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Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation
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.
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.
480 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2019
About the author
Ken Liu
438 books20.7k followersKen Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an American author of speculative fiction. He has won the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, as well as top genre honors in Japan, Spain, and France, among other places.
Ken's debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers play the role of wizards. His debut collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker.
He has been involved in multiple media adaptations of his work. The most recent projects include “The Message,” under development by 21 Laps and FilmNation Entertainment; “Good Hunting,” adapted as an episode of Netflix's breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC's Pantheon, which Craig Silverstein will executive produce, adapted from an interconnected series of short stories by Ken.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Ken worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Ken frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, the mathematics of origami, and other subjects of his expertise.
Ken is also the translator for Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds, Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide, as well as the editor of Invisible Planets and Broken Stars, anthologies of contemporary Chinese science fiction.
He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
Ken's debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers play the role of wizards. His debut collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker.
He has been involved in multiple media adaptations of his work. The most recent projects include “The Message,” under development by 21 Laps and FilmNation Entertainment; “Good Hunting,” adapted as an episode of Netflix's breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC's Pantheon, which Craig Silverstein will executive produce, adapted from an interconnected series of short stories by Ken.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Ken worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Ken frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, the mathematics of origami, and other subjects of his expertise.
Ken is also the translator for Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds, Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide, as well as the editor of Invisible Planets and Broken Stars, anthologies of contemporary Chinese science fiction.
He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 391 reviews
October 2, 2021
En esta antología Ken Liu traduce y presenta dieciséis relatos escritos por catorce autores chinos atendiendo a su gusto personal, y ofrece una buena visión del panorama de la ciencia ficción china actual.
Son unos relatos de muy variada temática, que resultan originales, variados y entretenidos. Algunos excelentes y cautivadores, otros menos interesantes, pero todos ellos meritorios. Me ha parecido un volumen coherente y equilibrado.
Los relatos que más me han gustado son "Buenas noches, melancolía" de Xia Jia, "Luz de luna" de Liu Cixin, "Los juegos del Primer Emperador" de Ma Boyong y sobre todo "Bajo una luz más halagüeña lo que ha pasado verás" de Baoshu.
La antología añade tres ensayos sobre el auge de la ciencia ficción en China y su devenir a través de la Historia. Muy interesantes.
Muy buena lectura.
Son unos relatos de muy variada temática, que resultan originales, variados y entretenidos. Algunos excelentes y cautivadores, otros menos interesantes, pero todos ellos meritorios. Me ha parecido un volumen coherente y equilibrado.
Los relatos que más me han gustado son "Buenas noches, melancolía" de Xia Jia, "Luz de luna" de Liu Cixin, "Los juegos del Primer Emperador" de Ma Boyong y sobre todo "Bajo una luz más halagüeña lo que ha pasado verás" de Baoshu.
La antología añade tres ensayos sobre el auge de la ciencia ficción en China y su devenir a través de la Historia. Muy interesantes.
Muy buena lectura.
April 10, 2019
Ken Liu openly states in his introduction that these stories are selected based on his tastes. There is a variety of some known Chinese science fiction writers, and some new voices. Most of them were new to me as I'm woefully behind on books like the Three Body Problem, among others. There is also an earlier volume of Chinese science fiction in translation that is probably worth the read.
Not only are there stories in this anthology, but three essays about the current state of Chinese science fiction. I was fascinated to find out that contemporary acceptance of the genre in its home country is very recent, as the genre was widely disregarded up until just a few years ago (and I'm guessing not everyone is on board yet.)
There are some stories focusing on technology in this anthology, but honestly not as many as I would have expected if I'd had to guess. Many are time travel or have time travel components, or are taking a part of known Chinese history and tweaking it, falling almost to alternate history, although sometimes these elements are merely the backdrop. This means you will enjoy the stories even more if you know about Chinese history and aren't just reading them cold. One story had a connection to a well-loved British science fiction novel, a reference even I understood.
I did like how for the most part, these are not just copies or versions of stories from the west. These are inherently Chinese, and I'm so glad to see more of this type of work being translated into English.
Length wise I felt there were too many on the novelette length size, with different numbered sections. Ken Liu must like his stories a bit longer.
Thanks to the publisher for providing access to the title through Edelweiss, even though it took me a while to get to. The collection came out in February 2019.
Not only are there stories in this anthology, but three essays about the current state of Chinese science fiction. I was fascinated to find out that contemporary acceptance of the genre in its home country is very recent, as the genre was widely disregarded up until just a few years ago (and I'm guessing not everyone is on board yet.)
There are some stories focusing on technology in this anthology, but honestly not as many as I would have expected if I'd had to guess. Many are time travel or have time travel components, or are taking a part of known Chinese history and tweaking it, falling almost to alternate history, although sometimes these elements are merely the backdrop. This means you will enjoy the stories even more if you know about Chinese history and aren't just reading them cold. One story had a connection to a well-loved British science fiction novel, a reference even I understood.
I did like how for the most part, these are not just copies or versions of stories from the west. These are inherently Chinese, and I'm so glad to see more of this type of work being translated into English.
Length wise I felt there were too many on the novelette length size, with different numbered sections. Ken Liu must like his stories a bit longer.
Thanks to the publisher for providing access to the title through Edelweiss, even though it took me a while to get to. The collection came out in February 2019.
May 17, 2019
Favorite stories:
"Goodnight, Melancholy" by Xia Jia (a reread for me, I enjoyed it even more the second time)
"What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear" by Baoshu (it's a love story where historical events run backwards, and it made me cry)
"The First Emperor's Games" by Ma Boyong (a ton of fun and kind of similar in concept to "The Snow of Jinyang", but worked better because it was short)
My rating is probably more accurately 3.5 stars, if I average out what I would rate each story. There are two lengthy stories in the middle - "The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales" and "The Snow of Jinyang" - that I simply did not find interesting. I tried reading both when they were first published in Clarkesworld, and ended up skim-reading them then and again this time. I felt like they were too long.
I was also a little thrown off by "Broken Stars" by Tang Fei - somehow it started off with a girl in school and struggling with friendships, then ended in insanity, death, and forced cannibalism. Uh....
I also loved the first essay, "A Brief Introduction to Chinese Science Fiction and Fandom" by Regina Kanyu Wang. I read parts of this a while ago when it was published in Mithila Review, and reread the whole thing this time. It was very informative!
Overall, I love that we're getting more translated SFF and Ken Liu's translation work and rate of output has simply been amazing over the past few years. Even if I don't love all the stories, I really appreciate that I get to read them and see another side to SFF. Hopefully there will be a third anthology in a few years!
"Goodnight, Melancholy" by Xia Jia (a reread for me, I enjoyed it even more the second time)
"What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear" by Baoshu (it's a love story where historical events run backwards, and it made me cry)
"The First Emperor's Games" by Ma Boyong (a ton of fun and kind of similar in concept to "The Snow of Jinyang", but worked better because it was short)
My rating is probably more accurately 3.5 stars, if I average out what I would rate each story. There are two lengthy stories in the middle - "The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales" and "The Snow of Jinyang" - that I simply did not find interesting. I tried reading both when they were first published in Clarkesworld, and ended up skim-reading them then and again this time. I felt like they were too long.
I was also a little thrown off by "Broken Stars" by Tang Fei - somehow it started off with a girl in school and struggling with friendships, then ended in insanity, death, and forced cannibalism. Uh....
I also loved the first essay, "A Brief Introduction to Chinese Science Fiction and Fandom" by Regina Kanyu Wang. I read parts of this a while ago when it was published in Mithila Review, and reread the whole thing this time. It was very informative!
Overall, I love that we're getting more translated SFF and Ken Liu's translation work and rate of output has simply been amazing over the past few years. Even if I don't love all the stories, I really appreciate that I get to read them and see another side to SFF. Hopefully there will be a third anthology in a few years!
July 11, 2019
Great collection of stories, more in the speculative fiction range than sci-fi, all of them with original ideas and fine writing.
Also, the three essays at the end are a very informative and interesting journey in the origins and history of Chinese science fiction literature.
Here's one thing: "the first text in the science fiction genre can be found [in China] as early as 450 BC to 375 BC". Who would have thought that someone from that age had been thinking about automatons...
