Invisible
Planets was one of the bright
spots among speculative fiction anthologies and collections in 2017.
Ken Liu bringing together a sampler of Chinese science fiction from
some of its most popular writers, the effort was apparently a success
beyond this blog as Liu re-upped for an informal sequel, expanding
the West’s view into Chinese short stories with a broader spectrum
of content in 2019’s Broken
Stars.
A treatise
on AI, particularly the Turing test which could help identify the
break from robot intelligence, “Goodnight, Melancholy” by Xia Jia
tells a wonderfully fragmented story that gets a bit heavy-handed
with its Turing education, but rights itself the further it goes with
a more subtle, indirect, and intelligent manner of presenting the
subjectivity in the test, as it relates to a woman in the near-future
possessing a kind of android-ish thing. Part of the Turing test
based on human perception, Xia nicely gives the reader a chance to do
the same.
An
ambitious story that largely fills its boots, “Broken Stars” by
Tang Fei tells of a high school girl from a semi-broken home, and the
supernatural, science fiction-y backdrop that redeems her situation.
Two brief, abstract stories by Han Song are featured in the
anthology: “Submarines” and “Salinger and the Koreans”. Both
obliquely political in nature, the first looks at China’s mass
internal emigrations with a magic realist spin, while the second
looks at the intentions of North Korea’s political agenda through
the lens of The Catcher in the
Rye—including all of the
socio-personal baggage that comes with the novel. Science fantasy in
a positive way, “Under a Dangling Sky” by Cheng Jingbo looks at a
world not of our own that gives no hoots about which bookshelf it
fall upon in a bookstore—interplanetary myth just as much as
secondary world colonization. Maintaining a distance from extensive
detail, this story of a young woman has a loose, dynamic atmosphere
as a result, even if the ending seems relevant only to the world
built.
While not
artfully written, “Moonlight” by Liu Cixin is an interesting
piece that transcends the science in science fiction. Ostensibly
about a man who is contacted by his future self with ideas that will
change humanity’s course to avoid a certain type of environmental
downfall, the story only goes unpredictably from there. Where Liu
could have gone utopianist, instead he takes the broader view—making
the story all the more interesting for it. A brief piece on the
dangers of introducing new technology on the market, “The New Year
Train” by Hao Jingfang is told through the lens (no pun intended)
of a reporter interviewing the owner of a new train line that has
been lost in the space-time continuum.
A
hilariously insightful combination of Chinese history and video
games, “The First Emperor's Games” by Ma Boyong supposes that an
ancient Chinese emperor had access to games like The
Sims, Civilization,
etc.—games that test the players ability to build a stable and
happy populace. The emperor naturally perceiving the games to be
flawed in some way given the rules for “winning”, Ma undermines
the logic of of some leaders while highlighting an interesting aspect
of modern games. A take on Adams’ The
Restaurant at the End of the Universe,
Anna Wu’s “Laba Porridge” version is a delightfully quotidian
look at the “origin” of said meal, yet told in a way possible
only in science fiction. A romance story shot through with the
backwards arrow of Chinese history, “What Has Passed Shall in
Kinder Light Appear” by Bao Shu tells the life story of a man as he
lives the major events of the past century of Chinese history in
reverse. Melodrama made even more maudlin by the historical
backdrops, it attempts to be political by tugging on the heart
strings.
About a
new piece of technology that allows people to see into the final five
minutes of a person’s thoughts before they died, “The Brain Box”
by Regina Kanyu Wang gives one widowed husband everything he wanted,
but perhaps not in form upon her untimely death. Looking at the
morality of mobile app development and the inherent predatory nature
of much of it, Chen Qiufan’s “Coming of the Light” sees an app
developer go full ethical circle when the app his company develops to
enhance karma takes a bad public turn. Chen entirely switching gears
structurally but not morally, “A History of Future Illnesses”
portends to be a medical reference, highlighting a handful of
interesting but disturbing social and psychological “illnesses”
that develop in the future. Recognizable but esoteric in nature,
Chen walks a fine line between the obvious and insightful, resulting
in an engaging read.
Closing
the anthology are three essays—three vectors into—the history and
state of science fiction in China. From historical exposition to
anecdotes (with a little hero worship thrown in) about early fan
conventions, the three essays shed some light onto what the term has
meant in China, and what it might mean today. Not intended to be
incisive, they provide a broad overview, giving readers many places
to jump off if they want to learn more. (Though, I had to laugh for a
moment reading that a fanzine had a peak distribution of 1,200 people
considering China has 1.4 billion…)
In the
end, Broken Stars
is another solid collection of Chinese sf translated into English.
The title doesn’t seem to work with all of the anthology, and Liu
again plays the “don’t read
these stories as Chinese” card
with one hand, even as the other hand writes the opposite, but
regardless, the quality of the stories generally speaks for itself.
Some are traditional sf stories regardless of country of origin (see
Liu Cixin, Hao Jinfang, and Regina Kanyu Wang’s entries), some are
more abstract in combining metaphor and reality (see Han Song and
Zhang Ran’s), some are character stories (see Xia Jia and Tang
Fei’s) some have roots in cultural specifics (see Anna Wu’s), and
some have a fun poke at Chinese history (see Bao Shu and Ma
Boyong’s). For reasons I can’t put my finger precisely,
Invisible Planets
still strikes me as the stronger anthology, perhaps only slightly.
But for certain Broken Stars is the broader ranging. Along with
including a larger number of authors, there is likewise a wider
number of styles and approaches, which is engaging in its own right.
The
following are the sixteen stories and three essays collected in
Broken Stars:
Goodnight,
Melancholy by Xia Jia
The Snow
of Jinyang by Zhang Ran
Broken
Stars by Tang Fei
Submarines
by Han Song
Salinger
and the Koreans by Han Song
Under a
Dangling Sky by Cheng Jingbo
What Has
Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear by Bao Shu
The New
Year Train by Hao Jingfang
The Robot
Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales by Fei Dao
Moonlight
by Cixin Liu
The
Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Laba Porridge by Anna Wu
The First
Emperor's Games by Ma Boyong
Reflection
by Gu Shi
The Brain
Box by Regina Kanyu Wang
Coming of
the Light by Chen Qiufan
A History
of Future Illnesses by Chen Qiufan
Essay:
A Brief Introduction to Chinese Science Fiction and Fandom by Regina
Kanyu Wang
Essay:
A New Continent for China Scholars: Chinese Science Fiction Studies
by Mingwei Song
Essay:
Science Fiction: Embarrassing No More by Fei Dao
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