Anthology of thirteen Chinese science fiction stories, all appearing in English for the first time. Ni notes in the introduction that "Even the most whimsical and humorous of space-travel stories will tend to end with a melancholic tone, because Chinese stories tend not to have happy endings," and in one story's endnotes, that "In the Chinese language, time is signified by the temporal adverb, so all actions are, without context, in the present."
Unfortunately, the prose comes off in many places as clunky at best and not proofread at worst, so I'm not sure how much to chalk up to the translation. And many of the stories (not only those written by men) were weird about (heteronormative) romance.
That being said, given my gripes with the prose, I did want to give a shoutout to "Qiankun and Alex," by Hao Jingfang, for successfully translating three-year-old speech in a way that makes it clear it's a three-year-old and not just clunky prose.
"What am I learning you?" Alex asks Qiankun.
"That which I don't know," Qiankun replies.
"What do you know?" Alex asks again.
"I know a lot of things," Qiankun replies.
"Show," Alex requests.
The two highlights for me were both on the longer side. "The Great Migration," by Ma Boyong, imagines that Mars' close approach to Earth every two years would culturally become an excuse for lots of travel, even when the technological needs weren't as prevalent. If you can suspend your disbelief at the dysfunctional premise, it's very funny (and based in reality, as Ni mentions in the endnotes, given the huge scale of migrant workers vacationing during Lunar New Year). Ma is also the author of "The First Emperor's Games," which I enjoyed from
Broken Stars.
"They say that during every Great Migration, Olympus gets so overcrowded that Mars tilts a few degrees further on its axis."
"Is that a joke?"
"It's a red planet joke. I guess you haven't red enough to get it," I quipped back.
...
"You never know, apparently the occurence of one night stands increases tenfold during the GM."
"Of course, but the funny thing in this joke is that during the GM, whilst you might be able to find a partner you desire for a perfect one-night stand, you'll be hard pressed to find a room."
(How common is "whilst" in UK English, compared to "while"? I felt like the "whilst" per page count density was out of control, but that might just be my US dialect talking.)
"Flower of the Other Shore," by A Que, is a very humorous, meta, and occasionally fourth-wall breaking story about zombies. The narrator is a zombie, and his "who am I, what am I doing here" amnesia is reminiscent of "Project Hail Mary," in a good way. Zombies lose their powers of speech, but have innate sign-language skills.
Just as we are half fighting with instinct, and half talking nonsense, the thin man who was bitten gets to his feet, his body rigid, and starts charging towards the crowd: eyes blood-red, teeth bared. The blood from the wound on his throat has already darkened and begun to congeal.
"Hello, I'm new," he signals to me in a friendly manner. "What are the rules on this side?"
"Don't run in front of a--" I begin warning, but before I can finish signing "gun", the barrel of a Gatling gun sweeps towards him, its stream of high caliber rounds tearing him into two.
Spoilers: our narrator is not like other zombies.
"Shut your mouth!" the captain roars at me.
But I couldn't. "You don't understand, when you lose something for so long and finally get it back, you cherish it even more, like love and health, like your voice. When I became a Stiff, the first part of my body to go permanently stiff was--don't look at me like that, I mean my vocal cords. Rigor mortis set in, and I could only talk with hand signals. But the voice is a gift of gods, the cry of beasts, the chirping of birds, the rustle of the wind and the splash of waves of the sea, each with their own music. Besides, if I want to be with someone, I can actually tell her that I love her, and oh, Captain, has anyone ever told you they loved you? Ah...ah, judging by your face, that's a no.... doesn't matter, doesn't matter, there's still time, before you become a Stiff too... Don't hit me! Don't hit me!..."
Bingo: Translated, 5+ Short Stories, Author of Color, does One-Word Title count if there's a subtitle? "Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firebatvillain posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sufficiently_advanced_ex
![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
