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A View from the Stars

Stories and Essays

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"Narrator Brian Nishii perfectly conveys the author's joy and feelings of isolation at discovering science fiction as a child, the exhilaration of world-building as a science fiction writer, and the imaginative process of predicting our world in 50 years."—AudioFile

"We're mysterious aliens in the crowd. We jump like fleas from future to past and back again, and float like clouds of gas between nebulae; in a flash, we can reach the edge of the universe, or tunnel into a quark, or swim within a star-core. . . . We're as unassuming as fireflies, yet our numbers grow like grass in spring.
We sci-fi fans are people from the future."—Cixin Liu, from the essay "Sci-Fi Fans"
A VIEW FROM THE STARS features a range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.
"Science fiction without guile, without snark, without ironic disaffection and all its exhausting modern baggage. It just asks what would happen? Waits for someone to answer. And then it asks again."—NPR on the works of Cixin Liu
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 12, 2024
      With this vital collection of 19 essays, forewords, interviews, and early works, Hugo Award winner Liu (The Three-Body Problem) preaches for the “The ‘Church’ of Sci-Fi.” Distinguishing science fiction from other forms of literature in “Poetic Science Fiction,” trans. by Emily Jin, Liu argues that a focus on worldbuilding and setting replaces mainstream fiction’s emphasis on the inner lives of characters. In “Time Enough for Love,” trans. by Adam Lanphier, Liu, who conceives of science fiction’s mission as bringing readers an appreciation of the grandeur of the universe, describes years spent feeling isolated as a reader and writer of the genre, “standing solitary guard over a forlorn frontier.” The fiction entries, featuring drug-smuggling cybernetic whales (“Whale Song,” trans. by S. Qiouyi Lu) or chaos theory physicists trying to prevent a war with tiny nudges of global weather patterns (“Butterfly,” trans. by Elizabeth Hanlon), may be more down-to-earth, but they’re unafraid to ask big questions, including “What is the purpose of the universe?” (“Heard It in the Morning,” trans. by Jesse Field). For Liu’s many devoted fans, this will be a welcome compendium.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Brian Nishii narrates this science fiction collection, which contains compelling short stories, articles, and interviews by and with the author. Nishii draws listeners into the various fictional stories with his emotional range. In one story, he delivers the evil laugh of a drug lord who is smuggling drugs with the assistance of a whale; in another, he embodies a child who plaintively begs her father, a scientist, not to choose finding an answer to a universal question over staying alive for his family. In the articles and interviews, Nishii perfectly conveys the author's joy and feelings of isolation at discovering science fiction as a child, the exhilaration of world-building as a science fiction writer, and the imaginative process of predicting our world in 50 years. L.M.G. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

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  • English

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