Death's End

Home > Other > Death's End > Page 71
Death's End Page 71

by Cixin Liu


  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Ken Liu is a writer, lawyer, and computer programmer. His short story “The Paper Menagerie” was the first work of fiction ever to sweep the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards. His first novel is The Grace of Kings, and his short-story collection is The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories.

  Thank you for buying this

  Tom Doherty Associates ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  A Brief Note From the Translator

  Table of Eras

  Excerpt from the Preface to A Past Outside of Time

  Part I

  May 1453, C.E. / The Death of the Magician

  Crisis Era, Year 1 / The Option for Life

  Crisis Era, Year 4 / Yun Tianming

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Infantilism at the Start of the Crisis

  Crisis Era, Year 4 / Yun Tianming

  Crisis Era, Years 1–4 / Cheng Xin

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Hibernation: Man Walks for the First Time Through Time

  Crisis Era, Years 1–4 / Cheng Xin

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / The Staircase Program

  Crisis Era, Years 1–4 / Cheng Xin

  Crisis Era, Years 5–7 / The Staircase Program

  Part II

  Deterrence Era, Year 12 / Bronze Age

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Nyctohylophobia

  Deterrence Era, Year 12 / Bronze Age

  Deterrence Era, Year 13 / Trial

  Deterrence Era, Year 61 / The Swordholder

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / The Ghost of the Wallfacers: The Swordholder

  Deterrence Era, Year 61 / The Swordholder

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Cultural Reflection

  Deterrence Era, Year 61 / The Swordholder

  Deterrence Era, Year 62 / Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / More Indirect Evidence for the Dark Forest: Sophon-Blind Regions

  Deterrence Era, Year 62 / Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud

  Deterrence Era, Year 62 / November 28, 4:00 P.M. to 4:17 P.M.: Deterrence Center

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / The Choice of the Swordholder: Ten Minutes Between Existence and Annihilation

  Deterrence Era, Year 62 / November 28, 4:00 P.M. to 4:17 P.M.: Deterrence Center

  The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 / November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Deterrence Center

  Post-Deterrence Era, First Hour / A Lost World

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Reflections on the Failure of Dark Forest Deterrence

  Post-Deterrence Era, First Hour / A Lost World

  Post-Deterrence Era, Day 60 / A Lost World

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Technology Explosion on Trisolaris

  Post-Deterrence Era, Day 60 / A Lost World

  Post-Deterrence Era, Year 2 / Australia

  The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 / November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space

  Post-Deterrence Era, Year 2 / The Morning After the Great Resettlement, Australia

  Post-Deterrence Era, Day 1–Day 5 / Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space Beyond the Oort Cloud

  Part III

  Broadcast Era, Year 7 / Cheng Xin

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Delusions of Cosmic Persecution: The Last Attempt to Invalidate Dark Forest Theory

  Broadcast Era, Year 7 / Cheng Xin

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / A New Model for the Dark Forest

  Broadcast Era, Year 7 / Sophon

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / The Cosmic Safety Notice: A Lonely Performance Art

  Broadcast Era, Year 7 / Sophon

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / The Long Staircase

  Broadcast Era, Year 7 / Yun Tianming

  Broadcast Era, Year 7 / Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales

  The First Tale of Yun Tianming / “The New Royal Painter”

  The Second Tale of Yun Tianming / “The Glutton’s Sea”

  The Third Tale of Yun Tianming / “Prince Deep Water”

  Broadcast Era, Year 7 / Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / The Bunker Project: An Ark for Earth Civilization

  Broadcast Era, Year 7 / Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Motion Through Bending Space

  Broadcast Era, Year 7 / Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Three Paths of Survival for Earth Civilization

  Broadcast Era, Year 8 / Fate’s Choice

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Space Sentries: The Solar System Advance Warning System

  Broadcast Era, Year 8 / Fate’s Choice

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / Terror of the Endless Night

  Broadcast Era, Year 8 / Sun-Earth Lagrangian Point

  Part IV

  Bunker Era, Year 11 / Bunker World

  Bunker Era, Year 11 / Lightspeed II

  Bunker Era, Year 11 / Halo City

  Part V

  Bunker Era, Year 67 / Orion Arm of the Milky Way

  Bunker Era, Year 67 / Halo

  Bunker Era, Year 66 / Outside the Solar System

  Bunker Era, Year 68 / Pluto

  Bunker Era, Year 68 / The Two-Dimensional Solar System

  Part VI

  Galaxy Era, Year 409 / Our Star

  About Seventeen Billion Years After the Beginning of Time / Our Star

  Outside of Time / Our Universe

  Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time / The Stairs of Responsibility

  Outside of Time / Our Universe

  Translator’s Postscript

  Tor Books by Cixin Liu

  About the Author

  About the Translator

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  DEATH’S END

  Copyright © 2010 by 刘慈欣 (Liu Cixin)

  English translation © 2016 by China Educational Publications Import & Export Corp., Ltd.

  Translation by Ken Liu

  This publication was arranged by Hunan Science & Technology Press. Originally published as 死神永生 in 2010 by Chongqing Publishing Group in Chongqing, China.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Stephan Martiniere

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-7710-4 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4668-5345-4 (e-book)

  e-ISBN 9781466853454

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

  First Edition: September 2016

  1 Translator’s Note: The Chinese full stop punctuation mark looks like this: 。

  2 Translator’s Note: Some Anglophone readers may get the impression here that the Chinese name for our galaxy is also “Milky Way.” It is not. The actual Chinese name for the galaxy is Yinhe, or “Silver River.” All Chinese students, however, study English for years.<
br />
  3 Translator’s Note: This is a name written in a mix of Chinese characters and English letters. The “艾” is the surname and is pronounced “Ai.”

  4 Translator’s Note: A famous artistic community in Beijing housed in abandoned military factory buildings. Artists began to congregate there in the 1990s.

  5 Translator’s Note: This style of Chinese tunic suit is usually known in the West as the “Mao suit.” I’ve chosen to use a literal translation of the Chinese term to avoid unintended connotations. Sun Zhongshan (or Sun Yat-Sen) was the founder of the Republic of China, the predecessor state to the People’s Republic of China on the mainland.

  6 Translator’s Note: The poem is by Xu Yunuo (1894–1958), a modern Chinese poet most prominently associated with the May Fourth Movement.

  7 Translator’s Note: Like “艾 AA,” “高 Way” is a mixed Chinese-English name (“高” is the surname and pronounced “Gao”).

  8 Translator’s Note: The surname “白” is pronounced “Bai.”

  9 Translator’s Note: This is the pinyin romanization of the original fully Chinese name: “白艾思.”

  10 Translator’s Note: This is a wordplay in Chinese. 幕 (mu), or “curtain,” is a pun for 墓 (mu), or “tomb.”

  11 Translator’s Note: Some Anglophone readers may raise an eyebrow at this assertion. The common description of Chinese characters—the script this novel was originally written in—as “ideograms” is inaccurate. The Chinese script is phonetic, like almost every other script still in use, though it still contains a few (very few) ideographic elements that have survived through the ages. An introduction to how Chinese characters really function may be found in John DeFrancis’s Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy.

 

 

 


‹ Prev