Hardcore science fiction of heavens collapsing and earth splitting,
Past and present lives in the turning wheel of spacetime.
Future mirror images set against ten thousand ages,
The eternal last stand of ideal love.
This is a science-fiction novel closely tied to the hottest frontiers of real-world technology, the second installment in the novel series The Rope of Nikola Tesla.
The first installment, To the Dark Frequency, was released in electronic form on Qidian Reading in January 2024 and has been completed; its print edition was published at the same time by China Radio, Film & Television Press (ISBN 978-7-5043-9178-0).
To sum up the novel in one sentence:
Using Nikola Tesla’s theories as a premise, it tells the story of Michael—whose real-life prototype is easy to guess—developing Mars, and of Tesla transforming Earth sixty-five million years ago.
The novel adopts a mirrored narrative technique, with two symmetrical storylines running in parallel. The main characters are two couples living in the same solar system, sixty-five million years apart.
Odd-numbered chapters write of the “past life,” while even-numbered chapters speak of the “present life,” alternating and reappearing again and again in the same settings to form a mirror image.
The two stories appear independent of each other, yet they take turns playing out technological flights of imagination under the same circumstances, along with the conflicts of values those technologies bring.
The characters in the novel are people inside the mirror. They cannot obtain the hologram, while readers can look both inside and outside the mirror, seeing the past and present lives from every angle.
The characters, lacking complete information, are fearless in their ignorance; readers, as omniscient observers who understand the stakes, may instead feel even more conflicted.
The author does not preset a stance, but simply presents, as objectively as possible, the beautiful prospects of technology and the dislocations and imbalances of ethics before the reader.
How wide should the fence around science and technology be drawn?
How much elasticity should be allowed in morality and ethics?
Does loving someone unconditionally truly have no boundaries or bottom line?
Though it is science fiction, the author uses a realist perspective to depict and envision today’s three major technological directions: spaceflight, artificial intelligence, and life sciences.
The novel imagines the technical feasibility of space industries whose road still lies far ahead, such as survival on Mars and the terraforming of Venus; it looks ahead to computer sciences not far from realization, such as mixed-radix chips, brain-computer fusion, living robots, and subconscious learning; and it also includes life sciences as novel as they are terrifying, such as gene therapy and cloning technology.
In Chapter 28, “Uranus XXVIII,” of the previous novel To the Dark Frequency, the author put forward a scientific prediction through the mouth of a character:
In addition to the twenty-seven already discovered moons of Uranus, there exists another moon with a diameter of more than ten kilometers, which the author named “Uranus 28.”
As early as July 2019, as an amateur astronomer, the author first proposed the prediction of Uranus 28 at an academic seminar with astronomers from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
On December 26, 2019, the Xinglong Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatories used its 2.16-meter telescope to observe the moons of Uranus. Regrettably, the Uranus 28 predicted by the author was too small and too dim; the observation mission failed and did not find it.
In January 2024, the author of the novel published an academic astronomy paper as first author in a professional astronomy journal. The paper conducted a symmetry study of the distribution patterns of the 285 known moons in the solar system as of July 2023. Because the focus of the study was not individual moons, the paper did not include the prediction of Uranus 28.
Amusingly, some of the new discoveries in the paper regarding the distribution patterns of moons in the solar system, as well as the scientific basis for the author’s prediction of Uranus 28, were written into the novel at the same time. See Chapter 26, “Triad,” and Chapter 28, “Uranus XXVIII,” of To the Dark Frequency.
Here comes the key point: after To the Dark Frequency was completed, foreign astronomers successfully discovered a new moon of Uranus using the 6.5-meter Magellan Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.
In February 2024, the authoritative International Astronomical Union (IAU) Minor Planet Center (MPC) formally confirmed it and assigned the approximately eight-to-twelve-kilometer-diameter moon the designation S/2023 U1. Its official number will be U XXVIII—Uranus 28.
Interestingly, by convention, the names of Uranian moons mostly come from fairies and spirits in Shakespeare’s plays. For example, the two largest moons, Uranus III (Titania) and Uranus IV (Oberon), are named after the fairy queen and king in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The protagonists’ names have already been taken by the larger moons, leaving such little fairy names as Peaseblossom, Cobweb, and Moth.
If Chinese astronomers had discovered Uranus 28 based on the author’s prediction, the author, who would have had the right to suggest a name, would have proposed naming Uranus 28 Cobweb—because though a spider is small, its web can encompass the heavens.
Now there is no chance. The right to suggest a name belongs to the discoverer, and the International Astronomical Union has already stated that it will name the moon according to convention, selecting from among the names of spirits in Shakespeare’s plays.
What will Uranus 28 ultimately be called? The answer will soon be revealed. Who knows whether the result will be the same as what the author had in mind.
Regarding the whole matter, although the author and the Chinese astronomers who took part in the search for the moon feel some regret, they are also quite at peace. After all, compared with the vast universe, humanity’s field of vision is so shallow and brief; there remain plenty more astronomical events to be discovered and predicted!
Fortunately! Qidian provided the stage, and readers bore witness: a science-fiction novel predicted an undiscovered moon, and later it was actually found, becoming a fine anecdote. How cool is that! Just as the verse goes:
Forms like xi and yi tax sight and hearing,
Before and behind, in a haze, no canon can discern.
