Liu strikes at the heart of the unexplainable

Advertisement

Advertise with us

At least for the moment, Cixin Liu has the literary distinction of being the only Chinese-language author English readers are at all likely to have heard of. Based out of a small city more than 1,000 kilometres inland from Shanghai, Liu has long been a star in his own country; in translation he’s a trailblazer, leading the way for a country experiencing its own Golden Age of science fiction to potentially export its creative works to a western audience.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/09/2018 (2907 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At least for the moment, Cixin Liu has the literary distinction of being the only Chinese-language author English readers are at all likely to have heard of. Based out of a small city more than 1,000 kilometres inland from Shanghai, Liu has long been a star in his own country; in translation he’s a trailblazer, leading the way for a country experiencing its own Golden Age of science fiction to potentially export its creative works to a western audience.

Ball Lightning is Liu’s followup to his highly successful Three-Body trilogy, which won the Hugo Award (in translation) and was nominated for the Nebula, the two top prizes for English-language science fiction. Except this actually isn’t a followup; the Three-Body books were published between 2006 and 2008, while Ball Lightning was released in China in 2004.

If you accept what translator Jay Rubin was quoted as saying in a 2013 New Yorker article — “When you read Haruki Murakami, you’re reading me… (he) wrote the names and locations, but the English words are mine” — this is Liu’s latest book, or at least translator Joel Martinsen’s latest book. It’s newer than The Three-Body Problem, translated and published four years later than the award-winning trilogy.

The very different political and social context of a story set almost entirely within China, the unspecified year and speculative nature of the geopolitical context — as well as the layer of ambiguity translation brings — do a lot to disguise the more obvious giveaways that this is not a just-written novel.

Liu’s trilogy was a sprawling, multi-generational, universe-spanning tale with dozens of major characters. This comparatively slim single volume is far tighter. With a single protagonist narrating the story from a limited perspective and only a handful of other key characters across a decade or so of story, Liu nevertheless gets into some pretty wild territory.

In the opening scene, Chen’s 14th birthday is interrupted when a ghostly, will-o’-the-wisp-type apparition drifts into his kitchen, incinerating his parents instantaneously. It was the rare, long-thought mythical weather object known as ball lightning, and the horror and confusion of that moment determines the course of the rest of the young man’s life, which he devotes to understanding and mastering the apparently untameable phenomenon.

Liu’s protagonist meets other equally obsessed individuals with their own goals and motivations. A physicist eschews emotions and social conventions in his pursuit of the fundamental laws of the universe. A military researcher obsessed with weapons has a miniature sword hanging dangerously round her neck, with an atom-thin edge capable of slicing through anything. A Soviet scientist dedicates his life to the search for knowledge, finding only nihilism and tragedy.

While you could compare Liu to western masters of the genre such as Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov, the Chinese author’s work is character-driven in a way theirs rarely was. There’s introspection that complements big-picture thinking nicely.

It also differs because this is a dark story, the atmosphere thick and foreboding. Ball lightning — deadly and random — represents the unexplainable. The idea of a pitiless and irrational universe is anathema to scientists, and frankly a little Lovecraftian.

The frightful idea that some things might be forever beyond our ken mirrors, at a philosophical level, the individual experience of violent loss. Chen is trying to eff the ineffable for all of humankind but also to exorcise his own ghosts. His story, in some ways, is a recovery from grief — the reclamation of meaning after a loss of sense and control. Most readers will identify with that to some extent.

Joel Boyce is a Winnipeg writer and educator.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Impaired driving victim honoured

Morgan Modjeski 5 minute read Preview

Impaired driving victim honoured

Morgan Modjeski 5 minute read Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026

Ten years after he was killed in a collision involving an impaired driver in 2016, Robbie Anderson’s name has been added to MADD Canada’s Manitoba Memorial honouring those killed in drunk and drug-impaired-related crashes.

His older brother Chris Anderson, was one of two dozen people who gathered at the Glen Eden Funeral Home and Cemetery in West St. Paul Saturday to remember their loved ones, 86 victims whose names are etched into the granite monument near the heart of the graveyard.

“It’s heavy,” said Anderson when asked what it was like to be part of the ceremony and see his brother’s name added. “It’s been something I’ve been thinking about for a while.”

Grateful for MADD’s work and its efforts to honour Robbie, who was 27 when he died, Anderson said his brother, represented the “absolute best of us.”

