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Book Cover for: Ball Lightning, Cixin Liu

Ball Lightning

Cixin Liu

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Three-Body Trilogy, Cixin Liu's Ball Lightning is the story of what happens when the beauty of scientific inquiry runs up against the drive to harness new discoveries with no consideration of their possible consequences.

When Chen's parents are incinerated before his eyes by a blast of ball lightning, he devotes his life to cracking the secret of this mysterious natural phenomenon. His search takes him to stormy mountaintops, an experimental military weapons lab, and an old Soviet science station.

The more he learns, the more he comes to realize that ball lightning is just the tip of an entirely new frontier. While Chen's quest for answers gives purpose to his lonely life, it also pits him against soldiers and scientists with motives of their own: a beautiful army major with an obsession with dangerous weaponry, and a physicist who has no place for ethical considerations in his single-minded pursuit of knowledge.

"Wildly imaginative."--Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy

Tor books by Cixin Liu

The Three-Body Problem Series
#1 The Three-Body Problem
#2 The Dark Forest
#3 Death's End

Book Details

  • Publisher: Tor Books
  • Publish Date: Jun 25th, 2019
  • Pages: 400
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.10in - 6.10in - 1.10in - 0.90lb
  • EAN: 9780765394095
  • Categories: Science Fiction - Hard Science FictionScience Fiction - MilitaryWorld Literature - China - 21st Century

About the Author

Martinsen, Joel: - Joel Martinsen is research director for a media intelligence company. His translations have appeared in Words Without Borders, Chutzpah!, and Pathlight. He lives in Beijing.
Liu, Cixin: - CIXIN LIU is the most prolific and popular science fiction writer in the People's Republic of China. Liu is a winner of the Hugo Award, 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.

Praise for this book

"Wildly imaginative, really interesting." -President Barack Obama on the Three-Body Problem trilogy

"A breakthrough book . . . a unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, politics and history, conspiracy theory and cosmology." --George R. R. Martin, on The Three Body Problem

"Extraordinary." --The New Yorker, on The Three Body Problem

"Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review, on The Three Body Problem

"A must-read in any language." --Booklist, on The Three Body Problem

"A meditation on technology, progress, morality, extinction, and knowledge that doubles as a cosmos-in-the-balance thriller.... a testament to just how far [Liu's] own towering imagination has taken him: Far beyond the borders of his country, and forever into the canon of science fiction. - NPR, on Death's End

"The best kind of science fiction, familiar but strange all at the same time." -- Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Three Body Problem