To my shame, except Liu Cixin and a few others, I don't seem to be able to recall the writers' names without looking for them. But what I can tell for sure is that all have unique voices and interesting subjects. Most of them are quite depressing but so beautiful written. And I incline to believe that Ken Liu's wonderful job in translating them is part of the beauty of the stories.
Highly recommended.
Also, the three essays at the end are a very informative and interesting journey in the origins and history of Chinese science fiction literature.
Here's one thing: "the first text in the science fiction genre can be found [in China] as early as 450 BC to 375 BC". Who would have thought that someone from that age had been thinking about automatons...
To my shame, except Liu Cixin and a few others, I don't seem to be able to recall the writers' names without looking for them. But what I can tell for sure is that all have unique voices and interesting subjects. Most of them are quite depressing but so beautiful written. And I incline to believe that Ken Liu's wonderful job in translating them is part of the beauty of the stories.
Highly recommended.
May 1, 2020
This is Ken Liu's second collection of contemporary science fiction after Invisible Planets and it is a great read. There is a wide variety of styles and lots of female authors. I hope some more of their longer work gets translated into English. Makes me want to go back and re-read The Three Body Problem and I grabbed a Kindle version of Waste Tide as well!
November 30, 2020
If you look back to my review of
Invisible Planets
, I praised Ken Liu for bringing more Chinese SFF to Western audiences after the flashbulb-debut of Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past and delighted in the seven writers' works he'd selected for the collection. Going into Broken Stars I was hoping it would hit some of the highs of the first collection--Folding Beijing still sticks with me!--and introduce some new voices. Liu certainly went bigger on this one: we've got a higher page count, twice the number of authors, and a wider variety of stories.
As is my experience with most short story collections, I rarely love a everything the whole way through. If there's going to be ups and downs in a collection from a single author, you can bet that most anthologies are going to take an even more tumultuous ride. Indeed, that's the case with Broken Stars which was a little disappointing when held next to Invisible Planets. As you can tell by the almost five months it took me to get through the collection, I was never compelled to return to the stories for more than half of the read.
Luckily, to my tastes, some of the later stories were terrific: both Chen Qiufan stories were superbly dark, Ma Boyong's The Emperor's First Games was cute, and Anna Wu's recurring restaurant story parlour had me looking for more. Baoshu, too, comes through with What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear a sci-fi story that imagines Chinese history happening in reverse, and redeems him in my mind after the execrable The Redemption of Time . Some of the other novellas and short stories bored me with their ideas or execution, and it's a shame that they make up almost half of the collection.
In his introduction, the unstoppable Ken Liu talks about Invisible Planets being curated to suit a general audience, while Broken Stars hews more to Liu's personal taste. This means we get samples of genres unique to Chinese SFF. For instance, chuanyue time travel stories send a modern person back in time to engage in court intrigue with advanced technical knowledge. Some of the stories here worked better for me than others, but I do appreciate seeing the wide variety of style and genre that's out there. Indeed, a space opera like Liu Cixin's would have been unimaginable to me before I read it, but is now a personal benchmark for SFF.
In the end, I think readers' experience with this collection will be like my own: variable. If you're a SFF fan, you'll definitely find something that scratches an itch or a story that presents interesting new ideas. I was never taken aback by stunning writing, but it was seldom that I noticed particularly bad writing either. I'm kind of hoping this isn't the last instalment in this series as I'd love to dig into more contemporary Chinese SFF without committing to some of the novel-length translations Liu's been pumping out.
Really though, I'm excited to move on to a short story collection that's nothing like this. It's time for a bit of fresh air!
As is my experience with most short story collections, I rarely love a everything the whole way through. If there's going to be ups and downs in a collection from a single author, you can bet that most anthologies are going to take an even more tumultuous ride. Indeed, that's the case with Broken Stars which was a little disappointing when held next to Invisible Planets. As you can tell by the almost five months it took me to get through the collection, I was never compelled to return to the stories for more than half of the read.
Luckily, to my tastes, some of the later stories were terrific: both Chen Qiufan stories were superbly dark, Ma Boyong's The Emperor's First Games was cute, and Anna Wu's recurring restaurant story parlour had me looking for more. Baoshu, too, comes through with What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear a sci-fi story that imagines Chinese history happening in reverse, and redeems him in my mind after the execrable The Redemption of Time . Some of the other novellas and short stories bored me with their ideas or execution, and it's a shame that they make up almost half of the collection.
In his introduction, the unstoppable Ken Liu talks about Invisible Planets being curated to suit a general audience, while Broken Stars hews more to Liu's personal taste. This means we get samples of genres unique to Chinese SFF. For instance, chuanyue time travel stories send a modern person back in time to engage in court intrigue with advanced technical knowledge. Some of the stories here worked better for me than others, but I do appreciate seeing the wide variety of style and genre that's out there. Indeed, a space opera like Liu Cixin's would have been unimaginable to me before I read it, but is now a personal benchmark for SFF.
In the end, I think readers' experience with this collection will be like my own: variable. If you're a SFF fan, you'll definitely find something that scratches an itch or a story that presents interesting new ideas. I was never taken aback by stunning writing, but it was seldom that I noticed particularly bad writing either. I'm kind of hoping this isn't the last instalment in this series as I'd love to dig into more contemporary Chinese SFF without committing to some of the novel-length translations Liu's been pumping out.
Really though, I'm excited to move on to a short story collection that's nothing like this. It's time for a bit of fresh air!
May 25, 2020
A wonderfully diverse (and wonderfully translated) anthology. Highly recommended.
My impressions of the individual stories are here:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
My impressions of the individual stories are here:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
March 20, 2023
«Estrellas rotas» es la segunda antología de ciencia ficción china contemporánea editada por Ken Liu. En ella vamos a encontrar 16 relatos de diferentes autoras y autores chinos; algunos ya conocidos gracias a «Planetas invisibles» o a otras novelas publicadas, pero también descubriremos nuevas voces.
Como ya me sucedió con «Planetas invisibles», he disfrutado muchísimo de esta nueva colección de cuentos. No sé qué tiene la ciencia ficción que nos llega de China que me atrae una barbaridad y me aporta mucho como lectora. Como en cualquier antología, ha habido relatos que me han resultado magistrales y otros que me han dejado muy fría, pero la sensación final es de haber leído algo sobresaliente.
Los 16 cuentos constituyen una mezcla heterogénea y representativa de lo que se está escribiendo dentro del género en China. Son todos muy diferentes entre sí y abordan todo tipo de temáticas; también hay algunos que serían inclasificables, como ya comenta el editor en los prefacios. Para mí destacan también por su originalidad y por tener ese punto que los vuelve irresistibles y cautivadores.
Como en la primera antología, también vamos a encontrar 3 ensayos que nos ayudarán a ponernos en contexto sobre la evolución del género en el país y como cada vez cobra más relevancia dentro de su literatura. Esto hace que el libro sea todavía más interesante.
Siempre me gusta destacar mis favoritos que en este caso han sido: «Buenas noches, melancolía», «Luz de luna», «Bajo una luz más halagüeña lo que ha pasado verás», «El tren de Año Nuevo» y «Reflejo».
Obviamente, recomiendo muchísimo estas dos antologías; tanto para descubrir la ciencia ficción china (es una magnífica puerta de entrada) como para todos aquellos que amamos el género.
Como ya me sucedió con «Planetas invisibles», he disfrutado muchísimo de esta nueva colección de cuentos. No sé qué tiene la ciencia ficción que nos llega de China que me atrae una barbaridad y me aporta mucho como lectora. Como en cualquier antología, ha habido relatos que me han resultado magistrales y otros que me han dejado muy fría, pero la sensación final es de haber leído algo sobresaliente.
Los 16 cuentos constituyen una mezcla heterogénea y representativa de lo que se está escribiendo dentro del género en China. Son todos muy diferentes entre sí y abordan todo tipo de temáticas; también hay algunos que serían inclasificables, como ya comenta el editor en los prefacios. Para mí destacan también por su originalidad y por tener ese punto que los vuelve irresistibles y cautivadores.
