How did you come across the book?
So, it‘s a Sci-Fi novel written by a Chinese author who is the first Chinese author to win the Hugo Award for Sci-Fi; a very famous Sci-Fi award. This is the third book of the trilogy. So it’s um… it’s really great. I listen to a lot of podcasts and some of the ones I listen to are like tech podcasts and so… and pop culture and stuff like that so, some of them they had mentioned this book, and they had all read it and fell in love with it, and so I was like “hell yeah”!I love reading and I love losing yourself in a good book, so, you know.
So far, what have you gained from it?
A perspective that I’ve gained is to look outside of yourself, and to look outside of our current day in age and to… well… it’s kind of like uh… it’s a mind expanding read, because it asks the question, “if humans had actually contacted an extraterrestrial life, when they first sent out messages into space, what would have happened to humans in society, over like a 400 year span?“ You know, would it have been a friendly encounter, or otherwise? He goes into all sorts of crazy things, you know. So, it’s really good, and it’s very… from a technological aspect too, from a science aspect… it touches on a lot of aspects that you don’t get from a lot of popular authors. By the time the third book comes around (this is the third book) there’s this alien species that is going to attack earth and so… you know, their figuring out ways to get around it and eventually ask the question, “is there any way to actually send a message into space that tells whoever’s out there that we are a safe and a friendly species?” I literally read the first book in like 2 sittings!
Would you recommend it, and if so, to who and why?
Absolutely! Um… specifically, I would recommend it to people who, you know, like to … well, first of all, who love fiction… and second of all, who are intrigued by extraterrestrial kind of, you know, “what’s out there?” stuff. And then thirdly… anybody who’s scientifically minded, you know. Anybody who has that “what if?” mentality, or who really pays attention to the details and who gets their kick out of things like NASA and SpaceX and going to Mars and stuff like that. You know, it’s just amazing!
City Reads NYC 