A review by mweis
Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

3.75

This was a really interesting collection! While I ultimately ended up giving this the same star rating as its companion, Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, I think I did enjoy this more. This book seemed to focus more on what is traditionally seen as Western science fiction, where I remembered the previous book, having more stories that were fantastical or genre blended.

Standouts in this collection for me were:

“Goodnight, Melancholy” by Xia Jia 

• What a way to start the collection! I might have cried a little and definitely broke out the highlighter/annotation pens, but this flips back and forth between someone training artificial intelligence and parts of the life of Alan Turing 

“Moonlight” by Liu Cixin 

• Such a fascinating concept and the ending was so impactful 

“What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear” by Baoshu 

• A timeslip of a novel with a star crossed lovers romance at the heart, I wanted to highlight so many lines 

“The New Year Train” by Hao Jingfang 

• Short but wow did this pack a punch and make me feel so many emotions 

“The First Emperor’s Games” by Ma Boyong 

• China’s first emperor has leaders of various schools of thought pitch him video games… he legitimately plays The Sims in this one