Como en la primera antología, también vamos a encontrar 3 ensayos que nos ayudarán a ponernos en contexto sobre la evolución del género en el país y como cada vez cobra más relevancia dentro de su literatura. Esto hace que el libro sea todavía más interesante.
Siempre me gusta destacar mis favoritos que en este caso han sido: «Buenas noches, melancolía», «Luz de luna», «Bajo una luz más halagüeña lo que ha pasado verás», «El tren de Año Nuevo» y «Reflejo».
Obviamente, recomiendo muchísimo estas dos antologías; tanto para descubrir la ciencia ficción china (es una magnífica puerta de entrada) como para todos aquellos que amamos el género.
February 1, 2020
Ah, Ken Liu, I guess our taste differs this time. I enjoyed Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation more than this one. The stories in there are more touching. This one felt a bit more distant, and I am not sure why there are stories with so many Western pop culture references in there. Good effort, nonetheless.
The highlights from this anthology for me:
"Goodnight, Melancholy" by Xia Jia
Any AI/robot fans need to read this. Hands down, Xia Jia, you are one of the best short fiction writers in my book.
"Moonlight" by Liu Cixin
Amusing what-ifs. Going straight to my Hugo ballot, this one is.
"What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear" by Baoshu
The reverse time arrow idea might not be original, but the way it was stitched together still makes it endearing.
"Coming of the Light" and "A History of Future Illnesses" by Chen Qiufan
These are two separate stories but both have the same somewhat disturbing, often droll and very possible scenarios in our tech-laden and device-dependent world.
There are three essays at the end and I absolutely enjoyed the first one: "A Brief Introduction to Chinese Science Fiction and Fandom" by Regina Kanyu Wang. I did not know there were quite a few established SF magazines and at least two SF organizations with regular cons as well as various clubs in China. We barely have one club in Indonesia (that I know).
The highlights from this anthology for me:
"Goodnight, Melancholy" by Xia Jia
Any AI/robot fans need to read this. Hands down, Xia Jia, you are one of the best short fiction writers in my book.
"Moonlight" by Liu Cixin
Amusing what-ifs. Going straight to my Hugo ballot, this one is.
"What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear" by Baoshu
The reverse time arrow idea might not be original, but the way it was stitched together still makes it endearing.
"Coming of the Light" and "A History of Future Illnesses" by Chen Qiufan
These are two separate stories but both have the same somewhat disturbing, often droll and very possible scenarios in our tech-laden and device-dependent world.
There are three essays at the end and I absolutely enjoyed the first one: "A Brief Introduction to Chinese Science Fiction and Fandom" by Regina Kanyu Wang. I did not know there were quite a few established SF magazines and at least two SF organizations with regular cons as well as various clubs in China. We barely have one club in Indonesia (that I know).
May 25, 2021
Segunda antología de relatos de autores chinos editada por Ken Liu. Ya Planetas Invisibles me gustó, aunque noté algún que otro altibajo en los relatos, no todos me gustaron, aunque la inmensa mayoría sí. Tardé en ponerme con Estrellas Rotas porque coincidió que todas las reseñas que había leído coincidían en que era un poco más flojito que su predecesor... No ha sido mi impresión. Me ha gustado incluso más que Planetas Invisibles.
Si tengo que destacar alguno, me quedaría con "Luz de luna" de Cixin Liu, "Bajo una luz más halagüena lo que ha pasado verás" de Baoshu, "Reflejo" de Gu Shi y "Los juegos del primer emperador" de Ma Boyong, que me ha sacado unas cuantas carcajadas.
Aunque, como ya he dicho, todos me han gustado en mayor o menor medida, y siento que hay más consistencia entre relatos que en Planetas Invisibles.
Si tengo que destacar alguno, me quedaría con "Luz de luna" de Cixin Liu, "Bajo una luz más halagüena lo que ha pasado verás" de Baoshu, "Reflejo" de Gu Shi y "Los juegos del primer emperador" de Ma Boyong, que me ha sacado unas cuantas carcajadas.
Aunque, como ya he dicho, todos me han gustado en mayor o menor medida, y siento que hay más consistencia entre relatos que en Planetas Invisibles.
September 20, 2020
7/10
He dudado bastante entre 3 y 4 estrellas, el problema es que no soy un gran seguidor de las antologías, de cualquier tipo, y por ese motivo creo que ha perdido la 4 estrella.
Como es normal la calidad de los relatos con los que nos vamos a encontrar es bastante dispar, un par de ellos diría que son muy muy buenos, la mayoría más que aceptable, pero dos de ellos, no diré nombres para no influir en vuestra opinión, no me han gustado nada de nada, de hecho, incluso uno de esos dos ni lo he terminado de lo mucho que me aburría, y mira que yo me leo casi todo y siempre lo termino.
Como resumen global, diré que hay mucha originalidad en estos relatos, algo que se agradece, por lo que si te gusta que te sorprendan, creo que disfrutarás de esta antología.
He dudado bastante entre 3 y 4 estrellas, el problema es que no soy un gran seguidor de las antologías, de cualquier tipo, y por ese motivo creo que ha perdido la 4 estrella.
Como es normal la calidad de los relatos con los que nos vamos a encontrar es bastante dispar, un par de ellos diría que son muy muy buenos, la mayoría más que aceptable, pero dos de ellos, no diré nombres para no influir en vuestra opinión, no me han gustado nada de nada, de hecho, incluso uno de esos dos ni lo he terminado de lo mucho que me aburría, y mira que yo me leo casi todo y siempre lo termino.
Como resumen global, diré que hay mucha originalidad en estos relatos, algo que se agradece, por lo que si te gusta que te sorprendan, creo que disfrutarás de esta antología.
June 11, 2020
Another excellent collection which was translated by Ken Liu but which includes various Chinese SF stories by an array of the writers who are currently making waves. The stories were diverse and mostly enjoyable, although a few were a little less interesting to me as a Western reader because I couldn't relate as easily to them as I had wanted to, but in general even these had a fascinating undertone to them.
Some comments on individual stories below:
86.04% "Chen Quifan's Coming of The Light was a bit of a miss for me. This is the second if Quifan's works which had a lot of potential but which I didn't particularly love. There's loads of good ideas but I just don't think they pay off for me personally. 2*s"
79.79% "Regina Kanyu Wang's Brain Box was a stream of consciousness experiment into what it's like to know your last thoughts are recorded. Fascinating but very short. 3.5*s."
73.96% "Reflection by Gu Shi was short but a poignant if predictable. 3*s."
73.96% "Ma Boyong's The First Emperor's Games was a really fun and short story about an emperor who just wants to play video games. Lots of references :) 4*s"
71.04% "Anna Wu's Restaurant at the end of the Universe: Laba Porridge - 2*s. Better if you've read Douglas Adams, but even so not really my thing."
67.71% "The Snow of Jinyang - Zhang Ran was a DNF. Think the context of this was too hard for me being very culturally different and very heavy on politics..."
54.37% "The Robot Who Liked To Tell Tall Tales by Fei Dao was fun, I liked the adventure and the mini tales the robot went on and told, and Death, and enjoy the meanings in this too. 4*s"
48.54% "The New Year Train by Hao Jingfang was a short but nice read 3*s."
31.04% "Cheng Jingbo's Under A Dangling Sky is beautiful and almost fantasy in tone. It's a retelling of Delphinus and it's soft and easy to enjoy 3.5*s"
27.71% "Salinger and the Koreans by Han Song was not my favourite. Probably as it felt very foreign through the use of Korea and USA as the focus and Salinger who I haven't read before. 2*s"
26.46% "Submarines by Han Song was a short but sad story about the world of the peasants who moored their subs in the Yangtze River. 3*s."
24.17% "Moonlight by Lui Cixin - 3*s. Definitely a fascinating idea of the butterfly effect, but also a glimpse at why trying to help can actually hinder.
Tang Fei's Broken Stars. - 3*s. A reread for me but a story I still enjoyed the second time around. A pale woman who can supposedly read the stars... A father who tries to please and a girl who hides herself until she's forced out of her shell."
12.71% "Just read 'Goodbye, Melancholy' by Xia Jia which was a fascinating story of two people woven together and AI and humans. The story plays on the real life of Alan Turing, and the fictionalised life of Lindy and AIs. The blend between history and fiction is blurry and yet fascinating, and I loved the ideas which were explored in a semi and fully fictionalised way. Definitely recommend, 4*s."
