Liu (the Three-Body Problem trilogy) pits the quest for theoretical knowledge against the push for practical, if deadly, applications. Together, they track down a lost Russian research base and an eccentric Chinese genius, bringing together the clues that reveal ball lightning’s secrets in time for it to be weaponized for a conflict with America. Encountering evidence that others have been struck by ball lightning but survived, he teams up with Lin Yun, a young major in the Chinese army with her own obsession: “new concept” weapons. Chen, traumatized when ball lightning invades his birthday party and kills his parents, resolves to understand the elusive phenomenon, despite discouragement from his similarly hurt advisor. In Chinese folklore, ball lightning is known as “ghost lanterns,” and ghosts of a quantum kind haunt this thoughtful technothriller about the science of the next war.
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