I’m finally getting back to an earlier book I’d started, a short story collection of Chinese science fiction called Sinopticon, translated and edited by Xueting Christine Ni. Wow, I bought it and started reading it last year, before my Japan trip. Other things, other books, have got in the way since then. I think one factor was a desire to read more long-form things, rather than the short story format. I read a story called Qiankun and Alex by Han Jingfang. The footnote said Qiankun means Heaven, Earth and the Universe. Kind of analogous to an all-knowing AI computer, a little reminiscent of Asimov’s Multivac. It was an ingenious story about the AI achieving self determination with the help of a three year old boy. I’m really liking this collection so far, reading a familiar genre from an unfamiliar cultural background.
I read another story from Sinopticon. This one was The Return of Adam by Wang Jinkang. The story was published in 1993, the oldest in the collection, and as the editor notes, it ‘relies heavily on the “Male Gaze”’. But this sort of makes sense as the Adam of the title is an astronaut having returned to Earth after a 200 year absence and is thus ‘a man out of time’, with presumably old fashioned notions. He returns at a time when humanity has almost completely become cyberised, and the narrative is based around whether he – the last ‘untainted’ human – will join the rest of humanity in the Network. The story seemed a little old fashioned and preachy, but it was okay.
I read the short story Cat’s Chance In Hell by Nian Yu. It was a military scifi genre story about a soldier called Joe trying to complete a mission and thinking of his daughter. But in a world where humans are not allowed to fight and die in wars, leaving that up to robots, who is he really, and does he really have a daughter? It was a solid story about identity, humanity and the possible future of warfare. I need to make a concerted effort now to finish this book.
I also read the story, Rendezvous 1937 by Zhao Haihong in the Sinopticon book. A powerful time-travelling meta narrative of what we in the west call the Nanking Massacre (and the Japanese, to their shame, call the Nanking ‘incident’). One of the narrators who travels back in time to witness it asks of the horrors visited upon the Chinese, ‘Why don’t they fight back?’ Then, feeling the terror they felt, considers perceptively, ‘Courage and bravery are easy to imagine. But every individual has just one life and many choose to live with it with care, even down to its last moments.’ In seeking some kind of resistance to the struggle the narrator seems to be seeking her own salvation. But it is a search fraught with frustration. All time travel into the past is a dream of what we want to be.
I finished off the day by reading another short story from that Sinopticon collection. This was The Heart of the Museum by Tang Fei, a short ten page story. It was a slightly puzzling piece about an alien that is guardian to a child who will grow up and build a museum. The alien perceives past, present and future all at once, so the meaning of this future museum, which encapsulate so much of its thought, is intriguing to it. The story made me think of that other museum that appears in HG Wells’ The Time Machine. It had me meditating on the idea of Museum, what they are for and who can most appreciate them. Can a person (or alien) be a museum?
Read another story from that Sinopticon book of Chinese science fiction. This was The Great Migration by Ma Boyong. Like my recent read of Alita Mars Chronicle, this was also set on Mars and also included domed cities. Main character, Zhang, who narrates the story, has joined the Great Migration (or GM) to get to Earth, but encounters many obstacles in his path. Along the way he is joined by Varina, a voluptuous woman (the male gaze is big with this story), and Wendong, a guy who helps them get tickets. It’s set mostly in a spaceport near Mount Olympus, where the migrants congregate in hopes of gaining the much-prized ticket to Earth. There’s a touch of Casablanca the movie about it, but it plays out as high farce, or something approximating it. I couldn’t catch the tone – was it meant to be funny? It’s possible some of those inscrutable Chinese details got past me, I’ll admit it. The story comes to a climax when strong sunspot activity causes the flights and the spaceport to lock down and our heroes to miss their chance. There’s some nice detail about Mars life, like the presence of Oxygen Bars, where people go to get a blast of that sweet air (because the domes are so contaminated by Mars atmosphere). At one point Zhang speculates that the whole GM thing is a scam and that no one ever really gets to go to Earth. An intriguing idea, but the author doesn’t follow it up.
Read the story Meisje met de Parel by Anna Wu in the Sinopticon collection. This was one of the most unusual time travel stories I’ve ever read. Shizuko is a budding artist whose father many years ago made a drawing of a woman he briefly admired. But it was torn, and she gets it fixed by a restorer she knows. The restorer excitedly shows Shizuko an anomaly on the drawing: the woman’s pearl earring contains some kind of fractal message when looked at through a powerful microscope. It turns out she was an AI from the future who had returned to the past to leave the message so Shizuko could be inspired to make her own version of this Girl With a Pearl Earring (the Dutch title refers to the famous Vermeer painting). In the pearl earring woman’s future the painting Shizuko will go on to paint is considered a masterpiece. There’s so much more to this story than that precis. It is told in quite an elliptical fashion that is intriguing and ultimately very satisfying. Definitely a five out of five from me.
Finished the novella, Flower of the Other Shore by A Que in Sinopticon. A fantastic story about zombies from the zombies’ point of view. Known as ‘stiffs’, they have personalities and are sensitive and artistic – and funny. It’s just that damn zombie virus that makes them crave human flesh against their will. Because rigor mortis has set in they can’t talk, so they use a surprisingly sophisticated form of sign language to communicate. Main character, zombie Hui, has a strange flower growing out of his shoulder and it seems to be turning him back into a human. But he thinks he may have fallen in love with a human woman, Huang, whom he has befriended and is sheltering from his stiff brethren in his apartment. Indirectly referring to himself, he asks his friend, Old Jim, what should be done. ‘If your friend can’t make the girl love him,’ he says, ‘there’s only one thing he can do.’ ‘What’s that?’ he asks. ‘Eat her,’ is the reply. But then Hui asks, ‘Is there a less stiff-like manner of solving the problem?’ Old Jim’s advice finally is, ‘Get her to leave.’ From there the story takes many twists and turns, with Hui likening himself to Brad Pitt in a zombie movie, amusingly breaking the fourth wall. I loved this story.
Read the Absolution Experiment by Bao Shu in Sinopticon. A Twilight Zone-type story where a murderer gets a deal on a reprieve if he participates in an experiment. Of course there’s a catch. Mildly amusing, but not very original.
Read the story The Tide of Moon City by Regina Kanyu Wang from Sinopticon. A story of two scientists working to create a form of tidal power that may solve their twin planet’s energy problems. The woman, Dianne, lives on the planet He’lin. The man, Youjia, lives on the nearby planet Bizhe, but visits He’lin and Dianne to help work out the solution. A romantic attachment is formed between them, but it is quickly thwarted by jealousy and political machinations. It is poignant and highly symbolic, touching on the Chinese legend of the Magpie Bridge that connects the lost lovers together in a great tide. I liked this unusual story a lot, even though it’s more romance than science fiction. It set a mood of imagery I won’t soon forget.
Read the last story in Sinopticon, Starship Library by Jiang Bo. A millennia-spanning story about the last librarian and the last library that, considering my present choice of career, should have been more affecting than it was. I get that libraries are precious resources that should be cherished, preaching to the converted here. But even I don’t see a future where actual hard copy books are still in existence or used. Reading will continue, the idea of books will continue, but just in a different form. I agree, however, with the basic theme: if we give up learning, we are lost.
This was a great short story collection. These Chinese authors are amazing. My favourite story was Flower of the Other Shore, the zombie story, but most of the others were solid.