Ken Liu

Broken Stars, edited by multi award-winning writer Ken Liu--translator of the bestselling and Hugo Award-winning novel The Three Body Problem by acclaimed Chinese author Cixin Liu-- is his second thought-provoking anthology of Chinese short speculative fiction. Following Invisible Planets, Liu has now assembled the most comprehensive collection yet available in the English language, sure to thrill and gratify readers developing a taste and excitement for Chinese SF. Some of the included authors are already familiar to readers in the West (Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang, both Hugo winners); some are publishing in English for the first time. Because of the growing interest in newer SFF from China, virtually every story here was first published in Chinese in the 2010s. The stories span the range from short-shorts to novellas, and evoke every hue on the emotional spectrum. Besides stories firmly entrenched in subgenres familiar to Western SFF readers such as hard SF, cyberpunk, science fantasy, and space opera, the anthology also includes stories that showcase deeper ties to Chinese culture: alternate Chinese history, chuanyue time travel, satire with historical and contemporary allusions that are likely unknown to the average Western reader. While the anthology makes no claim or attempt to be "representative" or “comprehensive," it demonstrates the vibrancy and diversity of science fiction being written in China at this moment. In addition, three essays at the end of the book explore the history of Chinese science fiction publishing, the state of contemporary Chinese fandom, and how the growing interest in science fiction in China has impacted writers who had long labored in obscurity. 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.

Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation

Broken Stars

Nkechi A

 In distant Europe, a madman named Hitler rose to prominence in Germany with the support of the army and instantly declared war on the Soviet Union. The German forces reclaimed East Germany and invaded France. The whole world had descended into the first truly global war in history.

I agree that hope doesn’t lay in the future by default. It’s from the choices today. 

"Hope has always existed and always will," he said solemnly. "But hope is not the future because time does not have an inevi- table direction. Hope is now: in existence itself, in nothingness. The truth of nothingness is freedom. Man has always had the free- dom to choose, and this is the only comfort and grace offered to humanity."

The frame of this story might be seen as a reversed arrow of time, but strictly speaking, what has been reversed isn't time, only the trends of history .

Broken Stars quotes

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