The Supernova Era

by Liu Cixin

It wasn’t long before the children were tired of playing. They learned that nothing in the world was fun forever, nothing was eternally delicious, and when everything was easily attainable, it quickly lost all flavor. The children were tired, and gradually, the games and feasts turned into a type of work. And they didn’t want to work. Three days later, the child army entered the city with the task of protecting state assets. Food and other life necessities had to be divvied up according to actual needs, and a stop was put to profligate indulgence. The situation was brought under control more easily than anticipated, without erupting into large-scale bloodshed. But subsequent events did not improve in the way that the young leaders had hoped. Every development in the children’s world revealed a new, strange face entirely beyond the imagining of the adults in the Common Era. The Candytown period entered its second phase: Slumbertime.