I chose Ball Lightning for three reasons, only one of which is actually a fair assessment of the book. Reason 1 was that the cover was pretty. Reason 2 (the good one) was that I had heard good things about the author, Cixin Liu, from friends in the past. Reason 3 (my personal favorite and the most convincing) was that the reviewer featured on the cover was none other than Barack Obama, which was unexpected enough that I decided I needed to read it for the memes if nothing else.  

The book follows Chen, a man whose parents were killed by ball lightning in his youth. This event sparked a lifelong obsession with the phenomenon, leading him down dangerous paths and into revolutionary knowledge. I would classify this novel as definitively hard SF, as it delves into a real life phenomenon and brings in a lot of actual science. While I am usually more of a fan of soft SF, the science here was one of my favorite aspects of the story. I really appreciated the realism that it granted a story that is clearly speculative fiction, and the details about research funding felt pretty realistic and grounded the story well. 

One thing that frustrates me about this novel is its portrayal of female characters. All of the female characters feel like they are there fully to tell us something about the male characters. There was one scene with a female character whose only character trait was ‘desirable’ who was flirting with Chen, who ignored her and felt powerful for it. Chen is only interested in Lin Yun, his love interest, because she has not like other girls energy. I did not finish the entire novel, so I cannot say for sure whether this pattern held, but it was very annoying to me as a female reader. 

I think I would recommend this book, mainly because I think it was really well researched and Liu has a great command of suspense. While I had my issues with the novel, I still found myself wanting to know what happened next and invested in the plot. 

A note: The novel was originally published in Chinese in 2005, but the English translation was published in 2018.

Liu, Cixin. Ball Lightning. Translated by Joel Martinsen, Tor Books, 2018.