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Sea of Dreams
The first in a new series of graphic novels from Hugo Award-winning author Liu Cixin and Talos Press
An annual ice sculpture festival draws the attention of an extraterrestrial visitor, who learns how to create such art and decides to use local resources to sculpt a piece in a gesture of goodwill. All the water in the ocean is sent to the stratosphere, where the ice sculptor uses splendid techniques to create crystal dominoes scattered by a giant of the cosmos. In the world of the ice sculptor, art is the sole reason for civilization’s existence. After the ice sculptor creates the pinnacle of beauty, but also brings forth devastation and disaster, humanity decides during Earth’s last breaths to fight for their survival.
The first of sixteen new graphic novels from Liu Cixin and Talos Press, Sea of Dreams is an epic tale of the future that all science fiction fans will enjoy.
An annual ice sculpture festival draws the attention of an extraterrestrial visitor, who learns how to create such art and decides to use local resources to sculpt a piece in a gesture of goodwill. All the water in the ocean is sent to the stratosphere, where the ice sculptor uses splendid techniques to create crystal dominoes scattered by a giant of the cosmos. In the world of the ice sculptor, art is the sole reason for civilization’s existence. After the ice sculptor creates the pinnacle of beauty, but also brings forth devastation and disaster, humanity decides during Earth’s last breaths to fight for their survival.
The first of sixteen new graphic novels from Liu Cixin and Talos Press, Sea of Dreams is an epic tale of the future that all science fiction fans will enjoy.
87 pages, Paperback
First published June 29, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
July 1, 2021
Liu Cixin's novelette Sea of Dreams (which can be read in Asimov's Science Fiction, January/February 2018 and in To Hold Up the Sky) is one of my favorites: an allegory for life, creation, and art.
This graphic novel is the first in a series of sixteen, all based on his stories, and it captures almost exactly the spirit of the original one. I said almost because it cannot encompass all emotions and beauty of the written novelette, but does a quite decent job at it. If there was a thing to annoy me was But I won't let that spoil my pleasure in reading this book.
The illustrations are excellent and I enjoyed the experience a great deal. Here are some of them, to have an idea on how they look:
I have preordered the first four, and I can't wait to get all of them. For Liu Cixin fans, I think this series is a must.
This graphic novel is the first in a series of sixteen, all based on his stories, and it captures almost exactly the spirit of the original one. I said almost because it cannot encompass all emotions and beauty of the written novelette, but does a quite decent job at it. If there was a thing to annoy me was But I won't let that spoil my pleasure in reading this book.
The illustrations are excellent and I enjoyed the experience a great deal. Here are some of them, to have an idea on how they look:
I have preordered the first four, and I can't wait to get all of them. For Liu Cixin fans, I think this series is a must.
September 14, 2021
3 stars to the art (good overall but characters’ faces didn’t agree with my personal taste), and 5 stars (and possibly more) to the story, which is seriously original and imaginative, in a way that I have rarely found in comic books. This is the first of a series of graphic novels based on this Chinese author’s books. He is a vulcano of grand-scale science-fictional ideas.
October 17, 2021
I received a copy of this graphic novel for free in exchange for an honest review.
This will only be a very short review due to this being a very short work.
This is one of those books that made me breathe a sigh of relief and think 'at least it's short'. The only thing I enjoyed about this graphic novel was the artwork. The art is great, especially the cover (which is a piece of art in itself).
Sadly, the rest of the book didn't have much going for it as far as I was concerned. The dialogue was poor and didn't really feel natural. The choices made by characters seemed bizarre (I can't fathom a world in which we are under threat from an alien entity and countries such as the US essentially say 'go on China, you have a chat with it. We'll just sit here and twiddle our thumbs'). The fact the alien entity was fluent in Chinese, yet was never explained as to how this was, also felt a bit jarring.
I know this was adapted, as are the others in the series, from short works by Cixin Liu. I have never read those works so I can't describe whether it was a poor adaption or whether the subject material is equally lacking. What I can say is that everything felt either forced or just as though it shouldn't have been there. The random time skips, without any real mention of how much time had passed, didn't help either.