Read
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026

Hometown hero hits CEBL championship clinching shot

Taylor Allen 5 minute read Preview

Hometown hero hits CEBL championship clinching shot

Taylor Allen 5 minute read Yesterday at 6:34 PM CDT

Chapter 1 of Winnipeg Sea Bears basketball was capped by hometown hero Chad Posthumus.

It was May 27, 2023, and the late, great centre out of River East Collegiate had a put-back basket off a Teddy Allen miss to give the Sea Bears a 90-85 victory over the Vancouver Bandits in Winnipeg’s inaugural game, in front of what was then a record crowd of 7,303.

So, on Saturday, it was rather poetic that Simon Hildebrandt — another Winnipegger and a player Posthumus used to mentor — was the one to put an exclamation mark on the franchise’s latest and greatest chapter.

Hildebrandt drilled a wide-open three in Target Score Time to crown the Sea Bears as the 2026 CEBL champions.

Read
Yesterday at 6:34 PM CDT

Man charged, suspect sought in commercial break-in spree

Free Press staff 2 minute read Preview

Man charged, suspect sought in commercial break-in spree

Free Press staff 2 minute read 11:11 AM CDT

Winnipeg police have charged one suspect and are seeking a second in connection with a two-month spree of commercial break-ins, vehicle thefts and property crimes.

About $140,000 worth of property, including trailers, lawn equipment, motorcycles and bicycles, was reported stolen in 13 incidents in Winnipeg and the Rural Municipality of Headingley between April 20 and June 28.

Police said both suspects were wearing electronic monitoring bracelets during that time.

Justin Andrew Hanson, 35, was arrested Aug. 4 after he allegedly fled an attempted traffic stop at high speed in the 100 block of Clonard Avenue in St. Vital, and abandoned the vehicle he was driving.

Read
11:11 AM CDT

Trustees call for e-scooter safety education

Maggie Macintosh 4 minute read Preview

Trustees call for e-scooter safety education

Maggie Macintosh 4 minute read 6:00 AM CDT

School trustees are calling on the province to bolster public education around e-bike and e-scooter safety ahead of back-to-school season.

The Manitoba School Boards Association brought members’ concerns about a growing number of students using electronic devices to get to and from classes to the education minister’s office this month.

“There’s a concerning lack of safety knowledge on the part of Manitoba youth,” executive director Alan Campbell said.

Campbell, a long-time trustee in the Interlake School Division, resigned from elected office this summer to run the association that mobilizes school boards and provides them with labour relations support.

Read
6:00 AM CDT

Manitoba family finalist for cattle producers environmental award

Aaron Epp 4 minute read Preview

Manitoba family finalist for cattle producers environmental award

Aaron Epp 4 minute read Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026

A family in western Manitoba is one of seven finalists for a national environmental award honouring beef cattle producers.

Connor and Kyla English, alongside Connor’s parents, Brian and Leanne English, are nominated for the Canadian Cattle Association’s Environmental Stewardship Award. The 30-year-old award is presented to beef farmers and ranchers who explore innovative ways to protect, preserve and enhance their operations and the environment simultaneously.

This year’s recipient will be announced on Wednesday during a banquet at the Canadian Beef Industry Conference in Winnipeg.

The English family’s roots near Bradwardine — about 265 kilometres west of Winnipeg — date back to 1898. Today, Connor, Kyla, Brian and Leanne manage a herd of about 320 breeding cows on nearly 445 hectares (1,100 acres) of owned and rented pasture and forage land.

Read
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026

Foster mom pleads guilty to assault that left six-year-old-girl paralyzed

Dean Pritchard 4 minute read Preview

Foster mom pleads guilty to assault that left six-year-old-girl paralyzed

Dean Pritchard 4 minute read Friday, Aug. 14, 2026

A Winnipeg foster mother has admitted to violently assaulting her ill foster daughter and leaving her paralyzed after the girl resisted the woman’s efforts to provide her with medication, a court has heard.

Marilyn Keno, 26, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of aggravated assault.

Keno remains in custody and will be sentenced at a later date following the completion of a court-ordered pre-sentence report.

The maximum sentence for aggravated assault is 14 years in prison. Crown attorney Alanna Littman and defence lawyer Jeremy Kostiuk did not disclose what sentences they will be recommending.

Read
Friday, Aug. 14, 2026