DEATH'S END (Remembrance of Earth's Past #3) by Cixin Liu ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I stand here at the end, blown away and overwhelmed. This series has made me contemplate death in ways I’ve never done before. It’s made me look at the stars in ways I’ve never done before. And it’s made me think about our existence and what it means to be human in ways I’ve never done before. I was not prepared for the deep layers of introspection, wonder, planetary science, and dread this took me on, but it was worth the thrill (and newfound fear).

There’s such a melancholy undertone throughout, with death a constant looming presence. Whether it be on the individual or civilization level, we all deal with it at some point. It plays out like a chess match unfolding over centuries, humanity constantly battling to delay or even conquer the inevitable. And what I couldn’t help but notice as it went on is that with every decision, the consequences always lead to a new set of unknown problems to solve. We are never really out of the woods of this dark forest. And maybe we don’t deserve to be.

I can’t believe how fast this moves for how massive in scale it is. I’m so dumbfounded that a real person — not some AI sent from an alien civilization — thought up and organized this series, and kept it all straight in their head. Forget WRITING it, I could barely hang READING it. From the extreme details of cosmology to the fully-fleshed out story-within-a-story fairy tale, this is one of the most ambitious and impressive pieces of fiction out there. I dare anyone to read it and tell me there aren’t moments when you question if you’re worthy enough to read this thing, only for it to grab your hand and take you further down the rabbit hole.

To anyone else taking it on, all I can say is good luck and hang on tight. And after those passages that may have you worrying about our place in the universe, just know that you’re not alone.

I don’t think I’ll ever look at it the same.