The disappointing thing is, with my not enjoying this, I doubt I'll ever entertain the notion of trying more of the author's work. A shame as there seems to be a lot of good said about his novels/short fiction. To me it felt more like this was done as a money spinning effort due to the name value of the author rather than any real literary merit.
TLDR: The only thing that saved this from a 1 star was the art work.
This will only be a very short review due to this being a very short work.
This is one of those books that made me breathe a sigh of relief and think 'at least it's short'. The only thing I enjoyed about this graphic novel was the artwork. The art is great, especially the cover (which is a piece of art in itself).
Sadly, the rest of the book didn't have much going for it as far as I was concerned. The dialogue was poor and didn't really feel natural. The choices made by characters seemed bizarre (I can't fathom a world in which we are under threat from an alien entity and countries such as the US essentially say 'go on China, you have a chat with it. We'll just sit here and twiddle our thumbs'). The fact the alien entity was fluent in Chinese, yet was never explained as to how this was, also felt a bit jarring.
I know this was adapted, as are the others in the series, from short works by Cixin Liu. I have never read those works so I can't describe whether it was a poor adaption or whether the subject material is equally lacking. What I can say is that everything felt either forced or just as though it shouldn't have been there. The random time skips, without any real mention of how much time had passed, didn't help either.
The disappointing thing is, with my not enjoying this, I doubt I'll ever entertain the notion of trying more of the author's work. A shame as there seems to be a lot of good said about his novels/short fiction. To me it felt more like this was done as a money spinning effort due to the name value of the author rather than any real literary merit.
TLDR: The only thing that saved this from a 1 star was the art work.
September 4, 2021
"Art is the only thing that makes valuable this or any other world. What beyond space? Nothing, Nothingness itself. Only art matters, to be able to create a total work of art immeasurable."
January 30, 2024
So dumb.
September 19, 2022
I found this graphic novel randomly at my library, and recognized Cixin Liu's name from his collection of short stories To Hold Up The Sky. Little did I realize that Sea of Dreams is one of the short stories in that anthology, and this book is the graphic novel representation.
Like the short story, I enjoyed the focus on what art is, and how humanity can come together when art becomes destructive. The artwork was well done, and I liked the visual representation of the Low Temperature Artist. Overall an interesting short story from a Chinese Sci-Fi author nicely detailed with good artwork.
Like the short story, I enjoyed the focus on what art is, and how humanity can come together when art becomes destructive. The artwork was well done, and I liked the visual representation of the Low Temperature Artist. Overall an interesting short story from a Chinese Sci-Fi author nicely detailed with good artwork.
March 18, 2023
Beautifully illustrated but not particularly well told, feel the pacing was all over the place.
July 28, 2024
A self-involved artist from space threatens to destroy the planet to help create a sculpture with its ocean water. A very cool idea to start but… then it does just that. Sucks all the ocean water into space. This must’ve been written for kids. If all the ocean were sucked into space we’d be dead. Certainly not wandering around 5 years later looking for a solution to getting the water back. The entire premise just doesn’t work. Art is ok. 5-star concept, 2-star execution.
December 7, 2021
A story that you don’t really see in comic form with some hard hitting points regarding what is truely valuable in life
April 11, 2023
Weird. "Low temperature artist" slaps, though.
January 1, 2021
Liu Cixin Science Fiction Manga Series: Sea of Dreams
Original Story by Liu Cixin
Art and Coloring by Jok
I was supplied a copy of the Chinese edition of this work for review by the publisher.
One of Liu Cixin’s favorite tropes is to have a mysterious alien come down to earth and do something that shocks humanity into thinking differently about itself. In “Heard it in the Morning,” a powerful alien comes to earth to warn humans that their particle accelerator project risks destroying the universe and will have to be canceled. In “Sea of Dreams,” a powerful alien sees a human making an ice sculpture, and suddenly decides that it wants to create a massive ice sculpture of its own, which might be such a terrible idea, except the creature removes essentially all of the water from the Earth’s oceans and rivers in order to erect its sculpture, a ring of shimmering objects out in space.