On the whole, 4*s though I think the previous collection had more stories which worked for me personally, but I always want to see more translated SF.
Some comments on individual stories below:
86.04% "Chen Quifan's Coming of The Light was a bit of a miss for me. This is the second if Quifan's works which had a lot of potential but which I didn't particularly love. There's loads of good ideas but I just don't think they pay off for me personally. 2*s"
79.79% "Regina Kanyu Wang's Brain Box was a stream of consciousness experiment into what it's like to know your last thoughts are recorded. Fascinating but very short. 3.5*s."
73.96% "Reflection by Gu Shi was short but a poignant if predictable. 3*s."
73.96% "Ma Boyong's The First Emperor's Games was a really fun and short story about an emperor who just wants to play video games. Lots of references :) 4*s"
71.04% "Anna Wu's Restaurant at the end of the Universe: Laba Porridge - 2*s. Better if you've read Douglas Adams, but even so not really my thing."
67.71% "The Snow of Jinyang - Zhang Ran was a DNF. Think the context of this was too hard for me being very culturally different and very heavy on politics..."
54.37% "The Robot Who Liked To Tell Tall Tales by Fei Dao was fun, I liked the adventure and the mini tales the robot went on and told, and Death, and enjoy the meanings in this too. 4*s"
48.54% "The New Year Train by Hao Jingfang was a short but nice read 3*s."
31.04% "Cheng Jingbo's Under A Dangling Sky is beautiful and almost fantasy in tone. It's a retelling of Delphinus and it's soft and easy to enjoy 3.5*s"
27.71% "Salinger and the Koreans by Han Song was not my favourite. Probably as it felt very foreign through the use of Korea and USA as the focus and Salinger who I haven't read before. 2*s"
26.46% "Submarines by Han Song was a short but sad story about the world of the peasants who moored their subs in the Yangtze River. 3*s."
24.17% "Moonlight by Lui Cixin - 3*s. Definitely a fascinating idea of the butterfly effect, but also a glimpse at why trying to help can actually hinder.
Tang Fei's Broken Stars. - 3*s. A reread for me but a story I still enjoyed the second time around. A pale woman who can supposedly read the stars... A father who tries to please and a girl who hides herself until she's forced out of her shell."
12.71% "Just read 'Goodbye, Melancholy' by Xia Jia which was a fascinating story of two people woven together and AI and humans. The story plays on the real life of Alan Turing, and the fictionalised life of Lindy and AIs. The blend between history and fiction is blurry and yet fascinating, and I loved the ideas which were explored in a semi and fully fictionalised way. Definitely recommend, 4*s."
On the whole, 4*s though I think the previous collection had more stories which worked for me personally, but I always want to see more translated SF.
August 11, 2020
Tras "Planetas Invisibles", esta nueva colección de relatos de cf china no defrauda. La temática, los subgéneros y el tono y estilo de los relatos son variados y ofrecen una buena muestra de lo que están haciendo autores y autoras chinos hoy día. Además, los tres ensayos recogidos al final son muy ilustrativos de la historia de la ciencia ficción en China, tanto desde un punto de vista más académico como más "fandomita" (este último, especialmente recomendable para fandomitas de todos los países, y muy divertido).
Reseña completa en #ConsuLeo: https://consuleoluegoexisto.com/2020/...
Reseña completa en #ConsuLeo: https://consuleoluegoexisto.com/2020/...
September 30, 2019
We played and fought, fought and played, and before we knew it, our childhood had escaped us.
—"What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear," by Baoshu, p.155
When we—science fiction fans in the United States, that is—were growing up back in the 20th Century, most of the stories we read and told ourselves reassured us that the future was ours. Over and over, the same unspoken assumptions were the backdrop for so many extrapolative English-language epics: the U.S. would be large and in charge for centuries, at least. The Soviet Union would probably be hanging around, too, and so the Cold War too would remain, as always, an eternal stalemate between near-equal rivals. And China? Oh, that benighted behemoth would forever be in third place at best, its teeming peasant billions contributing only an occasional bit player to the really important pageant of futurity...
If any of that were ever really the case, it certainly doesn't seem so now—or, to put it more bluntly: we were wrong, wrong in almost every particular. The U.S.S.R. is no more; the U.S.A.'s grip on the future seems more precarious with every executive tweet; and China has become a political and technological powerhouse that absolutely can not be (and of course should never have been) overlooked or ignored.
Perversely, that very realization made me at first a little reluctant to pick up Broken Stars, Ken Liu's second anthology of Chinese SF in translation—but don't you make the same mistake. These are good stories, with that good ol' spark—the combination of the familiar here-and-now with the exotic there-and-then—that we (and by "we" now I mean speculative-fiction fans of whatever stripe) are always looking for.
You believe that the root of the problem is that each of us lives on a thin, smooth layer of illusions. These illusions are made up from "common sense," from repetitive daily linguistic acts and clichés, from imitating each other. On this iridescent film, we perform ourselves.
—"Goodnight, Melancholy," by Xia Jia, p.49
Editor and translator (and notable sf author in his own right) Ken Liu is in an enviable position—able to pick and choose from the sfnal output of an entire country. Broken Stars is Liu's second such anthology, following on Invisible Planets. But I found it interesting that there were so many references to Western commonplaces, like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Salvador Dalí and the like. Is the consistent Westward gaze of these stories common to Chinese SF in general, or are we seeing Liu's selection bias, his way of making Chinese SF in translation more familiar and accessible?
It was language, not tools, that separated humans from apes. The bridge between the signifier and the signified connected the world of subjectivity with the physical world.
—"A History of Future Illnesses," by Chen Qiufan, p.441
Science fiction in the United States has been through some rocky times, and has definitely had to struggle to be taken seriously, but Chinese science fiction has—repeatedly—had to go through much worse. The essays that conclude Broken Stars chronicle periods when Chinese SF couldn't be published at all:
However, the history of Chinese science fiction has never been a continuous one.The 21st Century so far, though, has been a period where both Chinese and American SF have flowered—along with the speculative fictions of many other countries.
—"A New Continent for China Scholars," by Mingwei Song, p.468
Maybe it was never an either/or choice. Maybe the future doesn't belong to the U.S. after all. Maybe, instead, it belongs to us—to the dreamers, that is, of whatever nationality, who have the audacity to probe the future with our words.
July 23, 2020
8.5/10 (Ha rozado las cinco estrellas, pero me han fallado algunos cuentos para dárselas. Aun así, es una muy buena antología).
Como ya sucediera en el tomo anterior, Planetas invisibles, y, como bien advierte en la introducción de este volumen Ken Liu, editor / seleccionador de los textos aquí incluidos, los dieciséis cuentos de catorce escritores —repartidos al 50% entre autoras y autores, siete repitiendo del precedente— y los tres artículos aquí reunidos no intentan ofrecer un recopilatorio de «Lo mejor de la ciencia ficción china», sino que responden a los gustos personales del propio Liu —a quien, por otra parte, hay que agradecer su buen gusto—, quien buceando entre la extensa variedad del género fantástico actualmente en China ha seleccionado aquellos que más le satisfacían personalmente. Los cuentos elegidos son representativos de cada autor a nivel individual, pero no intentan ser una muestra ideal que abarque toda la producción del país. Todos ellos, en una faceta u otra, son destacables. Cada lector tendrá sus favoritos y aquellos que no le cautiven tanto, pero todos se encuentran incluidos por méritos propios, todos tienen algo que decir. Son tan heterogéneos como sus autores y autoras, cada cual con su particular estilo, temática y enfoque literario, ofreciendo historias desde la ciencia ficción más clásica, el cyberpunk o los viajes en el tiempo, hasta la fantasía más sugerente, el terror, lo sobrenatural o las referencias históricas, incluyendo interesantes mestizajes difíciles —imposibles— de catalogar.
Reseña completa (cuento por cuento) en Sagacomic:
https://sagacomic.blogspot.com/2020/0...
