Death's End (Remembrance of Earth's Past #3)

1.  Starts off very differently to book 2 - there are distinct  chapters that jump between time periods,  including,  surprisingly, time periods that have already been explored in books 1 and 2.. and someone is narrating this story - as if outside of time itself - by reference to history 
2. It makes for a more fluid and exciting read
3. Book 3 tries to fill in some of the gaps by telling a story that runs in parallel to the events of books 1 and 2. We get a bit more insight into a sister project that coexisted at the same time as the Wallfacer project and into some of the technology and research that occurred in an attempt to catch up our tech with that of the Trisolorians, including the development space travel and hibernation... and the sister project tests the limits of what it means to be alive. 
4. Interesting and refreshing concepts are delved into (in addition to concepts already traversed in the first two books), at both the scientific, moral and philosophical levels including: 

• expanding the black forest concept of the universe; 
• the uneasy but prosperous alliance and exchange of cultures and information between two galactic races; 
• consequences of unethical decisions made in response to moral dilemmas in the previous book (including for the so called "dark battles" in outer space between those spaceships who felt they were cut off from humanity and made tough calls to survive); 
• having the Earth as a spiritual anchor (ie. Humans assume they will be attached to Earth for life but what if that assumptionis false); 
• astronautic psychology; 
• flaws with Earth's deterrence system; 
• the evolution of the Trisolorian's strategic thinking; 
• the importance of choosing the right swordholder and the probability of deterrence; 
• the risk of not developing your technology fast enough to compete with other civilizations; 
• can two space civilizations coexist with one another?; 
• is it possible to convince the universe to leave us alone ??!; 
• the effect of being watched all the time and having everything recorded..; 
• strategies to deal with a random alien attack; 
• life near Jupiter and the other gas giants and the various details and designs possible for living in space cities; 
• the high stakes involved for choosing the right path of technology and making sure you develop the tech in time; 
• slowing down the speed of light and the consequences of that on the passage of time (including the theory of relativity) and the creation of black holes..; 
• building mini universes;
• expanding and collapsing universes and starting from scratch..
• Weaponising basic laws of physics and mathematics  - what if the universe started with 10 dimensions and was being slowly downgraded to 1 dimension?
• Making the "good" choice can doom civilization - the universe apparently does not care
• Technology is double edged and the same tech can kill or destroy entire civilizations 

1. I can't pretend I understood every detail. I was lost towards the end of the book. The concepts can be very intense and detailed.
2. Hilariously Australia gets a significant mention including Warburton of all places. Imagine the UN moving to Sydney and the world moving into Australia as it becomes a super power overnight (think of all the immigration issues)...Liu is well researched and can describe Australian towns and the outback and the origins of parliament house...
3. Liu also makes a very big crack at guessing what entering the 4th dimension through the 3rd dimension is like and his imagination is insane. He introduces concepts such as dimensional strikes which include collapsing the nth dimension into a n-1th dimension 
4. There is a magical part of the book that is all about how to communicate a secret message when all your enemies are watching! Imagine trying to smuggle a life and death message to an ally right in front of your enemy who will kill you if they think you've betrayed any aspect of the critical message. This is another favourite theme of mine that was done very well!!
5. The ending is quite somber, reflective and bittersweet all at once. It's quite hard to describe. There is basically an air of "life is unpredictable" and "life is fragile" to the ending - or life is subject to physics
6. Spoiler - Yun Tianming and Cheng Xin are starcrossed :(
7. It's quite a supercharged book. The first 60-75% is an intense roller-coaster ride but in the final 25% it gets more contemplative and you start to think about the bigger questions like the meaning of life and where we come from
8. I'd say it's a solid 4.5/5. Even if you aren't one for understanding all the scientific details, Liu's imagination and visualisation of the future is to be respected and contemplated. I think the first two books are clearly a setup for the last book.