In “With Her Eyes,” Liu tells the story of a pair of cybernetic eyes and their owner seeking to fulfill the wishes of the previous owner. The twist is that the alien species looks like little old men with white beards and canes. “Taking Care of God” focuses on the aliens who created humanity returning to ask for our care in their dotage.
“Devourer” is another first contact story, with the appearance of a crystal seemingly portending destruction for the Earth. “The Micro-Era” recalls the best of pulp sci-fi with the last survivor on an ark ship returning to Earth thousands of years after a cataclysm only to discover that humanity has shrunk to microscopic level and lives in domed cities to survive the nearly-uninhabitable conditions. In a particularly nice touch, he includes a lucky vagrant version of himself in the future.
“For the Benefit of Mankind” is a futuristic crime noir story set against the backdrop of a conquered Earth and social inequality.In “Curse 5.0,” Cixin Liu tells a story set in the future about a computer virus run rampant in an increasingly-digitized world. Despite this, what Hawking represents to the story still makes an impact and the narrative offers a good legacy for the late scientist. In an unfortunately dated moment, Liu portrays a centenarian Stephen Hawking retiring to near-Earth orbit, though events in the real world have outpaced Liu’s storytelling ability with Hawking recently dying aged seventy-six (pg. Liu further shows that such business would make near-Earth orbit profitable, but a lack of inherent profit might dissuade human exploration further into the solar system. In “Sun of China,” Liu explores the possibilities of space industry and how it both democratizes space travel and can improve conditions on Earth. Clarke as Liu uses the encounter between a human and an alien intelligence to posit how a society of artificial lifeforms might arise and how both their society and their environment could differ from ours. The story was successful enough that Frant Gwo adapted it as a 2019 science fiction film, though Gwo primarily focused on Liu’s premise while telling his own story.The second short story, “Mountain,” recalls the work of Arthur C. Liu uses this premise to imagine how society would change if every human were motivated only to preserve the species on a generations-long perilous journey. To save the planet, the nations of the world build massive engines to push Earth on a 2500-year journey to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system. The titular first story begins four hundred years in the future, where the world’s scientists have discovered that the sun will soon use up its supply of hydrogen and begin fusing helium, expanding into a red giant in the process. Cixin Liu’s The Wandering Earth collects ten short stories from the Hugo and Nebula Award winning author.
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