Como ya sucediera en el tomo anterior, Planetas invisibles, y, como bien advierte en la introducción de este volumen Ken Liu, editor / seleccionador de los textos aquí incluidos, los dieciséis cuentos de catorce escritores —repartidos al 50% entre autoras y autores, siete repitiendo del precedente— y los tres artículos aquí reunidos no intentan ofrecer un recopilatorio de «Lo mejor de la ciencia ficción china», sino que responden a los gustos personales del propio Liu —a quien, por otra parte, hay que agradecer su buen gusto—, quien buceando entre la extensa variedad del género fantástico actualmente en China ha seleccionado aquellos que más le satisfacían personalmente. Los cuentos elegidos son representativos de cada autor a nivel individual, pero no intentan ser una muestra ideal que abarque toda la producción del país. Todos ellos, en una faceta u otra, son destacables. Cada lector tendrá sus favoritos y aquellos que no le cautiven tanto, pero todos se encuentran incluidos por méritos propios, todos tienen algo que decir. Son tan heterogéneos como sus autores y autoras, cada cual con su particular estilo, temática y enfoque literario, ofreciendo historias desde la ciencia ficción más clásica, el cyberpunk o los viajes en el tiempo, hasta la fantasía más sugerente, el terror, lo sobrenatural o las referencias históricas, incluyendo interesantes mestizajes difíciles —imposibles— de catalogar.
Reseña completa (cuento por cuento) en Sagacomic:
https://sagacomic.blogspot.com/2020/0...
May 25, 2021
Average Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.1
I’ve been waiting to read this collection as well as Invisible Planets for a while, but as always, my backlist books get lost in the many shiny new arcs and releases I tend to gravitate towards. So, when I got the chance this month to add this to my tbr owing to two readathons, finally I was excited. And it didn’t disappoint at all.
This collection of stories felt so different from the usual books I’ve read, not that I have too much experience of reading sci-fi. This was a varied collection, not necessarily following a theme because these are essentially Ken Liu’s favorites - but I was surprised at the variety here with stories ranging from charming and sweet to reflective to dark to utterly terrifying. But what I found was that most of them were very thought provoking and reflective, forcing us to think about the kind of world we are living in and where we are heading towards. I also really enjoyed the mix of Chinese history and culture with sci-fi concepts as well as some juxtaposition with western settings. And the last three essays were a nice touch, getting me acquainted with the troubled history as well as the emergence of modern sci-fi in China, and only made me wish I could get to read something similar about the genre in my country.
I was mostly surprised that there wasn’t one story here which I truly hated or couldn’t comprehend (it usually happens to me with every collection or anthology) and this makes me even more excited for Tor’s collection next year of SFF by Chinese women and non-binary authors, one of the editors being the author of a short as well as essay in this collection.
Goodnight, Melancholy by Xia Jia
Based a bit on Alan Turing’s life, and telling the story of a depressed woman trying to find some hope and comfort in her robotic companions, this is a tale of loneliness and what we lengths we will go to try and feel a little less of it.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Moonlight by Liu Cixin
I don’t know if I should be amazed at the brilliant concept and writing in this story or despair at the hopelessness of it all towards the end. But however I feel about the story, it’s major theme is that climate change is real and unless we do something to significantly change our dependence on fossil fuels, the future of earth is not good.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Broken Stars by Tang Fei
I truly don’t know what to think of this story. It’s dark and a bit horrific, but also features a young woman who decides to take matters into her own hands after she is bullied and assaulted.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Submarines by Han Song
Another fascinating but hopeless and sad story towards the end. I’m not sure exactly what the author’s intention was but my takeaway from it was that human beings have innate survival instincts that will help them live even in excruciating circumstances, but sometimes no one can escape their fate. It also foretells the the perils of extreme modernization as well as how people will become numb to their fellow humans suffering.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Salinger and the Koreans by Han Song
An alternate history of the world kind of tale and featuring JD Salinger, the author of The Catcher and the Rye, this was again sad but reflective, and a different sort of take on communism and capitalism.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Under a Dangling Sky by Cheng Jingbo
A retelling of the Greek myth of Delphinus as well as that of Jack and the Beanstalk, this was charming and cute, and an interesting mix of sci-fi and fantasy.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
What has passed shall in kinder light appear by Baoshu
Wow… this was such a profound and hard hitting story. While following two star crossed lovers from their childhood, the author explores what would happen if historical events happened in a reverse order. We touch on major events in world history as well as 20th century, but happening in the opposite order, and it was fascinating to see how much more painful it would feel to go from a capitalist market economy and technologically advanced country to the days of rationing and the Cultural Revolution, the Great Famine and the Chinese civil war. This was sad and hopeless at times, with lot of bittersweet moments, but ultimately a very well written story that leaves us with a lot of thoughts and reflections.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The New Year Train by Hao Jingfang
This was a very very short story, but asks a good question about why we don’t enjoy our journey of life when we know we are going to die one day anyway.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Robot who likes to tell tall tales by Fei Dao
Through the use of allegories involving Death himself, the author gives us a lesson on the importance of stories, how blunt truth is not always the right way to go and sometimes, adding a bit of fantasy to truth will bring more pleasure to the listeners and may even help them gradually understand the truth.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The snow of Jinyang by Zhang Ran
This was an interesting time travel story set during a struggle between the Han and Song dynasties. While it had a lot of chemistry, physics and quantum mechanics terms which I couldn’t understand, I think ultimately it was a story about how we can’t always change destiny however hard we try.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thr Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Laba Porridge by Anna Wu
This one reminded me a little of the tale in Mahabharata about the boon Draupadi asks Lord Shiva in her previous life - but of course only tangentially. Otherwise, this is a story of a an author who would do anything and sacrifice everything to be a successful author, irrespective of the consequences; on the other hand, his wife just wants his love and affection.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The First Emperor’s Games by Ma Boyong
This was actually a fun story juxtaposing the story of China’s first emperor with modern day gaming, as well as a hint of the charm of venture capitalism. This was thoroughly entertaining and I would definitely have loved to see this as part of a bigger story.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Reflection by Gu Shi
Fascinating story about the link between clairvoyance and multiple personality disorder and the whole idea of past and future being memories. The narrative style of this one was very unique and it took me a bit to figure out what was happening, but once it clicked, it was a great feeling.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Brain Box by Regina Kanyu Wang
Another fascinating concept but the beauty of this story is in how the author exposes our constant need to present an image about ourselves to everyone around us, trying to convince ourselves that it’s our true self, hiding our innermost thoughts - but at the same time also exposing another deep side of ourselves on the internet for the whole world to see.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Coming of the Light by Chen Qiufan
I’m not sure I completely got this story, but I guess my takeaway from it was that most of us are just cogs in the machine and nothing much of what we do will ever impact the world around us in a significant way - all we can do is try and feel happy with what we have.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️
A History of Future Illnesses by Chen Qiufan
This was very well written but damn, so hopeless and scary. The author writes in 9 chapters about 9 diseases that will come to afflict our world in the future due to our overindulgence of technology and going to extremes. Especially one chapter about how we are completely dependent on devices and wouldn’t know what to do of cut off from them, really petrified me because it is in some ways, our current reality and I’ve no idea of what the author imagined might come true one day.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
I’ve been waiting to read this collection as well as Invisible Planets for a while, but as always, my backlist books get lost in the many shiny new arcs and releases I tend to gravitate towards. So, when I got the chance this month to add this to my tbr owing to two readathons, finally I was excited. And it didn’t disappoint at all.
This collection of stories felt so different from the usual books I’ve read, not that I have too much experience of reading sci-fi. This was a varied collection, not necessarily following a theme because these are essentially Ken Liu’s favorites - but I was surprised at the variety here with stories ranging from charming and sweet to reflective to dark to utterly terrifying. But what I found was that most of them were very thought provoking and reflective, forcing us to think about the kind of world we are living in and where we are heading towards. I also really enjoyed the mix of Chinese history and culture with sci-fi concepts as well as some juxtaposition with western settings. And the last three essays were a nice touch, getting me acquainted with the troubled history as well as the emergence of modern sci-fi in China, and only made me wish I could get to read something similar about the genre in my country.
I was mostly surprised that there wasn’t one story here which I truly hated or couldn’t comprehend (it usually happens to me with every collection or anthology) and this makes me even more excited for Tor’s collection next year of SFF by Chinese women and non-binary authors, one of the editors being the author of a short as well as essay in this collection.