The extremely straightforward plot has no irony, no snappy ending, and none but the fairly obvious source of tension — will the humans get the Earth its water back? It’s sort of a folktale for the twenty-first century, with a message about working together and putting science and art each in their place — er, science is good, and art is kind of annoying but you can do it as long as you don’t destroy things.
Art and coloration here are by the Argentinean illustrator Jok, who provides very dynamic, rich art, full of water and ice motifs, often swirling and spiraling around the spherical alien, which reminds me of the horror manga Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror, Vol. 1by Junji Ito. Kudos to Jok for bringing the epic-fairy-tale sensibility of Mr. Liu to such vivid life.
Original Story by Liu Cixin
Art and Coloring by Jok
I was supplied a copy of the Chinese edition of this work for review by the publisher.
One of Liu Cixin’s favorite tropes is to have a mysterious alien come down to earth and do something that shocks humanity into thinking differently about itself. In “Heard it in the Morning,” a powerful alien comes to earth to warn humans that their particle accelerator project risks destroying the universe and will have to be canceled. In “Sea of Dreams,” a powerful alien sees a human making an ice sculpture, and suddenly decides that it wants to create a massive ice sculpture of its own, which might be such a terrible idea, except the creature removes essentially all of the water from the Earth’s oceans and rivers in order to erect its sculpture, a ring of shimmering objects out in space.
The extremely straightforward plot has no irony, no snappy ending, and none but the fairly obvious source of tension — will the humans get the Earth its water back? It’s sort of a folktale for the twenty-first century, with a message about working together and putting science and art each in their place — er, science is good, and art is kind of annoying but you can do it as long as you don’t destroy things.
Art and coloration here are by the Argentinean illustrator Jok, who provides very dynamic, rich art, full of water and ice motifs, often swirling and spiraling around the spherical alien, which reminds me of the horror manga Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror, Vol. 1by Junji Ito. Kudos to Jok for bringing the epic-fairy-tale sensibility of Mr. Liu to such vivid life.
November 6, 2022
With its minimal dialogue, recurrung main characters (my favourite is Feng), and backdrop of earthly geopolitics, this graphic novel was very profound, with many layers. The concepts are simple yet undoubtedly exceptional and that's all down to Cixin Liu's genius. I was wondering before, what's the big deal about him, but from this snippet of a first glance, I totally get it, if it's anything to go by. There is nothing like a good science fiction, that makes you wonder about the theoretical situation, but also the philosophy behind it all.
The ET character = 10/10, proper "ice-cold", coming from a very dark origin. But if it lacks a soul, how does it appreciate art, what does "art" even mean to it? What does art even mean at all, without someone to appreciate it, to feel it.
The story refers to maslow's hierarchy of needs: what's art if you don't have the means of basic survival? Food and shelter?
Then there is the oevrarching idea that beings at different level will perceive art and beauty, in its own subjective, distinctive ways. Then even maybe life, the solar system, the universe is art, from a far-enough viewpoint.
This book has more to ponder about, than any answers at all. I read it twice (as i didnt get round to writing a review during the first :p) and found it even deeper the second time.
The illustration and adaptation by the South American author/artist duo were the perfect ingredients for this book to come to life with it's heart touching moments, where story boards spoke louder than words.
The ET character = 10/10, proper "ice-cold", coming from a very dark origin. But if it lacks a soul, how does it appreciate art, what does "art" even mean to it? What does art even mean at all, without someone to appreciate it, to feel it.
The story refers to maslow's hierarchy of needs: what's art if you don't have the means of basic survival? Food and shelter?
Then there is the oevrarching idea that beings at different level will perceive art and beauty, in its own subjective, distinctive ways. Then even maybe life, the solar system, the universe is art, from a far-enough viewpoint.
This book has more to ponder about, than any answers at all. I read it twice (as i didnt get round to writing a review during the first :p) and found it even deeper the second time.
