3.5
The Wandering Earth
ByPublisher Description
From New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu, The Wandering Earth is a science fiction short story collection featuring the title tale--the basis for the blockbuster international film, now streaming on Netflix.
These ten stories, including five Chinese Galaxy Award-winners, are a blazingly original ode to planet Earth, its pasts, and its futures. Liu's fiction takes the reader to the edge of the universe and the end of time, to meet stranger fates than we could have ever imagined.
With a melancholic and keen understanding of human nature, Liu's stories show humanity's attempts to reason, navigate, and above all, survive in a desolate cosmos.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Wandering Earth Reviews
3.5
“Review
The Wandering Earth showcases Liu Cixin’s ability to merge grand scientific speculation with human-scale storytelling. The stories explore humanity’s response to cosmic-scale threats and technological challenges, often pushing the boundaries of imagination while remaining grounded in scientific possibility.
What distinguishes Liu’s work is his ability to frame enormous existential questions—about survival, civilization, and the future of humanity—within bold speculative scenarios. The collection highlights the vast conceptual range that defines Liu’s science fiction.”
“It was my first experience with the collection of stories in one book and it was nice.
At first, I thought that these stories were not connected with each other but some of them, actually, do. Each story is an interesting concept. It's really easy to imagine the creation of film adaptations, based on each story. In fact, the Wandering Earth already has two and the third is coming.
The author had done a good job with developing his conceptions in the short-story format. The lack of story length is noticeable though. The main victims of it are the characters. There is no such thing as character development, nor a deep dive into the character's thoughts. And the amount of the characters isn't so big. Sometimes my logic was hurt. Like, what do you mean the mankind has the century of time and the knowledge of the enemy's ship "over-G" limit and with that amount of time absolutely nobody ever considered the possibility of enemy's ship going over the limit, hurting itself, but avoiding total annihilation? That's dumb.
There are more minor icky things that are not fatal, but noticeable. For example, some measurements are imperial, some are metric, though there is no explanation why. So sometimes I had to calculate one measurement into another just to understand scale of something.
After reading this book I'm still keeping The Three-Body Problem in my TBR. I convinced myself that the author is able to deliver a great world building with interesting and creative conceptions, but have concerns about characters. I'm understand that the full-length story creates an opportunity and space for character development, whereas the short-story format creates limitations, so the author has to choose between the plot and the characters. But still, I'm concerned. On the other hand, if The Three-Body Problem doesn't inherit these problems, I will be even more excited reading it.”
“Last year, I tried to read the 3 body problem because in the sci-fi sphere it was described as a masterpiece, and I love sci-fi. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to finish it because, I'm not ashamed to admit it, it was too complicated and too scientific for me to understand, and thus really contect to the story... BUT I was amazed by the genius of the author, and his writing that is very philosophical but not idealistic at all. So, I decided to try again with the Wandering earth, as it's a collection of shorter stories. And I'm so glad I did!! While it's still very scientific, I found that they were definitely more accessible, the concepts explained in a more straightforward way. Also, for most of the short stories, there's no real mystery to unearth (contrary to the 3 body problem) so I was entirely immersed in the worlds the author imagined without having to rack my brain in vein trying to think like an astronomer. The story of the wandering earth blew my mind in so many ways: first because it really scared me because the feeling of impending doom is visceral, then because it made me think very deeply of our dependency as humans to the earth but also to the sun. This story is the perfect metaphor for the earth being our safe ship in this endless nothingness and for the sun being both our savior and our doom. I found so interesting the idea that the living withtout the sun impacts our interactions in society (the helophobia becomes a common trait in this new society living without sun for centuries), and at the same time, the idea that this fear is so unnatural, that it also changed our very own human emotions, especially how we perceive and feel love (does love really matter in a world lost in nothingness and that could explode at any time?). Of course, these qdtories are also very much political, but I found that it was not the main focus for me, because of the strong feelings I had trying to visualise this apocalyptic wandering earth.
So, for sci-fi lovers that still struggled to read the 3 body problem but want to enjoy Cixin Liu's genius, I would highly recommend this one!”
About Cixin Liu
CIXIN LIU is the most prolific and popular science fiction writer in the People’s Republic of China. Liu is an eight-time winner of the Galaxy Award (the Chinese Hugo) and a winner of the Chinese Nebula Award. Prior to becoming a writer, he worked as an engineer in a power plant. His novels include The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End.
Other books by Cixin Liu
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