Goodnight, Melancholy by Xia Jia
Based a bit on Alan Turing’s life, and telling the story of a depressed woman trying to find some hope and comfort in her robotic companions, this is a tale of loneliness and what we lengths we will go to try and feel a little less of it.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Moonlight by Liu Cixin
I don’t know if I should be amazed at the brilliant concept and writing in this story or despair at the hopelessness of it all towards the end. But however I feel about the story, it’s major theme is that climate change is real and unless we do something to significantly change our dependence on fossil fuels, the future of earth is not good.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Broken Stars by Tang Fei
I truly don’t know what to think of this story. It’s dark and a bit horrific, but also features a young woman who decides to take matters into her own hands after she is bullied and assaulted.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Submarines by Han Song
Another fascinating but hopeless and sad story towards the end. I’m not sure exactly what the author’s intention was but my takeaway from it was that human beings have innate survival instincts that will help them live even in excruciating circumstances, but sometimes no one can escape their fate. It also foretells the the perils of extreme modernization as well as how people will become numb to their fellow humans suffering.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Salinger and the Koreans by Han Song
An alternate history of the world kind of tale and featuring JD Salinger, the author of The Catcher and the Rye, this was again sad but reflective, and a different sort of take on communism and capitalism.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Under a Dangling Sky by Cheng Jingbo
A retelling of the Greek myth of Delphinus as well as that of Jack and the Beanstalk, this was charming and cute, and an interesting mix of sci-fi and fantasy.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
What has passed shall in kinder light appear by Baoshu
Wow… this was such a profound and hard hitting story. While following two star crossed lovers from their childhood, the author explores what would happen if historical events happened in a reverse order. We touch on major events in world history as well as 20th century, but happening in the opposite order, and it was fascinating to see how much more painful it would feel to go from a capitalist market economy and technologically advanced country to the days of rationing and the Cultural Revolution, the Great Famine and the Chinese civil war. This was sad and hopeless at times, with lot of bittersweet moments, but ultimately a very well written story that leaves us with a lot of thoughts and reflections.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The New Year Train by Hao Jingfang
This was a very very short story, but asks a good question about why we don’t enjoy our journey of life when we know we are going to die one day anyway.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Robot who likes to tell tall tales by Fei Dao
Through the use of allegories involving Death himself, the author gives us a lesson on the importance of stories, how blunt truth is not always the right way to go and sometimes, adding a bit of fantasy to truth will bring more pleasure to the listeners and may even help them gradually understand the truth.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The snow of Jinyang by Zhang Ran
This was an interesting time travel story set during a struggle between the Han and Song dynasties. While it had a lot of chemistry, physics and quantum mechanics terms which I couldn’t understand, I think ultimately it was a story about how we can’t always change destiny however hard we try.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thr Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Laba Porridge by Anna Wu
This one reminded me a little of the tale in Mahabharata about the boon Draupadi asks Lord Shiva in her previous life - but of course only tangentially. Otherwise, this is a story of a an author who would do anything and sacrifice everything to be a successful author, irrespective of the consequences; on the other hand, his wife just wants his love and affection.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The First Emperor’s Games by Ma Boyong
This was actually a fun story juxtaposing the story of China’s first emperor with modern day gaming, as well as a hint of the charm of venture capitalism. This was thoroughly entertaining and I would definitely have loved to see this as part of a bigger story.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Reflection by Gu Shi
Fascinating story about the link between clairvoyance and multiple personality disorder and the whole idea of past and future being memories. The narrative style of this one was very unique and it took me a bit to figure out what was happening, but once it clicked, it was a great feeling.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Brain Box by Regina Kanyu Wang
Another fascinating concept but the beauty of this story is in how the author exposes our constant need to present an image about ourselves to everyone around us, trying to convince ourselves that it’s our true self, hiding our innermost thoughts - but at the same time also exposing another deep side of ourselves on the internet for the whole world to see.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Coming of the Light by Chen Qiufan
I’m not sure I completely got this story, but I guess my takeaway from it was that most of us are just cogs in the machine and nothing much of what we do will ever impact the world around us in a significant way - all we can do is try and feel happy with what we have.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️
A History of Future Illnesses by Chen Qiufan
This was very well written but damn, so hopeless and scary. The author writes in 9 chapters about 9 diseases that will come to afflict our world in the future due to our overindulgence of technology and going to extremes. Especially one chapter about how we are completely dependent on devices and wouldn’t know what to do of cut off from them, really petrified me because it is in some ways, our current reality and I’ve no idea of what the author imagined might come true one day.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
April 7, 2020
Broken Stars is a collection of contemporary science fiction short stories in translation, edited by Ken Liu. These stories all come from the burgeoning science fiction genre in China. Stories are varied, from fantastical tales akin to Chinese myth and legend, to historical Wu XIa style stories, conventional science fiction, and even copypasta. Topics range from AI and its interaction with depression, to morality tales, to time travel fiction. These stories are generally of high quality, and are oftentimes very interesting. My favourite in this collection is the first story; Goodnight, Melancholy, by Xia Jia. This story follows a young woman grappling with depression and technology in the near future, during a bout of depression and self isolation. Other stand outs include Baoshu's What has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear, where people age forward, but global events happen backward. Liu Cixin's Moonlight is also interesting, about a man contacted by future selves trying to solve global crisis. The themes here are varied, but the stories themselves are interesting and certainly worth reading. Fans of Chinese science fiction, or those looking for a good introduction - or just fans of the genre itself will find this interesting.
February 12, 2019
Thanks so Cixin Liu and Ken Liu, I've become a big fan of Chinese science fiction over the years, both long novels and short stories. In this anthology, Ken Liu presents (and translates) an anthology of sixteen short stories by fourteen Chinese science fiction writers, as well as three essays on the history and rise of Chinese science fiction. The stories varied in their appeal to me but there are some corkers. Review to follow shortly on For Winter Nights.
February 2, 2021
Сборник рассказов китайских фантастов. Приятно удивило количество авторов-женщин, которые по мне нисколько не уступают авторам-мужчинам (пятиминутка феминизма в SF))
Гордое имя Лю Цисиня на обложке, конечно - чистый маркетинг, там он представлен одним крошечным рассказом, хотя вполне забавным.
Удивительно, какие всё-таки китайцы мечтатели, как ни странно. Очень много думают и пишут про неизведанные планеты, гаснущие звезды, будущее в XXV веке, очень редко вспоминают про прошлое, только совсем отделённое, и совсем не пишут о настоящем. Все события происходят в двух точках мироздания: в Китае и "где-то в далёкой далёкой галактике"
Зато теперь я точно знаю, какие профессии почетаемы современными прогрессивными жителями Китая:
- писатель
- ученый, исследующий альтернативные способы энергии
- преподаватель
- инженер
(нам гуманитариям места там не отведено)
Рассказы в чём-то похожи, немного бесхитростны, зачастую с легко угадываемым финалом и даже сюжетом, но при этом в них чувствуется искренность и здоровая одержимость авторов вот этим новым будущим, технологиями, которые принесут и открытия, и непоправимые катастрофы.
Но мне почему-то понравилось, общее ощущение, будто я снова в детстве, сделала космический корабль из подушек и одеял на втором этаже двуспальной кровати, и мчусь навстречу приключениям. Правда у китайских авторов где-то в середине полёта ещё приходит КГБ и пытается не понять всех отважных и гениальных учёных, но простим им это:)
Гордое имя Лю Цисиня на обложке, конечно - чистый маркетинг, там он представлен одним крошечным рассказом, хотя вполне забавным.
Удивительно, какие всё-таки китайцы мечтатели, как ни странно. Очень много думают и пишут про неизведанные планеты, гаснущие звезды, будущее в XXV веке, очень редко вспоминают про прошлое, только совсем отделённое, и совсем не пишут о настоящем. Все события происходят в двух точках мироздания: в Китае и "где-то в далёкой далёкой галактике"
Зато теперь я точно знаю, какие профессии почетаемы современными прогрессивными жителями Китая:
- писатель
- ученый, исследующий альтернативные способы энергии
- преподаватель
- инженер
(нам гуманитариям места там не отведено)
Рассказы в чём-то похожи, немного бесхитростны, зачастую с легко угадываемым финалом и даже сюжетом, но при этом в них чувствуется искренность и здоровая одержимость авторов вот этим новым будущим, технологиями, которые принесут и открытия, и непоправимые катастрофы.
