of Six Four, then you are mistaken. The large chunk of the novel is devoted to Mikami’s straining relationship with the press members and uncovering the hidden meaning regarding Commissioner General’s visit to the Prefectural Division. Apart from the burgeoning conflict with the press, Mikami also finds himself caught in the middle of an internecine war between Administrative Affairs and Criminal Investigations. Mikami stays ambivalent in expressing his sense of loyalty. Moreover, he learns another important detail about this organizational battle: a dangerous cover-up tracking back to the ‘six four’ case. Mikami uses his detective skills to clear through the thicket of bureaucratic red-tapes and finds quite a few perplexing truths.

Hideo Yokoyama has worked as a police reporter and desk editor before becoming a novelist. It shows in the way Yokoyama intricately establishes the relationship between the police and press and the stifling hierarchical flow within police force. The novel has a slow-burn start with the author meticulously realizing the set-up and ingeniously fleshing out the mind-boggling array of characters (I was confused with the names of multiple characters starting with letter ‘M’ -- Mikami, Minako, Mikumo, Matsuoka, Mikuri, etc.). For a casual reader seeking an edge-of-the-seat police procedural, Six Four may not work. After patiently getting through the first 100 pages, observing all the idiosyncratic cultural details and rich character sketches, we are left to confront the gradually escalating tense atmospherics. But still for a casual crime fiction order, the novel’s narrative style and length may demand a lot of attention. Six Four doesn’t contain the thrill-of-the-chase up until the riveting final phase. Mostly, the novel traps us within Mikami’s head-space as he navigates through doubts and uncertainties related to office politics. I found Mikami’s introspective journey so as to unveil the tangled threads of hierarchy and personal egos very interesting. But the same could not be said to all crime-fiction-seekers.

The book does justify its huge length. Despite that brilliant twist at the end, Yokoyama’s writing goes beyond luscious plot games. He makes us see the complex machinations of a multi-layered society from the perspective of an ordinary, ethical man. Mikami’s mental wrestling is charged with the profundity of a serious literature. The existential angst nagging our exhausted hero, which no doubt is soaked with social and cultural specificity, provides surprising universal resonance at times. So does the flawed and duplicitous nature of institutions depicted in the book: media, law, and marriage. While Yokoyama reveals the heart of darkness lurking beneath the veneer of elegance, the immensely satisfying denouement is saturated with hope.

Six Four is an exceptionally complex and insightful crime novel that demands readers’ full-attention and generously rewards them back. It subverts from the conventions of a police procedural narrative and becomes a shrewd treatise about Japan, its bureaucracy and its society.