The book is a collection of short stories that combione combine SF and magic, celebrating the wonders of our everyday life with sprinkles of magic.The influence of Chinese culture that was common in every story, such as the introduction of literomancy that details the history and beauty of the Chinese language. Liu also draws on the popular chinese character “Sun Wukong” as an imaginary companion of a litigator who makes a brave choice. Liu also retells Chinese folklore such as the story of Guan Yu, the popular Chinese military general, in All the Flavours.

Ken Liu's Short Stories

In this story, a literomancer can tell people's fortunes based on the characters in their names and the characters they pick."The Chinese invented writing as an aid to divination, so Chinese characters always had a deep magic to them. From characters, I can tell what's bothering people and what lies in their past and future."

Literomancer

A very cool collections of short stories that combine science fiction with Chinese mysticism 

Presents the author's selection of his best short stories, as well as a new piece, in a collection that includes "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary," "Mono No Aware" and "The Waves."

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

The metaverse, in the most simplest terms is a virtual universe where there are no limits. Metaverse will be a 4-D version of the present internet. It can be thought of as being inside the internet and visualising and experiencing everything the world wide web. It can be thought of as a network of worlds with different things to offer.Virtual reality allows the Metaverse to be whatever we want it to be, with the only limits being our imagination.

What is the Metaverse?

The metaverse will be so much more than video games – digital identifications, remote work, buying and selling property – whatever you can imagine, the metaverse will have it.It is going to be the next milestone of the internet, being a converging point of the physical, augmented and virtual reality in one shared space, online.

The idea of a technological world where anything can be possible was first introduced in the 1992 science fiction novel , “Snow Crash” by Neil Stephenson which described a virtual reality and the term ‘metaverse’ was first coined.

How did Metaverse come around?

The 2011 book, “Ready Player One” further promoted the idea of a virtual world where you can be anyone, do anything and go anywhere irrespective of who you are in the real world.The movie based on the book starring Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke in the lead roles popularized the concept of virtual reality and introduced it as the ‘OASIS’, and gave every young mind watching it a sneak peek into what the metaverse could be like in the future.

“People come to the OASIS for all the things they can do, but they stay for all the things they can be.”

Virtual reality will have (and even has) gadgets lined up for the best experience of the metaverse, where the creators will provide the most optimum experience of the virtual world. <ul><li>Today, head mounted display and hand controllers which influence sight, hearing and a limited amount of touch are a basic to VR.</li><li>From books and movies an idea which sits into our mind is that bodysuits and omnidirectional treadmills will become a VR necessity in the future allowing the body to move about in a virtual space just like one does in the real world.</li></ul>

How can we experience the metaverse?

<ul><li>Advanced forms of VR will most probably make use of neurohaptics and neurotech, which uses signals from the brain to replicate a virtual environment and perform certain actions without any user interface.</li></ul>

The metaverse carries the potential to be one of the biggest and impactful technological development of the future. This virtual reality will allow infinite simulations to create anything we want, be anyone, do anything – whatever the mind desires, it can create.It doesn’t matter what you want, you can do it in this virtual space – buying virtual and real world objects (not to mention buying real world objects in the virtual world) to learning any skill you want, doing real world jobs in your virtual world desk/office and earning metaverse cryptocurrency and even using it in the real world.

Why the metaverse matters

Not only is the metaverse going to be a huge life changer for individuals, businesses and industries will also have mega changes thanks to the metaverse.Companies will be creating products and services based on the consumers in the metaverse and will have entire teams and divisions just for buying/selling and building products in the virtual reality or for the real world to aid the virtual reality.Some specialists even go so far as saying that the metaverse might be more transformative to the industries than the internet and could be the biggest market opportunity of the next few decades.

Metaverse For Companies 

Students of the future will have virtual reality schools and universities and even jobs all dedicated to the metaverse. Kids as young as 14-15 years of age will be building the world and creating new and better faces of the virtual reality.

Metaverse For Next-gen Students 

The metaverse is also very likely to have a big impact on the economy and even the governments of countries across the globe.According to some sources, the metaverse could most probably add close to $3 trillion to the global GDP (with consistent evolution) within a decade.

Metaverse And The Economy 

Virtual reality will also completely change the politics game. As it can be already seen with politicians all around the world promoting their campaigns and reaching out to their people through social networking and some even highlighting important issues and making positive change through it.With the metaverse, this could go one step further. From buying digital merch to show support to candidates to vKirtual embassies and even virtual ministries, the metaverse is sure to bring change and keep many people on their toes when it comes to being efficient and flawless.

Metaverse And Politics 

No. We really can’t expect the metaverse to be a flawless piece of human innovation which will immediately lead us to a perfect world with greatness and happiness.As it has been made clear with all other forms of technology, everything has potential to be good and bad. The sci-fi depiction in Ready Player One does point out that as the virtual world keeps getting bigger and better, the real world also crumbles in some ways.