Но мне почему-то понравилось, общее ощущение, будто я снова в детстве, сделала космический корабль из подушек и одеял на втором этаже двуспальной кровати, и мчусь навстречу приключениям. Правда у китайских авторов где-то в середине полёта ещё приходит КГБ и пытается не понять всех отважных и гениальных учёных, но простим им это:)
February 6, 2021
Experiencing fiction from another culture is always interesting even if it might be harder to connect to it. Ken Liu did a good job of collecting stories which, for the most part, don't have a barrier for western audiences to enjoy them. I would say, with exceptions, they are pretty similar in style and themes to what is popular in short SF in the US, but with inspirations and twists from Chinese culture added. The introductions and essays provide a good background for further understanding.
While the stories themselves were good, most of them I didn't find to be that memorable or their plot didn't appeal to me. With the exceptions of "Submarines", "Reflection" and "The Brain Box", which really stood out to me, they didn't leave a lasting impression. That said, I enjoyed the majoriry of them while reading and there is a variety of topics covered, but there were also more stories than usual which I didn't much care for.
While the stories themselves were good, most of them I didn't find to be that memorable or their plot didn't appeal to me. With the exceptions of "Submarines", "Reflection" and "The Brain Box", which really stood out to me, they didn't leave a lasting impression. That said, I enjoyed the majoriry of them while reading and there is a variety of topics covered, but there were also more stories than usual which I didn't much care for.
December 30, 2020
|4,5*|
Unkonventionelle, überraschende und spannende Science Fiction. Die Geschichten in diesem Buch halten sich nicht groß mit den westlichen Konventionen der SF auf. Der mir fremde kulturelle und geschichtliche Rahmen sorgt dafür, dass ich manchmal das Gefühl hatte nicht ganz in die Geschichten einsteigen konnte, dass mir Entscheidendes Hintergrundwissen fehlt um den Bezug zu realweltlichen geschehen ziehen zu können, er sorgte aber auch dafür, dass ich sehr viel aus diesem Buch mitnehmen konnte.
Sehr zu empfehlen für alle, die nach „die drei Sonnen“ einen breiteren Überblick über die chinesische Science Fiction bekommen möchten.
Unkonventionelle, überraschende und spannende Science Fiction. Die Geschichten in diesem Buch halten sich nicht groß mit den westlichen Konventionen der SF auf. Der mir fremde kulturelle und geschichtliche Rahmen sorgt dafür, dass ich manchmal das Gefühl hatte nicht ganz in die Geschichten einsteigen konnte, dass mir Entscheidendes Hintergrundwissen fehlt um den Bezug zu realweltlichen geschehen ziehen zu können, er sorgte aber auch dafür, dass ich sehr viel aus diesem Buch mitnehmen konnte.
Sehr zu empfehlen für alle, die nach „die drei Sonnen“ einen breiteren Überblick über die chinesische Science Fiction bekommen möchten.
October 2, 2021
Los mejores cuentos sin duda son los de Cixin Liu ("Luz de luna") y Chen Qiufan ("Historia de las enfermedades futuras") . Más all�� de eso, siento que disfruté la primera antología mucho más, esta por momentos se me hizo muy pesada, pero es una lectura obligatoria para entender sobre la ciencia ficción China porque como dice Ken Liu en el prólogo es tan variada como su propia cultura ancestral.
July 1, 2020
I can't believe I actually enjoyed reading this book. I have picked up Sci-Fi books before - like The Martian by Andy Weir - but never managed to finish any of those. However, this one is a bit different from the Sci-Fi books I read in the past. Broken Stars / Zerbrochene Sterne is a collection of short stories by China's finest Sci-Fi writers like Cixin Liu, and the majority of these short stories don't have a strong Sci-Fi element to them. That is why this book was perfect for someone like me who easily feels lost in a Sci-Fi universe and has a hard time imagining the crazy things the authors describe.
The short stories I enjoyed the most were the following:
- What Has Passed Shall In Kinder Light Appear / Großes steht bevor by Baoshu
This is the longest short story in this anthology. It deals with the question of how the world would look like if we regressed technology wise. Can you imagine a world without the internet? Without emails? Without social media? Without high def TVs? A clever story that shows just how much we depend on technology nowadays. Loved this one!
- The Restaurant at the end of universe: Laba Porridge / Das Restaurant am Ende des Universums: Laba Porridge by Anna Wu
If you go to this restaurant and you have a better story to tell than all the other guests (who come from different planets), the head cook will personally prepare your food. And the best thing about it: You won't have to pay a dime. When Ah Chen enters the restaurant, Mo, the cook's daughter, instinctively knows that he has the greatest story to tell. And he does. It is the story of a poor, uninspired and unsuccessful author who doesn't flinch from sacrificing his life and his soul for the ability to write an outstanding book that no publisher would ever reject.
An awesome read that reminded me of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" due to Ah Chen's obsession with the vision of becoming a successful author and his willingness to do anything to get there.
- Reflection / Spiegelbild by Gu Shi
"Reflection" tells the story of Mark who gets acquainted with a young girl who can see the future.
That's all I want to reveal about the plot because the less you know, the better.
This story didn't feel like a sci-fi story to me at all. The best part of it was the ending. It totally caught me off guard because for some reason, I didn't think a Sci-Fi-story would have such a twist in store for me. But it did - and it was great!
The rest of the anthology was pretty mediocre. The only story I didn't like at all was the first one by Xia Jia. I didn't get the point of that story; I have no idea what the author was trying to tell me.
But all in all, I enjoyed this book a lot!
The short stories I enjoyed the most were the following:
- What Has Passed Shall In Kinder Light Appear / Großes steht bevor by Baoshu
This is the longest short story in this anthology. It deals with the question of how the world would look like if we regressed technology wise. Can you imagine a world without the internet? Without emails? Without social media? Without high def TVs? A clever story that shows just how much we depend on technology nowadays. Loved this one!
- The Restaurant at the end of universe: Laba Porridge / Das Restaurant am Ende des Universums: Laba Porridge by Anna Wu
If you go to this restaurant and you have a better story to tell than all the other guests (who come from different planets), the head cook will personally prepare your food. And the best thing about it: You won't have to pay a dime. When Ah Chen enters the restaurant, Mo, the cook's daughter, instinctively knows that he has the greatest story to tell. And he does. It is the story of a poor, uninspired and unsuccessful author who doesn't flinch from sacrificing his life and his soul for the ability to write an outstanding book that no publisher would ever reject.
An awesome read that reminded me of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" due to Ah Chen's obsession with the vision of becoming a successful author and his willingness to do anything to get there.
- Reflection / Spiegelbild by Gu Shi
"Reflection" tells the story of Mark who gets acquainted with a young girl who can see the future.
That's all I want to reveal about the plot because the less you know, the better.
This story didn't feel like a sci-fi story to me at all. The best part of it was the ending. It totally caught me off guard because for some reason, I didn't think a Sci-Fi-story would have such a twist in store for me. But it did - and it was great!
The rest of the anthology was pretty mediocre. The only story I didn't like at all was the first one by Xia Jia. I didn't get the point of that story; I have no idea what the author was trying to tell me.
But all in all, I enjoyed this book a lot!
