#death's end

[crookedbranchbooks]

The Remembrance of Earth's Past - Cixin Liu

April 14, 2025

Full cloth case binding with design in heat transfer vinyl.

These books consumed me for the two weeks I spent working on them. Every day I would get home from work and open photoshop to work on the cover designs for hours each day. Once I had a strong vision in mind of the color scheme and concentric circles motif, I couldn't stop. The front and back covers of each book depict some of the most iconic moments and imagery from the series, but in an abstract enough way to not act as spoilers (I hope). The quotes on the back were chosen to best represent the themes of each book. I'm particularly proud of the pyramid on the spines.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - paperboard covering material - linen bookcloth in black, white, and red vinyl - siser easyweed vinyl in black, white, and red

endpapers - [] endbands - linen bookcloth rolled over twine bookmarks - 1/4" satin ribbon edge painting - black, white, and red acryllic paint

Cover Design: Designed in Photopea. English font is Poppins Extrabold, Chinese font is Droid Sans. My original sketch:

Potential ideas for the back of the three body problem:

Digital mockups:

[diamantdog]

Still on page 240-ish of "Death's End", and the thought of the Trisolarians going, "Nah, you guys take that one" when they see Australia tickles me, lol.

[rhianwen24601]

Reading (*cough listening to cough*) Cixin Liu's Death's End, and it puzzled me a lot that they went with Cheng Xin and her 10% deterrence probability for the second sword holder, when Thomas Wade of the 100% deterrence probability is right there.

Then I had a really awful day at work the other day, and I finally got it.

The problem with Thomas Wade wasn't whether or not he would Do the Thing should the need arise, but the near-certainty that he would slam that mutually-assured-destruction button at the first minor inconvenience in his day-to-day life.

The coffee shop got his order wrong? Better end two civilizations about it!

[furyxiv]

When the Dark Forest was being sexist it was usually in Luo Ji's sections so assumed it was because the character was sexist and didn't think much about it, but Death's End makes it clear that the author is just sexist.

I'm not scandalized or anything, but the whole "good times make soft men, which means they're femboys" does take me out of the book a bit

[geddyqueer]

ok does anyone have a physical or ebook copy of the book death's end by cixin liu who can tell me how something is spelled? i don't want to look it up for fear of spoilers but also listening to the audiobook means i can't look at the word and parse it. thank you!

edit: thank you @tranxio who found me a searchable PDF! that is. not how i would have spelled it :)

[reaperlight]

You know what would be really wild is if Project Hail Mary and The Dark Forest / Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy were in the same universe. Those Trisolarans are jerks. You're ruining first contact for the rest of us!

PHM even has the concern about making first contact when book!Grace is all "these are strangers with candy but I need the candy" or something along those lines.

[narcissistcookbook]

Short book review: The Three Body Problem / The Dark Forest / Death's End

Premise: Humanity accidentally reveals itself to an alien race and Things Inevitably Occur

Cons: It's slow for long stretches. Some very unfortunate undertones of Real Men Are Gruff And Grizzly in the second book. The narrative (or at least the translation I read) lacks much of an emotional dimension at all. The characters mostly feel like robots who must act a certain way to drive the plot forward. This would be a huge mark against the series if it wasn't for the fact that...

Pros: ... this is entirely unlike anything else I've ever read in my life. There are more ideas, and thoroughly developed ideas at that, in these three books than most authors come up with in a lifetime. The story is so tightly constructed that every consequence and choice feels, as described at the top, inevitable.

If you have the patience for the slow sections, you'll be rewarded with genuine jaw-dropping, gasp-inducing moments.