The bulk of the narrative takes place in the two years following the end of adult life on Earth, and it is a fascinating journey into a violent, unpredictable future. With the advent of this cataclysmic event, the Supernova Era-also known as the Children’s Era-begins. Only children under the age of thirteen will have the physical capacity to survive. Within a year, all adults on the planet will be dead. Lethal radiation from a long dead star has entered Earth’s atmosphere, with apocalyptic results. Just as he did in the Three-Body Problem novels, Liu rests his narrative on a premise so striking that it will forever alter the nature and direction of the human project. “I was destined to live my whole life with a terror no one else could feel.” The Supernova Era “Ball lightning had molded me into this form: from that night of terror in my youth, the shape of my psyche had been determined,” Chen explains. Chen, understandably, is just a bit affected by the incident, and devotes himself to studying the mysterious phenomenon of ball lightning. Serving as a very loose prequel to The Three Body Problem, Ball Lightning has a far smaller scope: Here, Liu’s focus is almost entirely on Chen, an awkward, obsessive researcher who, at age 14, at the worst birthday party ever, witnessed both of his parents get obliterated by a mysterious, fiery orb.
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