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    Broken Stars
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    Broken Stars
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    Broken Stars
    Ebook571 pages7 hours

    Broken Stars

    By Head of Zeus

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A new anthology of Chinese short-fiction by award winning author Ken Liu.

    Here are sixteen short stories from China's groundbreaking SFF 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 SFF publishing, contemporary Chinese fandom, and how the growing interest in Chinese SFF 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.

    'Dreamlike and hypnotic, evocative and inspiring' THE BOOKBAG.

    'Ken Liu is a genius' ELIZABETH BEAR.

    'An instant classic... Poetry on every page' HUGH HOWEY.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHead of Zeus
    Release dateFeb 1, 2019
    ISBN9781788548090
    Unavailable
    Broken Stars

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    Reviews for Broken Stars

    4/5

    36 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This second volume of contemporary Chinese sci-fi short stories translated by Ken Liu, Broken Stars, equals his first, Invisible Planets, in quality and diversity. Liu is an American award-winning author who has gifted us with these translations. Readers may want to start with the three non-fiction essays at the end of the book to get a view of what sci-fi is like in China historically and today.With any collection of short stories, readers will find that some stories have more appeal than others. I mention here the ones I found especially noteworthy. I must make clear that some of the stories would be better labeled “speculative fiction” because they don’t really fit into a narrower definition of science fiction as requiring some science component.The Chinese like to play with time in different ways. One of my favorites was Baoshu’s “What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear.” Our protagonist grows older but instead of going forward in time, he travels backward, giving readers an opportunity to experience significant events in China’s past 75 years of so. Well-known author Liu Cixin follows one man who is contacted three separate times by his future selves. The future selves need help solving climate change problems. Hao Jingfang’s “The New Year Train” tells the story of some train passengers who get to enjoy the ride without worry about being late because they are caught in a time warp.A couple of stories are quite horrifying, including the title story, “Broken Stars” by Tang Fei, and Chen Qiufan’s “A History of Future Illnesses.” Others are sweetly sad such as Xia Jia’s “Goodnight Melancholy” about Alan Turning’s personal relationship with his computer. A favorite was Anna Wu’s “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Laba Porridge” that carried the very clear message: Be careful what you wish for!This book is lengthy, nearly 500 pages, with a selection of stories that will give readers a chance to not only enjoy Chinese sci-fi/speculative fiction, but also to learn more about China.
    • 4/5
      My first dip into Chinese Science Fiction and I thoroughly enjoyed this anthology. “What shall pass in kinder appear” was so I touched by this story it pulled all my heart string. There are stories that makes you think a lot about our current situations especially of our dependency on technology. I will definitely be on the look for more Chinese Science Fiction.
    • 4/5
      Dystopian fiction is always a bit frustrating, possibly because, as a depressive, it mirrors the way I catastrophise stupid little problems. I know that that impulse is irrational, so it's weird for an author to essentially explain why it isn't. Too often, dystopian fiction is anti-technology, relying on very conservative, slippery-slope logic. We invent x thing, and years later, society is a trainwreck and we're supposed to blame the invention, rather than the litany of terrible decisions that would have to have been made since its invention. I'm glad that this trend seems to be dying out in fiction, tbh, and that how we actually get to a bad place is seen as worth exploring, rather than just taking as read. Of course, the problem in fiction is that, from a narrative perspective, a utopia doesn't seem particularly interesting. Stories rely on conflict, and utopian societies seek to reduce the need for or the impact of such conflicts. So a writer sitting down to write a story probably prefers an environment and a society that can throw up obstacles, rather than one that tries not to.Still, it can work. Star Trek's Federation, and Iain M Banks' Culture, have managed to stay honest-to-goodness utopias over the course of multiple stories, without having to crumble just for the sake of creating conflict. Most of their conflict comes from outside the utopia - and there is always an outside to any utopia, of course. But mainly they are not technophobic. They are utopias because they rely upon and trust in technology, rather than demonising it because of how someone might use it.I think it's telling that the blame for dystopia is so often laid on technology, because if history tells us anything, it's that fascistic and totalitarian societies have been able to force people into submission with nothing more advanced or high-tech than manpower and bits of paper. Star Trek even nods to this - the Cardassians are noted for their filing, something that seems weirdly quaint in a universe of supercomputers. The technology is not the problem - it's the people and their drives.In the same way that dystopias don't speak to "us", neither do utopias. The pronoun "we" can only ever include some of us - hopefully even "many people", as some of the writers in this Chinese anthology say. What it really all comes down to is "caring about strangers", whether that means other living people who are different from us or people who haven't been born yet, but too few of those with the power to change things - also part of the "we" - are encouraging us to do any such thing. Hence all the dystopias.Of course, every generation gets the utopia or dystopia it deserves, be it coming from China or coming from any other Western country.
    • 4/5
      This is a fascinating anthology, with a wide-ranging selection of beautifully written stories. Well recommended.It doesn't get five stars, because, despite having finished it in the last few days, I can tell you nothing about the stories. The essays about the state of SF in China would need a few more readings before I hope to remember even half the detail, but they are a much appreciated detail.