[2] "The Village Teacher" inspired the movie Crazy Alien (Chinese: 疯狂的外星人 / 瘋狂的外星人, Pinyin: fēngkuáng de wài xīng rén) by director Ning Hao,[3] shot from 26 July 2017 to 9 December 2017 in Qingdao in Shandong Province and released in Mainland China on 5 February 2019.

Paul Di Filippo, writing in the Locus Magazine, thinks that the collection "continues to provide the same pleasures found in his [Liu Cixin's] award-winning novels: the simultaneous honoring and detournement of classic SF tropes, as filtered through a distinctly non-Western worldview and a quirky set of personal sensibilities."

"[4] Rachel Cordasco, writing for World Literature Today, says that "Liu is interested in how large swathes of time can help humans think about the future of our species and planet."

"[5] Nicole Beck, writing in Strange Horizons, states the collection explored "that a human can have an effect on things larger than her comprehension—yet they never cease to remind the reader of how small we really are."

She continues that "this writing is not for the faint of heart" since "Liu will test the limits of the reader's imagination" and that "he plays fair in the sense that his special effects are earned.