Old Ideas, New Visions

By P. E. Schilling

            Broken Stars is a collection of Chinese science fiction translated by Ken Liu. Sometimes the language style might strike a Western reader as a little strange, but as an avid reader of translated Chinese works, I found those choices consistent with modern Chinese literature generally. Each story comes with an introduction to the author; it wouldn’t surprise most of you to learn most of them have a science background rather than literary training.

            What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear by Baoshu stuck out the most. A few weeks before reading it, I had pondered how to write a story about when the universe hits the end of time and bounces back, rolling up in reverse. I couldn’t think of how to tell the story, because if that happened, we wouldn’t notice, because our minds would be going in reverse, too. Baoshu came about as close as possible to a solution, by having history roll backwards while consciousness still moved forward, apparently unaware history was going backwards. So a young man is growing up and growing old through a Twentieth Century in which China goes from a prosperous if polluted country, to being less and less advanced, through a period of opening up to the Cultural Revolution and then the war with Japan, all the while suffering a tragic love story in which history keeps the lovers apart.

            Ma Boyong’s The Emperor’s First Games is a satirical look at using computer games to shape psychology through the assumptions of the games. Zhang Ran’s The Snow of Jinyang reads at first like a Chinese version of steampunk, but turns out to have a more ambitious technological vision behind it most authors would use for a novel. I shouldn’t skip mentioning that Liu Cixin, who wrote The Three Body Problem, has contributed a story about the futility of trying to change the future by interfering with the past.

            People sometimes tell me cultural differences can make it hard to understand foreign literature, but when I’ve chatted with my Chinese friends about their literature, they seem to think I get the basic idea. I believe when artists dig deep enough, they always find a common humanity that allows Asians to enjoy Jane Austen novels and Haruki Murakami to be a bestseller in the West. And in this volume, it helps the authors are writing science fiction and, like science itself, this often leads to similar themes and structures.  Don’t most science fiction fans love time travel with twist?

And we shouldn’t be surprised some Chinese authors looked across the divide towards us for inspiration. In the early 20^th Century, Chinese literature was revitalized by students studying abroad in Europe. The most celebrated authors of those years used European literary forms to address Chinese issues of sexism and social corruption.

            My main quibble with the collection is the essays at the back. For the most part, they are tedious lists of Chinese novels, authors, publications, and awards, desperately insisting that science fiction literature is cool now. I always thought so, and would have appreciated something a little more insightful.