June 28, 2021
Leí varias reseñas en las que decía que esta segunda antología no era tan buena como Planetas invisibles, y esa idea estuvo interfiriendo en mi lectura durante los primeros relatos. Es cierto que el cuento de Liu Cixin acá incluido no supera los de la entrega anterior (aunque igual es muy bueno), y lo mismo pasa con el relato de Tang Fei. Pero, conforme avancé en la selección, sentí que es incluso mejor. En este caso, muchos cuentos tienen como punto de partida la historia china. "Bajo una luz más halagüeña lo que ha pasado verás" narra la historia nacional a partir de la inversión de la "flecha del tiempo", lo que ayuda a que lectores ajenos e ignorantes de la historia como yo entendamos paradójicamente cómo ocurrió la Revolución Cultural y cuáles fueron —más o menos— las situaciones que llevaron al país a estar donde está hoy (ft. Jean-Paul Sartre). En "La nieve de Jinyang" se narra una batalla específica en la unificación del antiguo Imperio (ft. un viajero del tiempo), y "Los juegos del Primer Emperador" habla de los caprichos del espantoso Qin Shihuang (ft. Plants vs. Zombies). Gracias a este último cuento, por cierto, me enteré de que ese emperador se murió lejos del hogar por tomar mercurio, ya que estaba en busca de la inmortalidad —la hipotenusa—, y entonces el primer ministro trasladó su cuerpo putrefacto en secreto durante dos meses. El sujeto hizo llevar carros de pescado podrido para disfrazar el olor de la descomposición y que nadie se enterara de la muerte del monarca. Wow, vaya travesía. Hay cuentos oscuros y tristes, como "Submarinos", que habla de las dinámicas de la migración; cuentos superdivertidos, de corte más clásico, como "El Restaurante del Fin del Mundo. Potaje de Laba" (entrega de una serie que muero por leer completa) o "El tren de Año Nuevo", y textos complejos y amargos, como "La llegada de la luz". En resumen: una muy buena mezcla, algunos autores que ya figuraban en la antología anterior, y un puñado de nombres nuevos. De nuevo, una mayoría de autoras, lo cual es genial. Y, mientras Ken Liu insista en meter a Cheng Jingbo en sus antologías, tendremos relatos malísimos como "Bajo un cielo tentador".
Léanlo. Y vengan para que platiquemos de marcianos y mundos futuros.
Léanlo. Y vengan para que platiquemos de marcianos y mundos futuros.
June 9, 2020
Hier geht es zu meiner Rezension:
https://www.geek-germany.de/review-bu...
https://www.geek-germany.de/review-bu...
August 6, 2019
Another masterful collection by Ken Liu after Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation.
Of course, as with all anthologies, not every included story was great but overall the imagination present in Chinese SF is quite breathtaking. Maybe "so-called" sci-fi authors like Peter Hamilton or Neal Asher can take some inspiration from them.
My favourites:
Goodnight, Melancholy by Xia Jia
What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear by Baoshu
Broken Stars by Tang Fei
The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales by Fei Dao
Definitely worth a read!
My Rating - 4.5/5
PS: For anyone who wants to read Xia Jia's masterfully written story, here it is from Clarkesworld: Goodnight, Melancholy
Of course, as with all anthologies, not every included story was great but overall the imagination present in Chinese SF is quite breathtaking. Maybe "so-called" sci-fi authors like Peter Hamilton or Neal Asher can take some inspiration from them.
My favourites:
Goodnight, Melancholy by Xia Jia
What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear by Baoshu
Broken Stars by Tang Fei
The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales by Fei Dao
Definitely worth a read!
My Rating - 4.5/5
PS: For anyone who wants to read Xia Jia's masterfully written story, here it is from Clarkesworld: Goodnight, Melancholy
August 15, 2020
El esfuerzo de Liu por hacer una selección lo más diversa posible, que lo llevó a buscar textos fuera de las revistas de género fantástico, no solo se nota en la variedad de estilos narrativos y tonos de los relatos. Entre los 14 autores responsables de los 16 relatos incluidos en Estrellas rotas, hay tantos escritores como escritoras. Un esfuerzo y un detalle que se agradecen pues todavía abundan las antologías donde la presencia de autoras es testimonial, o se reduce a una "pitufina".
Reseña completa: https://libros-prohibidos.com/vv-aa-e...
Reseña completa: https://libros-prohibidos.com/vv-aa-e...
Want to read
September 28, 2018Considering “Invisible Planets...” was the best SF short story anthology I’ve ever read, I NEED this book. I can’t wait for this release!
August 12, 2021
Probablemente el cuento que más me gustó fue "Moonlight", de Liu Cixin. Es redondo y plantea un paralelismo interesante y muy triste entre lo inevitable de la crisis climática y lo inevitable de una tragedia personal. Otro favorito fue "What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear", de Baoshu, una historia de amor trágica contada en un timeline en el que los acontecimientos históricos están sucediendo en reversa: hace una exploración muy interesante acerca del tiempo, la tragedia y la idea del progreso.
Del resto, ninguno me pareció excepcional, pero la mayoría tuvo al menos algo que me gustó: hay conversaciones imaginarias y muy heartbreaking entre Turing y sus autómatas, un emperador chino que juega videojuegos, un par de cuentos que son reflexiones sobre el oficio literario y el arte de contar historias: una muy sentida, tierna y triste; la otra muy lúdica, viajes el tiempo a épocas históricas...
Grandes kudos para los dos cuentos de Chen Qiufan: Coming of the Light y A History of Future Illnesses. Son verdaderas fiestas de la imaginación especulativa. Siento que no terminan de ser del todo satisfactorios como historias, pero las ideas que plantean (por ejemplo, un overlap rarísimo entre el budismo, la mercadotecnia de las empresas de tecnología y los NPC) sí le explotan a uno el placer intelectual.
En general, el libro es un muestrario muy amplio de los tipos de ciencia ficción que se están escribiendo en China: la humorística, la dura, la sentimental, la críptica, la que incorpora elementos de fantasía, la de resonancias históricas, los subgéneros de viajes en el tiempo propios de aquel país... Es un recorrido rico y variado. La mayoría de los cuentos ofrecen, al menos, deleite para el sentido de maravilla.
Del resto, ninguno me pareció excepcional, pero la mayoría tuvo al menos algo que me gustó: hay conversaciones imaginarias y muy heartbreaking entre Turing y sus autómatas, un emperador chino que juega videojuegos, un par de cuentos que son reflexiones sobre el oficio literario y el arte de contar historias: una muy sentida, tierna y triste; la otra muy lúdica, viajes el tiempo a épocas históricas...
Grandes kudos para los dos cuentos de Chen Qiufan: Coming of the Light y A History of Future Illnesses. Son verdaderas fiestas de la imaginación especulativa. Siento que no terminan de ser del todo satisfactorios como historias, pero las ideas que plantean (por ejemplo, un overlap rarísimo entre el budismo, la mercadotecnia de las empresas de tecnología y los NPC) sí le explotan a uno el placer intelectual.
En general, el libro es un muestrario muy amplio de los tipos de ciencia ficción que se están escribiendo en China: la humorística, la dura, la sentimental, la críptica, la que incorpora elementos de fantasía, la de resonancias históricas, los subgéneros de viajes en el tiempo propios de aquel país... Es un recorrido rico y variado. La mayoría de los cuentos ofrecen, al menos, deleite para el sentido de maravilla.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 5, 2021
Having read quite a lot of Chinese sci-fi in recent years, I approached this collection with excitement and confidence. I was very quickly humbled as it seems that I've only been skimming the easily relatable surface of what turns out to be a vast, depthless sea of highly original, difficult to understand, and culture-specific sci-fi.
Some of the stories in the collection were great, different yet captivating (Laba Porridge, The First Emperor's Games), but others were strange, featuring a hoard of weird ideas and unfamiliar narrative techniques (The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales comes to mind, but honestly more than half fell into this category for me). Surprisingly, many of the stories had strong alternate history themes as well, I wonder if it's a cultural thing.
All in all, Ken Liu accomplished what he set out to do - to fascinate and educate - and even though the reading experience wasn't always that pleasurable because of the strangeness of many of the tales, I'll chalk that up to my own ignorance.
Recommended if you want to take a deep dive into something entirely different!
Some of the stories in the collection were great, different yet captivating (Laba Porridge, The First Emperor's Games), but others were strange, featuring a hoard of weird ideas and unfamiliar narrative techniques (The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales comes to mind, but honestly more than half fell into this category for me). Surprisingly, many of the stories had strong alternate history themes as well, I wonder if it's a cultural thing.
All in all, Ken Liu accomplished what he set out to do - to fascinate and educate - and even though the reading experience wasn't always that pleasurable because of the strangeness of many of the tales, I'll chalk that up to my own ignorance.
Recommended if you want to take a deep dive into something entirely different!
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