The illustration and adaptation by the South American author/artist duo were the perfect ingredients for this book to come to life with it's heart touching moments, where story boards spoke louder than words.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 6, 2022
I just finished Liu's The Three-Body Problem and enjoyed it conceptually, so I decided to try his graphic novel series. At first, I was confused when I read the title page for this book since the story, illustration, lettering and coloring are done by different people (none of them being Liu). I suppose he wrote the original short story that inspired the writing of this graphic novel?
Sea of Dreams had a really odd plot with pretty detached characters (this was an issue I had with TBP as well). The art was decent. I think all the volumes in this collection can be read as stand-alones. So I'll likely continue, even though I didn't love this one...
2.5/5 stars
Sea of Dreams had a really odd plot with pretty detached characters (this was an issue I had with TBP as well). The art was decent. I think all the volumes in this collection can be read as stand-alones. So I'll likely continue, even though I didn't love this one...
2.5/5 stars
May 17, 2024
A saddening disappointment.
The Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy is my favorite Sci-Fi from the XXI century. The Wandering Earth Netflix adaption was poorly executed and forgettable in my opinion, but I still had high expectations from this comic by Cixin Liu.
Unfortunately, this ones is also poorly executed. I don't know if there's a proper novel for reference, but the core idea could've been interesting, though a bit derivative, considering the author's other works. The illustrations are nice and vibrant and remind me of Mike Mignola's unmistakable style. The writing, however, is terrible. The story is rushed, with a focus on action and the superiority of the Chinese over the Americans. There is no character development, no details on the science and the implications of the disasters that happens and no depth overall.
The Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy is my favorite Sci-Fi from the XXI century. The Wandering Earth Netflix adaption was poorly executed and forgettable in my opinion, but I still had high expectations from this comic by Cixin Liu.
Unfortunately, this ones is also poorly executed. I don't know if there's a proper novel for reference, but the core idea could've been interesting, though a bit derivative, considering the author's other works. The illustrations are nice and vibrant and remind me of Mike Mignola's unmistakable style. The writing, however, is terrible. The story is rushed, with a focus on action and the superiority of the Chinese over the Americans. There is no character development, no details on the science and the implications of the disasters that happens and no depth overall.
December 23, 2021
This is a very odd work, and I almost gave it a fourth star, but I had trouble with the time frame of the story.
The idea that a genuinely very advanced alien comes to Earth and uses our water supply for a piece of art is fascinating and weird, and the solution to the problem is cool and interesting, but the interval in between felt both too long and too rushed in its portrayal. I honestly felt that there's no way that most of humanity could have survived the gap between the two major parts of the story, as portrayed.
Still, there were some very interesting ideas portrayed in the story, and it made me want to keep turning pages to see what happened next. I will look for other graphic adaptations of Liu Cixin's work.
The idea that a genuinely very advanced alien comes to Earth and uses our water supply for a piece of art is fascinating and weird, and the solution to the problem is cool and interesting, but the interval in between felt both too long and too rushed in its portrayal. I honestly felt that there's no way that most of humanity could have survived the gap between the two major parts of the story, as portrayed.
Still, there were some very interesting ideas portrayed in the story, and it made me want to keep turning pages to see what happened next. I will look for other graphic adaptations of Liu Cixin's work.
December 22, 2021
Better left to the imagination
When I read the story I was so enthralled because picturing how beautiful the alien’s art looked was impossible. And it felt like that was the point.
Also I remember the pacing helping the tension, really making it almost a stressful read.
But here, it’s all kind of laid out for you and wraps up too easily and too quickly.
I don’t usually read graphic novels, but I’m really not a fan of the art style here. I didn’t find it impressive or worth admiring.
I appreciate the work that went into this, but I’d almost say it ruined the experience of reading the actual story, as much as it pains me to say so.
When I read the story I was so enthralled because picturing how beautiful the alien’s art looked was impossible. And it felt like that was the point.
Also I remember the pacing helping the tension, really making it almost a stressful read.
