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.
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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
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ISBN 978-0-7653-7710-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-5345-4 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466853454
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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.
