Name: Katie Chua's review of Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang
Item: Vagabonds
Rating: 4
Author: Katie Chua

Hao Jingfang

A century after the Martian war of independence, a group of kids are sent to Earth as delegates from Mars, but when they return home, they are caught between the two worlds, unable to reconcile the beauty and culture of Mars with their experiences on Earth in this “thoughtful debut” (Kirkus Reviews) from Hugo Award–winning author Hao Jingfang. This “masterful narrative” (Booklist, starred review) is set on Earth in the wake of a second civil war…not between two factions in one nation, but two factions in one solar system: Mars and Earth. In an attempt to repair increasing tensions, the colonies of Mars send a group of young people to live on Earth to help reconcile humanity. But the group finds itself with no real home, no friends, and fractured allegiances as they struggle to find a sense of community and identity trapped between two worlds.

Vagabonds

Sunny

A century after the Martian war of independence, a group of kids are sent to Earth as delegates from Mars, but when they return home, they are caught between the two worlds, unable to reconcile the beauty and culture of Mars with their experiences on Earth in this spellbinding novel from Hugo Award–winning author Hao Jingfang. This genre-bending novel is set on Earth in the wake of a second civil war…not between two factions in one nation, but two factions in one solar system: Mars and Earth. In an attempt to repair increasing tensions, the colonies of Mars send a group of young people to live on Earth to help reconcile humanity. But the group finds itself with no real home, no friends, and fractured allegiances as they struggle to find a sense of community and identity, trapped between two worlds. Fans of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Naomi Alderman’s The Power will fall in love with this novel about lost innocence, an uncertain future, and never feeling at home, no matter where you are in the universe. Translated by Ken Liu, bestselling author of The Paper Menagerie and translator of Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem, Vagabonds is the first novel from Hao Jingfang, the first Chinese woman to ever win the esteemed Hugo Award.

Katie Chua

Fraser Simons

Squarely upmarket, this book ruminates on a vast number of challenges with both colonizing mars and forming a new kind of society—once aspiring to be utopian, as much as one can be—as well as the practical, physical limitations of such a place and how that directly effects change; both consciously and otherwise. 

A group of martians have lived on earth for a time during an armistice and now return home to the colony. There’s a cross pollination effect and the frame with which to present the colony as brand new to the reader, while juxtaposing it with people from, or interact with (like an envoy or ambassador, etc.), earth. It is a large, ensemble cast that we jump around to, with, more-or-less one “main” protagonist. With another one most often returned to. 

Like all sci-fi novels I’ve consumed there are wars between earth, which maintains its free market capitalism thinking, and mars. But why I specifically mention it being upmarket is that this book is not at all concerned with giving (western) sci-fi readers genre tropes. There’s no plot heavy match to the final conflict. It’s not concerned with the granularity of time and charting A to B. It doesn’t hold your hand, basically. As pretty much all SFF fans have been completely conditioned for now. It’s also standalone, as far as I know. So this is not commercial fiction. 

That’s what makes it so good. This is what people refer to as an idea book. And while not everything is long term strictly “pertinent”, mostly because it isn’t plot heavy, usually it’s digressions are a part of world building in bite-sized chunks, or an axis with which to further flesh out a characters ideology or philosophy, which is a proxy for the larger themes. It’s not east versus west ideologue battles, it’s more about finding something human in the perspectives of everyone, including your enemies. Because when you vilify an entire way of thinking you will, inevitably, hamstring your own thinking. And in long-term life and death of something like a colony, that’s a death sentence. 

There are asides on plenty of scientific stuff I didn’t remotely know about and I found fascinating. The focus on humanity needing to look to larger problems than tribalistic tendencies and critically examine development is always good. It’s what the genre is there for, in part. And I like heavily interiority in my books. Lots of people mention it’s more literary and I mostly agree with that—except that the prose, while better than commercial fiction, are, again, upmarket. Literary would give those readers a false impression as well. It’s somewhere in the middle. 

There is a resolution to a conflict and the ending felt right for the narrative. Overall, I liked it a lot. Defied my expectations in a pleasant way. It is certainly slow, because it floats from person to person. There is some tension, but because the expectations are defied early, you don’t really know how the book will go about resolving it. I was perfectly happy to float along and just find out more interesting philosophy and science. It’s not going to be for everyone, but it is my kind of thing. 

Had the prose work been literary it would have been 5 stars. People describe as lyrical and I didn’t really find that. It’s pretty contemporary and dynamic, but there’s no a high degree of specificity or high diction, or a concern for musicality to the degree you’d see in literary fiction. I think it’s just been a while since Sanderson-esk, sterile, workmanlike prose have been seen in the SFF genre.

Ben Nathan

In terms of ideas, it's a 5 star. In terms of story, 4 stars. When we get to characters they vary but they're pretty good. The problem I have is the problem that happens with lots of things from mainland China. The risque part of it was that someone might not want to get married. The oppressive heteronormativity and cultural repetition was obvious. I just want something that resembles modern culture and what might come, not something that makes the 1960s look progressive.

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