Is the metaverse really all that good?

The rise of metaverse and virtual reality brings out some concerns which do need to be discussed and thought of, the biggest question being – will we lose touch with reality?As it is very obvious with smartphones – a major part of the population being addicted to screens and losing touch with their friends and family, the idea of having a perfect virtual world at everyone’s fingertips definitely raises some concerns when it comes to managing real world relationships and building healthy lives for the consumers.

The second most asked question, also one to be very concerning is – who will ‘own’ the metaverse and how does that change the lives of the people – in the real world and the virtual world? Let’s accept it, the fight for power is something that has been with us since the beginning of time and the metaverse will not be any different. So how will we know who actually controls the metaverse? Who will be the law makers and protectors? How will our real world identities change with the virtual world? All questions that require answers.

 With the ever consistent change in the world including, and especially technology, its time to set our eyes on the Metaverse and take a closer look at what the future has in store for us. 

New and upcoming 

On The Metaverse (Part 1)

Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.

The doctor smiled tolerantly.“Don’t you get it? I’ve given my most profound love to an illusion!”“Are you under the impression that the object of everyone else’s love actually exists?”“Is that even a question?”

Does love actually exist?

“Sure. For the majority of people, what they love exists only in the imagination. The object of their love is not the man or woman of reality, but what he or she is like in their imagination. The person in reality is just a template used for the creation of this dream lover. Eventually, they find out the differences between their dream lover and the template. If they can get used to those differences, then they can be together. If not, they split up. It’s as simple as that. You differ from the majority in one respect: You didn’t need a template.”

What's love about

Time is the one thing that can’t be stopped. Like a sharp blade, it silently cuts through hard and soft, constantly advancing. Nothing is capable of jolting it even the slightest bit, but it changes everything.

How to stop time

Make time for civilization, for civilization won't make time.

The Great Ravine

“There are no homes now. No one has them. Marriage, family, they went away after the Great Ravine. That will be the first thing you’ll have to get used to.”“That first thing is something I won’t be able to get used to.”“Oh, I don’t know. In history class I learned that marriage and family had already begun to disintegrate in your own time. Lots of people didn’t want to be tied down. They wanted free lives.”

Life after the Great Ravine

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series! "Wildly imaginative." —President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author. In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion-in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy. Only the human mind remains a secret. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he's the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead. The Three-Body Problem Series The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Stand-alone stuff

The Dark Forest

The multiverse comes from the idea that beyond the sphere of our observable Universe are other universes, distantly separated from ours. Richard Bower, professor of cosmology theorised four levels of the multiverse.<ol><li>An infinite universe in which “every possibility that could happen would happen”</li><li>Multiverses where the basic laws of physics are the same, but fundamental constants differ.</li><li>The many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics where every choice causes a split in the Universe, leading to infinite parallel realities.</li><li>Multiverses that have entirely different laws of physics.</li></ol>

The Multiverse is Hypothetical

Are there universes where the laws of physics do not apply, like in the newest Doctor Strange outing?

Stashed ideas

Doctor Strange: Could we really be living in a multiverse? | BBC Science Focus Magazine

The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him.

If he finds other life another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

Soviet astrophysicist Nicolai Kardashev once proposed that we can divide civilizations into three types based on the power they can command for communication purposes, let's say.

Dividing civilizations

A Type I civilization can muster an amount of energy equivalent to the total energy output of the Earth. Based on his estimates, the energy output of the Earth is about 10^15 to 10^16 watts.A Type II civilization can marshal the energy equivalent to the output of a typical star - 10^26 watts.A Type III civilization's communication energy can reach 10^36 watts, approximately equal to the energy output of a galaxy. Civilization on Earth is currently about Type 0.7 not even a full Type I.

The Kardashev Scale

And to attain that state, you need to empty yourself.I said, "I'm empty enough. Fame and fortune are nothing to me. Many of the monks in this temple are worldlier than me." The abbot shook his head and said,"No, emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is a type of existence. You must use this existential emptiness to fill yourself."His words were very enlightening to me. Later, after I thought about it a bit, I realized that it wasn't Buddhist philosophy at all, but was more akin to some modern physics theories. The abbot also told me he would not discuss Buddhism with me.

Emptiness is not nothingness

Interesting that I’ve found this book as a side note in “The denial of death” by Ernest Becker. Didn’t expect something from it, and for sure didn’t expect it to grab my attention at all. Unquestionably an enthralling book, first of the “Remembrance of Earth’s past” trilogy. I would recommend it to anyone who dares to imagine beyond our existence.

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series! “War of the Worlds for the 21st century.” – Wall Street Journal The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision. The Three-Body Problem Series The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

On The Metaverse (Part 1)

The Dark Forest

Doctor Strange: Could we really be living in a multiverse? | BBC Science Focus Magazine

The Three-Body Problem

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