curiously_curious's review
5.0
A good collection of solid science fiction. Most interestingly from another culture and it is great to see science fiction so prevalent around the world.
I enjoyed the last save by Gu Shi -
A time travel story about how you can save much like video games and go back and to.
Tombs of the universe - Han Song
Was an interesting one. Cemeteries in space.
Qiankun and Alex - Hao Jingfang
About teaching an AI to have wants and desires of its own
The return of Adam - Wang Jinkang
About a 200 year old astronaut coming back to earth to discover humans subject themselves to an implanted device which increases their intelligence.
The Great migration - Ma Boyong
Although I do not think this is the most well written (not to say it is, I could not judge these writers and tell you who is the "best" they are all the "best") this story strikes a chord with me. Bureaucracy, bookings, overpopulation, competition, I liked this idea for Mars and I am fascinated by the fact the writer based it on their own experiences of the "spring festival" in which the Chinese run back to China to be with friends and family.
The Absolution Experiment - Bao Shu
What a interesting little story. I expected them to kill him at the end. How else to test immortality? Are you immortal? Yes. There is only one way to find out. Death. However Bao says a sustained waiting period. And at the end we find out why the scientist does this. We could say it is cruel etc to subject someone to an immortality of torment, but is that not what most religions do? I like short short stories that pack such a punch.
Starships: Library - Jiang Bo
A beautiful story with an interesting ending. If all knowledge is imprinted and we have no struggle in our learning, do we truly know anything? And it shows a human society which has basically come to a stop because of this. Nobody learns to walk, they know because of an imprint. Reading between the lines Jiang says also that parents choose which knowledge to imprint on their children. The translator very busy doing a good job! Did not mention this in their notes - but I find that an interesting concept and I know that is why Jiang threw it in there. A space library, do I need to say more?
Overall a good collection, where are all the others! There needs to be more cultural collections of science fiction, ultimately to show off the creativity and imagination of these great countries and cultures!
If I had to say one bad thing about the book, is that it has hammered home the fact that there are few collections from other cultures. Get doing more publishers!
I enjoyed the last save by Gu Shi -
A time travel story about how you can save much like video games and go back and to.
Tombs of the universe - Han Song
Was an interesting one. Cemeteries in space.
Qiankun and Alex - Hao Jingfang
About teaching an AI to have wants and desires of its own
The return of Adam - Wang Jinkang
About a 200 year old astronaut coming back to earth to discover humans subject themselves to an implanted device which increases their intelligence.
The Great migration - Ma Boyong
Although I do not think this is the most well written (not to say it is, I could not judge these writers and tell you who is the "best" they are all the "best") this story strikes a chord with me. Bureaucracy, bookings, overpopulation, competition, I liked this idea for Mars and I am fascinated by the fact the writer based it on their own experiences of the "spring festival" in which the Chinese run back to China to be with friends and family.
The Absolution Experiment - Bao Shu
What a interesting little story. I expected them to kill him at the end. How else to test immortality? Are you immortal? Yes. There is only one way to find out. Death. However Bao says a sustained waiting period. And at the end we find out why the scientist does this. We could say it is cruel etc to subject someone to an immortality of torment, but is that not what most religions do? I like short short stories that pack such a punch.
Starships: Library - Jiang Bo
A beautiful story with an interesting ending. If all knowledge is imprinted and we have no struggle in our learning, do we truly know anything? And it shows a human society which has basically come to a stop because of this. Nobody learns to walk, they know because of an imprint. Reading between the lines Jiang says also that parents choose which knowledge to imprint on their children. The translator very busy doing a good job! Did not mention this in their notes - but I find that an interesting concept and I know that is why Jiang threw it in there. A space library, do I need to say more?
Overall a good collection, where are all the others! There needs to be more cultural collections of science fiction, ultimately to show off the creativity and imagination of these great countries and cultures!
If I had to say one bad thing about the book, is that it has hammered home the fact that there are few collections from other cultures. Get doing more publishers!
mj_reading's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
toastyk's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
This selection of stories was a mix of cliched tropes with many having sexist undertones. There were a few standout stories that I really liked though.
neera_exlibris's review
3.0
Thank you to Rebellion/Solaris and NetGalley for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Actual rating 3.5⭐️.
I’m not very familiar with Chinese science fiction so this was a great starting place for me. It was very interesting to read fresh new takes on familiar concepts like time travel and technologically-enhanced humans, among many others, and in my opinion it proves that there are always new ways to interpret even the most supposedly ‘overdone’ concepts. I also enjoyed that this collection included stories from a wide range of time, rather than just the most recent ones.
There were two things that detracted from my enjoyment of these stories. Firstly, some of the writing was a bit clunky at times. Not having read these stories in the original language of course means that I am unsure if this was how they were originally written or if it was an issue with translation, but this sometimes made it difficult to stay engaged in the stories.
Secondly, and this was the main one for me, almost every single story had either strong or subtle elements of misogyny. It would NOT be accurate or fair, and would actually be pretty racist, to put this down to a cultural difference, because I have read many recently published books by Western authors that contained the same or even greater levels of misogyny. I expect this when I’m going into stories written a few decades ago, but it was disappointing to read it in the more recent stories too.
Overall though I found this to be an interesting collection of stories that raised a lot of intriguing thoughts and possibilities. I am especially glad to see more non-Western SFF being translated into English, and I very much hope that this continues!
Actual rating 3.5⭐️.
I’m not very familiar with Chinese science fiction so this was a great starting place for me. It was very interesting to read fresh new takes on familiar concepts like time travel and technologically-enhanced humans, among many others, and in my opinion it proves that there are always new ways to interpret even the most supposedly ‘overdone’ concepts. I also enjoyed that this collection included stories from a wide range of time, rather than just the most recent ones.
There were two things that detracted from my enjoyment of these stories. Firstly, some of the writing was a bit clunky at times. Not having read these stories in the original language of course means that I am unsure if this was how they were originally written or if it was an issue with translation, but this sometimes made it difficult to stay engaged in the stories.
Secondly, and this was the main one for me, almost every single story had either strong or subtle elements of misogyny. It would NOT be accurate or fair, and would actually be pretty racist, to put this down to a cultural difference, because I have read many recently published books by Western authors that contained the same or even greater levels of misogyny. I expect this when I’m going into stories written a few decades ago, but it was disappointing to read it in the more recent stories too.
Overall though I found this to be an interesting collection of stories that raised a lot of intriguing thoughts and possibilities. I am especially glad to see more non-Western SFF being translated into English, and I very much hope that this continues!
kriziny's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
Collection of 13 stories from 13 different authors
guolan's review
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
invisibleninjacat's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
This was an interesting entry into the world of Chinese short sci-fi stories. A good chunk of these don't have happy endings, as is fairly common among Chinese stories to my knowledge. I especially liked "Flower of the Other Shore" by A Que (from the point of view of some genre-savvy zombies!) and "The Tide of Moon City" by Regina Kanyu Wang (would-be lovers separated by planets and politics).
bookaneer's review
4.0
Uneven collection BUT the stories I enjoyed are really good. Always nice to add more authors in your watch list.
lsmith36's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0