But here, it’s all kind of laid out for you and wraps up too easily and too quickly.
I don’t usually read graphic novels, but I’m really not a fan of the art style here. I didn’t find it impressive or worth admiring.
I appreciate the work that went into this, but I’d almost say it ruined the experience of reading the actual story, as much as it pains me to say so.
May 26, 2021
I'm a huge fan of the Three Body Problem trilogy, and it turns out Liu Cixin is just as fun to read in graphic novel form! I was browsing Shakespeare and Company the other day and somehow they had a copy of this despite it not being released till June 30th? Not sure exactly how that worked out, but I'm not complaining! I loved the old-fashioned, straightforward science fiction feel of this! The story of an alien obsessed with creating art (to the detriment of humanity) felt both simple and original. Can't wait to pick up the next in the series.
July 6, 2022
This graphic novel has shared some interesting points about life and the value we put on different aspects of lit. Like how important art and the creation of art is, but it's value changes when essential parts of survival are in danger. Priorities change base on circumstances.
I really enjoyed that this story left me thinking on a deeper level. Illustrations were stunning. 刘慈欣 Liu Cixin has such a creative and philosophical mind! Wanting to look for more of his books!
I really enjoyed that this story left me thinking on a deeper level. Illustrations were stunning. 刘慈欣 Liu Cixin has such a creative and philosophical mind! Wanting to look for more of his books!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 20, 2022
This is a strong concept with fantastic art work. The more I think about the concept I think about how different it feels. If this story is originally a short story or novel, I feel that there might be more meaning within the prose. I also feel that this is good but not peak Liu Cixin. This is still worth reading in one sitting.
May 11, 2023
Cixin Liu's Sea of Dreams: A Graphic Novel
Having just read Cixin Liu's “The Wandering Earth: A Graphic Novel,” I found “Sea of Dreams” a bit weirder and not as original. It has a Doctor Who vibe which is cool.
“Only art matters. To be able to create a total work of art, immeasurable.”
I agree with the alien entity’s philosophy, but not its arrogance. ***
Having just read Cixin Liu's “The Wandering Earth: A Graphic Novel,” I found “Sea of Dreams” a bit weirder and not as original. It has a Doctor Who vibe which is cool.
“Only art matters. To be able to create a total work of art, immeasurable.”
I agree with the alien entity’s philosophy, but not its arrogance. ***
July 2, 2023
Lui's work is always fascinating. I love the complexity of the Three Body Problem series. However, I don't think it translates well to a graphic novel format. Let alone a translated version of the art.
Add in an art style I did not enjoy. This was a bit of a disappointment. I will not be continuing the series.
Add in an art style I did not enjoy. This was a bit of a disappointment. I will not be continuing the series.
January 9, 2022
I liked this more than The Village Teacher but less than Yuanyuan's Bubbles. The art style in this one was more akin to something you'd find in a horror comic, all scratchy shaggy faces. The moral of the story revolved around the importance of art in sustaining civilisation.
September 18, 2022
In the vein of grounded sci-fi like Arrival, Sea of Dreams introduces a profound, lonely sort of beauty in discussion of unearthly entities and what constitutes art. Wish there were more for a deeper dive, but the foundations of a lovely story are there.
January 26, 2024
The Graphic Novel version has good artwork, but I didn't care for the story adaptation from the original Liu Cixin short story. I'm glad I read the short story first, to fill in what I felt was missing in the graphic novel version dialogue.
September 15, 2021
I only bothered finishing it because it’s short.
October 24, 2021
Weird but interesting! And I liked the messages of the story.
November 12, 2021
Nice to see Art being "raised" to a new level.
December 16, 2021
Good story and pleasing illustrations.
December 27, 2021
really cool and interesting concept, but i feel like i should have just read the short story bc the comic didn't do much for me
January 8, 2022
Wonderful art and an interesting story with an all-powerful alien and art. Love that the main character is Chinese, so it has an interesting take on the world view (esp. from an American reader.)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews