Once 'Ball Lightning' Gets Rolling, This Sci-Fi Mind-Bender Shines
The novel is Chinese writer Cixin Liu's first in English since his "Remembrance of Earth's Past" trilogy. And that series' radical creativity returns in this tale of scientific striving — eventually.
Somewhere deep in Siberia, a strungout Russian scientist has a little wisdom to offer.
Wedged into the cabin of a geriatric biplane, flanked by a pair of nervous new acquaintances, Dr. Alexander Gemow has been asked about the aircraft's fitness for flight. It's just sputtered to a halt on a snowbeaten tarmac — and while their drunk pilot has jogged it back to life, Gemow's fellow passengers understandably wonder what would happen if the ancient aircraft should die again, you know, after it takes off.
