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The novel “The Brave Free Men” by Jack Vance was published for the first time in 1972 serialized in “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” and in 1973 as a book. It’s the second book in the Durdane trilogy and follows “The Anome”.

Gastel Etzwane gained huge power and intends to use it to eliminate the threat of the Roguskhoi, humanoids who are hitting the Shant harder and harder with their attacks. Together with a very few trusted people, he tries to set up a unified army but unifying the efforts of the many cantons of the Shant is a very complex undertaking.

The people of the Shant spent generations under the rule of the Anome, and even Roguskhoi attacks elicit limited responses. Creating an army and new weapons takes time and adequate organization, and Gastel Etzwane discovers that various cantons hide serious injustices.

The novel “Earth Abides” by George R. Stewart was published for the first time in 1949. It won the International Fantasy Award.

Isherwood “Ish” Williams is working on his graduate thesis in the mountains when he gets bitten by a rattlesnake. He manages to get rid of most of the poison but spends days unwell, even from what appears to be an illness unrelated to the poisoning. When he gets strong enough again, he travels to the nearest town and finds it deserted, only the first evidence of a mass death caused by an unknown disease.

Ish seeks out other survivors, who are few in number and not always friendly, sometimes in a severely altered state of mind. After touring the now almost completely depopulated USA, he returns to California and decides to settle in the area. He finds a woman, Emma, and the two of them decide to live together. Over time, they find a few other survivors with whom to form a small community but what can be the future of humanity?

The novel “Death’s End” by Liu Cixin was published for the first time in 2010. It was translated into English by Ken Liu. It’s the third book of the trilogy known as The Three-Body Problem or Remembrance of Earth’s Past and follows “The Dark Forest”.

Cheng Xin is a part of the team working on the Staircase Project which aims to send a probe toward the Trisolaran Fleet. The examination of the technical limitations shows that it’s impossible to use it to send a human being, and director Thomas Wade decides to send only a person’s brain. Yun Tianming chose euthanasia because of an incurable disease but agrees to participate in the Staircase Project. The launch seems unsuccessful but Cheng Xin received a star as a gift from Yun, who was in love with her.

After a period of hibernation, Cheng Xin awakens in the deterrence era in which the Earth and Trisolaris maintain a fragile truce based on mutual threats to reveal the coordinates of their respective planets to the entire universe. Cheng Li is appointed to be the Swordholder, the human representative who is tasked with transmitting the coordinates of Trisolaris but when the Trisolarans attack, she decides not to activate the device.