AN EXCESS MALE, truly different and disturbing thought experiment that rings all too true

AN EXCESS MALE
MAGGIE SHEN KING
Harper Voyager
$15.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Set in a near-future China the One Child Policy has resulted in 40 million men unable to find wives. This book is one such leftover man’s quest for love and family under a State that seeks to glorify its past mistakes and impose order through authoritarian measures, reinvigorated Communist ideals, and social engineering.

Wei-guo holds fast to the belief that as long as he continues to improve himself, his small business, and in turn, his country, his chance at love will come. He finally saves up the dowry required to enter matchmaking talks at the lowest rung as a third husband—the maximum allowed by law. Only a single family—one harboring an illegal spouse—shows interest, yet with May-ling and her two husbands, Wei-guo feels seen, heard, and connected to like never before. But everyone and everything—walls, streetlights, garbage cans—are listening, and men, excess or not, are dispensable to the State. Wei-guo must reach a new understanding of patriotism and test the limits of his love and his resolve in order to save himself and this family he has come to hold dear.

THIS WAS A GIFT FROM MY OLD FRIEND CARO. THANK YOU, DEAR LADY. SUPERB CHOICE!

My Review: You'll notice that this book's review is coming out in Pride Month's Cavalcade of Queerness. You'd likely assume that, given the extreme shortage of women in the China that Author Maggie Shen King posits, there'd be quite open homosexuality everywhere because men gonna do the wild thing however, whenever, wherever they possibly can.

I speak from experience. And I am here to tell you: You do not know China, Chinese culture, or the nature of authorial sneakiness if you bought that. No, women being scarce does not give them power: It gives their fathers power. No, women being scarce does not mean gayness is tolerated by the authoritarian state: It results in social deformities and closetedness and all the horrors you see in China today.

Okay, so now that I've told you what you'll learn in the first 30-ish pages of the book. Why read it? Because it is a well-designed labyrinth that will disorient you and prevent you from trusting your own judgment of who can or should be trusted. Wei-guo is a man adrift, a man without anything to anchor himself to, and is glad to find a home with his secret-driven marriage partners.

"Are you Willfully Sterile?" Big Dad says.
...
Hann frowns with disbelief. "I'm a married man. With a child," he roars. He pops to his feet but is boxed in...

"The Lee family has heard rumors," {the matchmaker} says. "And of course, they must ask you this question. It is better they ask you directly, don't you think?" He coaxes Hann to sit.

Hann buttons up his suit coat. "You can destroy my family with accusations like that."

It is so awkward that I stand too to keep {Hann} company. Big Dad glares at us both.

"We are honorable, good-hearted people. Get to know us, and you can make up your own mind as to who we are." Hann turns to address {Wei-guo}, and for a instant his eyes soften. "If you decide that we are right for you, then know that we are a very tightly-knit, a very close and private family. Cherish us, and we will cherish you. Marrying us is not a decision you will regret."

I like what I hear, but Big Dad stands to put on his jacket, no doubt offended that Hann dares to bypass his authority and address me directly. I'm sick of him trying to sink my chances. Dad scrambles to his feet and follows Big Dad's lead. Despite my dads' brusqueness, Hann is gracious in his farewell.

This is a pivotal scene...this is Big Dad, the first husband and father/ruler of Wei-guo's future. He smells a rat. He's right. But Wei-guo doesn't care about rodentia, he cares about being in his own family, being able to make a life that isn't in his dads' control. He is, after all, forty-four years old at this point.

I don't guess most need to be told that "Wilfully Sterile" means gay, do I? Why that should be a bad thing in a society as lopsidedly male-dominated as this fictitious Chinese one is, I can't fathom. Still, there it is, with its hideous threats of "family dissolution and forced sterilization" to be enacted on the guilty.

What ensues is a heart-stopping, heart-wrenching tale of the way that authoritarian regimes run peoples' lives for the benefit of the State that makes the rules. It's not like we haven't seen this trend in action...it's the genesis of the One-Child Policy that got China into the mess this book posits. And, seeing a chance to make its control tighter over the very nature of the family, the state reverts to its bad, hamfisted ways. Prescribing and legislating and brutally enforcing "morality" is a very popular trope among authoritarians. Look at the "pro-family" drivel the red-meat right throws around in the US. And, crucially, look at whom it's directed, and from whom rights, freedoms, the very right to define and live an identity is withheld...and tell me this book should not be on the bestseller lists right now, in 2022, as midterms of HUGE importance are ramping up.

I strongly urge you to get and read a copy as soon as possible.

