Broken Stars
Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation
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3.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST ANTHOLOGY
Sixteen short stories from China's groundbreaking science fiction writers, edited and translated by award-winning author Ken Liu.
In Hugo award-winner Liu Cixin's ‘Moonlight,’ a man is contacted by three future versions of himself, each trying to save their world from destruction. Hao Jingfang’s ‘The New Year Train’ sees 1,500 passengers go missing on a train that vanishes into space. In the title story by Tang Fei, a young girl is shown how the stars can reveal the future.
In addition, three essays explore the history and rise of Chinese science fiction publishing, contemporary Chinese fandom, and how the growing interest in Chinese SF has impacted writers who had long laboured in obscurity.
By turns dazzling, melancholy and thought-provoking, Broken Stars celebrates the vibrancy and diversity of SFF voices emerging from China.
Stories include:
“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 Baoshu
“The New Year Train” by Hao Jingfang
“The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales” by Fei Dao
“Moonlight” by Liu Cixin
“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
Essays:
“A Brief Introduction to Chinese Science Fiction and Fandom,” by Regina Kanyu Wang,
“A New Continent for China Scholars: Chinese Science Fiction Studies” by Mingwei Song
“Science Fiction: Embarrassing No More” by Fei Dao
For more Chinese SF in translation, check out Invisible Planets.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this rewarding anthology, Liu continues the objective he pursued in Invisible Planets (2016), introducing readers to 16 contemporary science fiction stories translated from the Chinese, seven for the first time. Selections range in tone from the whimsicality of Chen Qiufan's "Coming of the Light," about an advertising firm whose campaign to merge technology with religion goes awry, to the poignant drama of Xia Jia's "Goodnight, Melancholy," a meditation on what it means to be human that's inspired by AI research and the computation experiments of Alan Turing. The book's most provocative stories offer variations on the time travel theme. In Liu Cixin's "Moonlight," a scientist gets phone calls from his future self proposing solutions to contemporary environmental problems that have become apocalyptic in the future, while Baoshu's ingenious "What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear" concerns a man who lives the real historical events of China's past century backwards, and Zhang Ran's "The Snow of Jinyang" introduces a time traveler who steampunks the world of 10th-century China. Three essays on Chinese science fiction's history and development further enlighten Western readers, who will be very excited by these outstanding works.
Customer Reviews
Second Survey of Chinese Science Fiction by Ken Liu
“Broken Stars” the second anthology surveying contemporary Chinese Science Fiction by author and translator Ken Liu. It includes Hugo Award winning authors like Cixin Liu and Hao Jingfang. It also includes other stories selected by Ken Liu to illustrate the current range of science fiction in China. Like many anthologies that undertake to survey a type of fiction, some stories will be more to the reader's taste than others.
There are forwards which introduce each author and their work, which is very useful to western readers. In addition there are three essays in the back of the book which provide perspectives on the history and current state of science fiction in China.
I thought this volume was a bit more uneven that its predecessor, “Invisible Planets.” It tries to include a wider variety of stories, and some of these were not as approachable to me at least. However, they were interesting to try to figure out.