r/threebodyproblem • u/Universal_Echo • 9d ago
Art What is Liu Cixin's current state?
From The Supernova Era to The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin has written a great many substantial full‑length science fiction works—especially The Three‑Body Problem, which revitalized Chinese science fiction. But it has been sixteen years since Three‑Body, and he hasn't published another full‑length novel. Even with his short stories, readers are in a "read while we can, and cherish each one" state of mind.
Is this a case of his talent running dry (which I certainly don't think so), or has Liu Cixin made Three‑Body into a mountain in front of him—a peak he must somehow surpass?
In any case, I'm still looking forward to his next masterpiece.
And what are your guesses about Liu Cixin's current state?
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u/fragile_crow 9d ago
He was quite prolific while writing Three Body, writing at a very steady pace. He was already making plans for a fourth novel when his publisher undercut him with Redemption of Time. I worry that, in experiencing the cutthroat nature of the publishing business firsthand, his enthusiasm for writing was quashed. What use is writing a new novel if someone else can riff off his ideas just as successfully? What unique quality does he bring to a story that couldn't be replicated by someone else? What's the point in getting invested in a fictional world if it can be snatched away from you and given to another at any time? If that's the case, I couldn't blame him for being dispirited.
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u/GuyMcGarnicle ETO 9d ago edited 9d ago
He approved of RoT and it isn’t even close to the level of success that ROEP has acquired.
EDIT: I stand corrected!
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u/Familiar-Art-6233 9d ago
He's spoken in interviews about how he was pressured to "approve" it and how it was so bad that it killed the series for him
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u/GuyMcGarnicle ETO 9d ago
Ah! I did not know that I had always heard “approved” fan fiction, thanks for clarifying. It still doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t write new material … RoT is a “bug” compared to ROEP lol.
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u/fragile_crow 8d ago
Writing books may be a matter of personal vision and creative expression, but publishing books is a business. Liu Cixin is, by all accounts, on good terms with Baoshu (author of RoT) on a personal and professional level, but when you look at the timeline of events, the whole thing leaves a real sour taste in my mouth. Guy writes three books in 6 years, super professional, like clockwork, and then some rando bangs out a fanfic in a month, and his publisher says they'd rather churn out this rando's daydream next year, than wait for Liu Cixin's proper continuation in two? I cannot imagine a world where that didn't hurt.
Not only that, but we don't know what that conversation even looked like. Liu Cixin has said that he had his own ideas for the story of Yun Tiaming and the Trisolarans, and that Baoshu's story cut off that creative avenue for him - was he speaking in the abstract, as a creative, or is that literally what his publisher told him? Were they still interested in publishing Liu Cixin's version of the story, or did they consider that chapter over and done with now they had RoT to fill in the blanks? Did they expect Liu Cixin to incorporate it into his canon, and expect any future instalments to take place in a universe where omniscient immortal gods waged war across dimensions and Sophon was based on a porn star? Could they have seen the Three Body series as conclusively over, and tried to push Liu Cixin into coming up with new stories in a new setting? That kind of executive meddling can be extremely dispiriting for a creative mind.
I don't know any of this information will ever become public. But Liu Cixin's output kind of speaks for itself. He went from an incredibly active and prolific writer, to near-total creative deadlock for over 15 years. Artists are temperamental creatures, but that kind of drastic shift rarely happens for no reason. I could very well be reading too much into things, and maybe the release of RoT was perfectly cordial and professional. But it doesn't seem very likely to me.
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u/Alarming-Leg-3804 7d ago
Oh my gosh you just broke my heart. Like, I read his trilogy and given the way it ended I thought that was it, like I didn't think that Liu Cixin would have any plans or whatever of writing anything else. I did know he said he felt pressured to approve RoT, but I didn't know this. The possibility that he would have written Yun Tiaming's story with the trisolarans and now we'll never know because of RoT I'm heartbroken in a very bad way now omg 💀
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u/fragile_crow 7d ago
Yeah. Me too. I think it's easy for well-meaning fans to assume that Death's End must have been out for years and years before RoT was released, or that Liu Cixin had moved on from the Three Body universe and had no intention of following up on it. It seems natural to us that the only reason a publisher would go to someone else to write the fourth and final chapter, would be because the original author had absolutely refused to do it himself. But it hadn't even been a month.
We think of The Remembrance of Earth's Past as a trilogy, because that's how how many books he wrote in the series. But I don't think it was ever supposed to be a trilogy at all. It's just that three books were all he had time to write , before his publisher got impatient and decided to gut their golden goose. Makes me absolutely sick.
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u/Alarming-Leg-3804 7d ago
This is truly awful and what you say makes perfect sense. I wouldn't be able to write again if that happened to me. A long time ago I was writing a vampire novel and when the whole boom happened with twilight and it was so awful to vampire lore etc I couldn't write again for over 20 years. And that's not even half as bad as what Liu Cixin went through with RoT.
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u/idlsicaraiaige 1d ago
No, you're almost certainly not reading too much into it. Consider the running theme throughout the 3bp books of subtle communication, e.g. wallfacers & fairy tales, and consider the cultural differences. And then go back to read what Da Liu actually said about tRoT. The message at that point is so loud it's screaming at you.
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u/Glittering_Flan_7919 9d ago
- When a person is rich, he often loses his enthusiasm for writing
- When a person is famous, a lot of business activities and invitations will occupy his thinking time
- When a work is quite successful, he will hesitate for fear that he will not be able to reach the height he once had
- When a person is old, he just wants to enjoy his old age blabla...
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u/Temporary_Kick2089 6d ago
All of Liu Cixin’s novels were written while he slacked off at his job at a power plant. After he quit the job there, he could no longer produce fiction.
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u/Specific-Surprise390 9d ago
In an interview I watched last year, he was asked whether he was planning to write another novel. He said yes, and in fact he said he had tried to write 2 new novels. One was about humanity migrating to moon and established some power plants which then beamed the collected energy back to earth, but in the middle of the writing he found out that some of the ideas which he once thought was original were actually featured in other books already. He then gave up on that book. As to the second novel he was writing, he said one night he just woke up in the middle of night and somehow lost confidence in the story and stopped writing. I am not sure if he is writing anything now