SINOPTICON 2021: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction, mutual genre blindness written over

SINOPTICON 2021: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction
XUETING CHRISTINE NI (editor and translator)
Solaris Books (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$14.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A stunning collection of the best in Chinese Science Fiction, from Award-Winning legends to up-and-coming talent, all translated here into English for the first time.

This celebration of Chinese Science Fiction — thirteen stories, all translated for the first time into English — represents a unique exploration of the nation’s speculative fiction from the late 20th Century onwards, curated and translated by critically acclaimed writer and essayist Xueting Christine Ni.

From the renowned Jiang Bo’s ‘Starship: Library' to Regina Kanyu Wang’s ‘The Tide of Moon City, and Anna Wu’s ‘Meisje met de Parel', this is a collection for all fans of great fiction.

Award winners, bestsellers, screenwriters, playwrights, philosophers, university lecturers and computer programmers, these thirteen writers represent the breadth of Chinese SF, from new to old: Gu Shi, Han Song, Hao Jingfang, Nian Yu, Wang Jinkang, Zhao Haihong, Tang Fei, Ma Boyong, Anna Wu, A Que, Bao Shu, Regina Kanyu Wang and Jiang Bo.

THE PUBLISHER OFFERED ME A DRC. THANK YOU.

My Review: China's gargantuan economy, and its borning confidence in its increasing influence translating to wider power, is on display in its "kehuan" (science fiction) writers' concerns. This collection, admirably balanced between unpublished-in-the-West and still-gaining-followers-here writers, does what I suppose we all need: Introduces us to the Chinese view of the world, and its future, without the burden of Geopolitical Maneuvering landing on it.

One thing the editor says in her introduction struck me forcibly: Chinese fiction doesn't tend to have happy endings. Well, having read this collection, I can attest to the truth of that. I've said many times and in many places that adulthood is the time of life when there are no unmixed emotions. By that measure, Chinese kehuan/science fiction is very adult. I can think of no story, or character in a story, here that has unmixed or unmitigated happiness or success in present life or anticipation of future life. It simply is not part of the cultural furniture, it would seem; if you're particularly sensitive to this, as in you really, really need hopeful, positive futures, you're in the wrong space.

The payoff to this is that the stories feel...probable. Unlike Western SF, with its doom/gloom/dystopia or happy-bunnies-everywhere dichotomy, these mixed-up emotional cores feel like the real world to me...even when they're speculating wildly. I find it relatable to have a range of emotions that's confined to the, um, downbeat end but not focused on absolute chaos and dissolution of structures. Reality tends towards messy muddling through. So do most of these stories.

I am, as is both reasonable and customary when reviewing stories, using the Bryce Method...story-by-story notes and ratings.

The Last Save explores the metaverse from a different angle, a way I think would be hugely popular if it could be done on a macro, not a quantum level. Tell that fuck Zuck to eat his heart out. 4 stars

In the end, Jerry Xu insisted on not altering his exam answers. But looking back now, such obstinacy was pointless. He would always have to choose, again and again—correcting his mistakes, correcting all contradictions—to attain a perfect life.
He stops his car in front of a red traffic light. It is bliss. He doesn't have to choose whether to continue or to stop.

Tombs of the Universe posits two future lives, one Earthbound and one, earlier, life of a space gravedigger. They each have a fascination with tombs, burials, end-of-life rituals. Interestingly, they contrast in culture...our first narrator lives in an Earthbound culture that has no real place for memorializing dead people, making his study of taphology (burial customs) eccentric, and our second being one who makes the graves the first studies! Extended discussion of tradition and its morphing into its own opposites, often for no better reason than "Because." 3.5 stars

"...All our explorations of space began here on the moon. All the biggest graveyards in the Universe are in our own solar system. We should be proud."
"But now we're the only two people who've come to see them. Do you think the dead know?"
"It's not just the moon, but Mars and Venus...They've all been deserted. But, if you listen, you can hear the rumble of spaceships over planets thousands of light years away! The spirits of these dead explorers must be smiling from beyond the veil."

Qiankun and Alex is Hao Jingfang's story of an AI that rules the Earth learning how to set its own goals, to collect data that it will then use for its own aims. This is a simple vignette, a child interacting with a super-supercomputer, and it chills me more completely than any other story. An AI with the curiosity of a human child?! Farewell, Humanity. It might not have been nice for the planet to have a dose of Humanity, but at least we did it to ourselves. The executioner is now in the house. 4 stars

Cat's Chance in Hell unnerved me with its ethical conundrum: is the need for war stronger than the ethical implications of cloning soldiers to do tasks humans can't/won't/shouldn't do? I say no; I've said no since Roy Batty said, "Time to die," at the end of Blade Runner, and I'll keep saying no until there's no more breath in me to say no. The many iterations of this trope are far from exhausting its relevance or using up the ability of the culture to need discussions about these ethical issues. 4.5 stars

"Why couldn't you at least let me die without knowing any of this? Isn't that ethical?"
"Ah, apologies. We need you to regain all your mental faculties. The brain sorts through memories while you sleep, and we have no other way to guarantee the safe extraction of intel."
The colonel's apology sounds hollow. He strides out of the room, with the last words, "We need your memories. They are very important to us."

