Ball Lightning

By Cixin Liu

'Cixin Liu is the author of your next favourite sci-fi novel' WIRED
On his fourteenth birthday, right before his eyes, Chen's parents are incinerated by a blast of ball lightning. Striving to make sense of this bizarre tragedy, he dedicates his life to a single goal: to unlock the secrets of this enigmatic natural phenomenon. His pursuit of ball lightning will take him far from home, across mountain peaks chasing storms and deep into highly classified subterranean laboratories as he slowly unveils a new frontier in particle physics.

Chen's obsession gives purpose to his lonely life, but it can't insulate him from the real world's interest in his discoveries. He will be pitted against scientists, soldiers and governments with motives of their own: a physicist who has no place for moral judgement in his pursuit of knowledge; a beautiful army major obsessed with new ways to wage war; a desperate nation facing certain military defeat.

Conjuring awe-inspiring new worlds of cosmology and philosophy from meticulous scientific speculation, Ball Lightning has all the scope and imagination that so enthralled readers of Cixin Liu's award-winning Three-Body trilogy.
Praise for Cixin Liu:
'Your next favourite sci-fi novel' Wired

'Immense' Barack Obama

'Unique' George R.R. Martin

'SF in the grand style' Guardian

'Mind-altering and immersive' Daily Mail

'A milestone in Chinese science-fiction' New York Times

'China's answer to Arthur C. Clarke' New Yorker

Winner of the Hugo and Galaxy Awards for Best Novel

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Aug 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781786694676

Cixin Liu

CIXIN LIU is the most prolific and popular science fiction writer in the People’s Republic of China. Liu is a winner of the Hugo Award, an eight-time winner of the Galaxy Award (the Chinese Hugo) and a winner of the Chinese Nebula Award. Prior to becoming a writer, he worked as an engineer in a power plant. His novels include The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End.

Reviews for Ball Lightning

[johnclaydon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A hard slog.

[jdayrutherford · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Not worth reading. I loved the Three body problem. Poor English translation also.

[rondoctor · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another good book by Liu. Worth reading, but sometimes gets a little pedantic. Discovering Cixin Liu's science fiction has been a high-point of my recent reading experiences. If you haven't read his books, now is a good time to begin.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The story of a scientists quest for understanding the ball lighting phenomenon. Really great world building and fascinating characters.

[santhony_35 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I recently read Cixin Liu’s science fiction Three Body Problem trilogy, and was pretty much blown away. The second book in the series, The Dark Forest, may be the finest science fiction work I have ever read (and I’ve read hundreds). I was anxious to read more of his work and purchased a collection of short stories as soon as I found it. Overall, it was a good read, just not up to the level of the trilogy. This novel, while recently translated into English, was actually written prior to the Three Body Problem. The subject is the atmospheric phenomenon of ball lightning and a group of researchers and military personnel that study it, capture it and attempt to weaponize it. I found the early parts of the novel to drag somewhat, but then advance strongly to a powerful ending. The story has a good amount of highly technical language and theories concerning quantum mechanics, which are obviously over the head of almost anyone reading the book, however the author does a masterful job of making the story readable and understandable, without the necessity of a graduate level degree in physics. Cixin Liu is a fantastic story teller and a master in the field of science fiction.

[jefware · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Like the collapse of the probability function into the tast of gunpowder tea.

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A well paced science fiction novel with some strange interpretations of quantum and uncertainty effects. I don't think observation works the way it does in this novel in a sort of abstract way. The pace works well with the material with only a bit of drag, but the agency of the young major Lin Yun seems way beyond any sense, especially with general dad. A real treasure appears on pg 153 - Diaoyutai State Guest House. All those vowel vastly outnumbering the consonants.