Yep, that's it! I'm just blown away by this book (and The Three Body Problem), and really looking forward to the next one in the trilogy.
Along the same technical lines, have you read A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge? I love the idea of "programmer-archeologist" on a 5000 year old spaceship.
No, I haven't, but will definitely check it out. I did finally read Neal Stephenson's Seveneves before I started the Trisolaris Trilogy. I find them excellent at conveying the sense of vastness of space and time and how truly fragile human civilization is. In a way, this Notre Dame tragedy calls up the some of the same helpless (but not hopeless) feeling as reading about the existential dangers faced by humanity in these books.
Along the same technical lines, have you read A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge? I love the idea of "programmer-archeologist" on a 5000 year old spaceship.