Shakespeare sowed dreams and left behind a cobweb,
A great mirror nets the heavens and captures a moon.
In this novel, the author once again, through the mouth of a character, proposes for the first time the Mars Explosion Hypothesis, attempting to explain the mystery of the asteroid belt’s formation, pending research and verification by astronomers.
At the same time, the novel also presents two technically feasible and falsifiable scientific experimental plans: the lunar mascon experiment to unlock the mystery of gravity, and the Saturn’s-rings marker-point experiment to unlock the mystery of dark matter.
Like To the Dark Frequency, this novel is also a journey in search of truth.
Many characters are based on prototypes from reality and even mythology; historical events, arithmetic calendars, and archaeological discoveries can all be traced to their sources; and the fantastical, seemingly unbelievable exaggerations involving spaceflight, computers, and life sciences all bear the shadows of the latest cutting-edge technologies.
In To the Dark Frequency, the author blended scientific knowledge such as astronomy and physics with artistic forms such as poetry and music as the underlying tone, weaving together historical clues spanning a century and regional cultural atmospheres under a globalized perspective as the backdrop.
In this novel, the author expands the stage to the entire solar system. Five major planets, moons, asteroids, and comets serve as backdrop after backdrop, seeking footholds amid earth-shaking upheavals. The timeline is stretched even longer, running through the entire Cenozoic as defined by geology—from the end of the Cretaceous to today and tomorrow, sixty-five million years later—creating a genesis amid the transformations of seas into mulberry fields.
Furthermore, the novel combines hard technologies such as astronomy, physics, computers, and genetic engineering with the evolutionary histories of geology and paleontology, as well as symbols of human civilization represented by Egypt, India, and the Maya—the third installment will focus specifically on Chinese culture. Artistic forms such as poetry, music, architecture, and film and television are interspersed throughout, fusing into a multifaceted structure with just the right balance of hardness and softness, full of delight and intrigue.
The author strings together seemingly unrelated pearls scattered across the space of the solar system and the long river of distant time with Nikola Tesla’s “rope,” soaking the hard core of technology in the romantic atmosphere of literature and art.
Without becoming entangled in situational description, the story advances at triple speed like swiping through short videos, using a shorthand, line-drawing style of writing.
Without presetting judgments of right and wrong, it uses the depth of field of repeated cycles like playing a game, mirroring two lives across past and present.
In the letter written to readers of To the Dark Frequency, the author once said: “The boundary between science fiction and fantasy lies in the words ‘out of thin air.’”
In the process of creating this novel, the author upheld a style that combines the novelty and connectedness of science fiction, attempting to provide readers with a genre case that brings fantasy and reality together.
Readers may close their eyes and roam through dreamlike novelty, and after opening their eyes, they may also feel future technologies that could become reality rushing toward them.
Setting fantasy aside, when it comes only to science fiction, the difference between fantasy and visionary speculation lies in “whether it is possible.”
This novel is a realist science-fiction work, just like the famous line from the film Walter Defends Sarajevo, which the author once discussed with readers: “Whoever lives will see!”
This is more than a novel. Beneath a pair of mirror images sixty-five million years apart, it is more like a game with repeatable settings—or a thought experiment.
If humanity truly had “two lives,” under the temptations of the rolling mortal world and within the resplendent cycle of heavenly law, would people still make the same choices again?
The author hopes to explore and ponder together with readers: in the face of the vast universe, of immense changes and uncertainties where seas become mulberry fields, what exactly is the secret that has allowed tiny and fragile human civilization to continue to this day, and to keep enduring?
In To the Dark Frequency, the characters displayed loyalty, wisdom, and courage. If they still could not achieve what they wished, they chose resilience; resilience is one of humanity’s most precious qualities.
If one moment will not do, then be resilient for a lifetime.
Is that enough?
What if even a lifetime of resilience is not enough?
What Fireburst Wavelength presents is humanity holding science and technology in its hands, cherishing compassion in its heart, bearing above its head an ineffable light of fortune, enduring through tens of millions of years without end, and then passing down another kind of treasure from generation to generation.
That is…
I forgot to mention: there are romantic plotlines, dual female leads, and sweet moments. I’m afraid spoilers will slip if I say more, so come in and read!
Welcome to follow the hardcore yet tender science-fiction novel: Fireburst Wavelength, the second installment of The Rope of Nikola Tesla.
Borrowing lines from ancient poets, I have assembled an acrostic seven-character regulated verse, and humbly ask you all:
Fire-washed cloth, burned anew, turns fresher still. Tang, Chu Zai
Explosive sounds carry afar to the dust of the imperial capital. Qing, Cao Yunwen
Books say the ear grows heavy; I know your meaning. Song, Liu Kezhuang
Friends’ loving hearts are pure, born of true nature. Ming, Cheng Ruxin
Following old traces in remembrance brings only melancholy gazing. Song, Murong Yanfeng
Reading of past affairs, one too feels bitterness and sorrow. Tang, Luo Yin
Waves enter the brush, tides a thousand feet high. Song, Wang Yang
Long offer fragrance in devotion to the hundred gods. Song, Ding Wei
Readers of Fireburst, keep following Wavelength!