THE STORY: As the novel opens in the present era, the young Chen sees his parents burnt to death by
ball lightning during an electrical storm.
Ball Lightning is Liu's fourth book in English, the first three having comprised a hard science-fiction trilogy about alien contact and human political struggles among themselves and with the aliens.
Back in my car, I began to realise that what I had witnessed was nothing, but '
ball lightning', a phenomenon that occurred all over the world.
In the area of Earth's scales between charged macroobjects --a thundercloud and Earth--a linear lightning arises, also a kind of the current tube that generates a
ball lightning, which, in turn, can be regarded as a structural unit.
The knots exhibit many of the characteristics of
ball lightning, which some scientists believe to consist of tangled streams of electric currents.
There are reports of
ball lightning destroying whole buildings.
A raft of more earthly explanations included marsh gas igniting, luminous insects, the Aurora Borealis or northern lights which can extend as far down as North Wales, or St Elmo's Fire - a phenomenon in which luminous plasma glows under certain weather conditions, or
ball lightning.
The report also said that
ball lightning - a rare, spherical form of lightning - was seen in the cabin moments before the strike outside.
From questions about
ball lightning and scientific oddities to answers connecting electromagnetic effects with the supernatural, this is an exciting read for any interested in science and new age blends.