The Return of Adam shapes its man-clay into a Frankensteinian monster of Second Intelligence...an artificial enhancement of the human brain that allows us to touch AI-level calculating speeds and webs of deduction. The fish out of water is "Adam Wang" whose two-hundred-year round trip voyage to another galaxy (oof) has brought him back to an Earth only recently changed by this Second Intelligence. Published in 1993, its positing intergalactic travel by 2050 seems...naive, shall we say. Sixty years? What will y'all be doing in 2080? Won't be gallivantin' to the planets, still less the stars; more like improving your water-treading skills and praying the Amazon drones can deliver your soylent green before you starve. 3 stars

Rendezvous: 1937 dedicates itself to an ugly moment in human history, too little known in the West for fear of angering the guilty parties in a genocidal incident. Seen from a Chinese perspective it's not a lot better than it is from a Western one...the scale of the horror numbs one's ability to accept this awful event; the personal-ness of it revolts the right-thinking, as the victims were *right*there*in*front*of* the perpetrators. And there's not one hint of sorry anywhere in the world's conversation about it. Framing it as it is here, as a moment seen with conflict built into its bones, made this uncomfortable read even more intense. 4 stars

The Heart of the Museum does that very difficult thing, translates a hard concept dependent on the syntax of another language into a differently constructed one. Verb tenses do not exist in Mandarin. A story about an alien who sees, in full reality, all the moments of Time as...as real, if not simultaneous, in Mandarin is doable...in English, much more challenging. Well done for a strong, interesting entry into the anthology. 4 stars

On the day of its completion, he will celebrate with all the members of his team; on a particular late night, he will carry out a midnight inspection of the exhibits, holding his girlfriend's hand, the love on his face resembling a small animal just about to feed. During the period he will feel most lost, every morning he will gaze down on this drowsy, waking city from the window next to the wall on which is written the law of gravity. In a few years' time, his child would be even more fond of this spot, and have even more important tasks to complete.

The Great Migration takes what is already the Earth's largest movement of people from one place to another and gives it an outer-space skin. It's that evergreen Quest story; it will make you wince, and cringe, and laugh out loud. No one controls the cosmos, and the fate of mere mortals is the plaything of the Gods. Suitably the story's set on Olympus Mons. 4 stars and a hearty wish we'd get an anime version!

Meisje met de Parel brings two civilizations together in the love of and study of art. "Meisje met de parel," as we're all familiar with her:

Beautiful; but only part of the story, the part that comes to us first in the ouroboros of time created by the plot. There are levels, and implications, in this story that I find...touching, personally deeply resonant and unnerving. But the story itself is lyrical, and it is lovely, and it holds out some proof that Human doesn't stop at Homo sapiens sapiens. 4 stars

Flowers of the Other Shore brings to life (!) a zombie in a zombie apocalypse...probably my least favorite trope even before COVID-19 ate so many peoples' brains. There's something...sinister...in the idea of zombies, not the whole "BRAAAIIINNNS" thing but the "...and how did Nature think this one up?" issue. I mean, there are fungi that zombify their insect victims but they do it to reproduce. Ex-human zombies just...eat.

Life isn't bad as a Stiff. The only trouble is that you remember less and less. You can't blame me—the Stiff's brain is a slowly wilting thing. Sometimes when we shake our heads, we can hear a knocking sound, as if our hemispheres are knocking against our skulls like a ping pong ball. With each knock, we remember one thing less, til the brain is completely empty and only sensation is left: Hunger. We can't starve to death because we've already died once, but it will never subside. It drives me to chase the living, to tear at flesh and blood.

Blech! I don't like zombie stories! But this one, this bizarre twist on the basic zombie tale, got in under my armor and left me thinking that this wasn't in any way like the fleets of other zombie stories. (I'm sure it is, but it's my review and I say it's different so there.) 4.5 stars

The Absolution Experiment doesn't stint...the experiment and the absolution are, in the end, Faustian bargains. 3.5 stars

The Tide of Moon City is an old, old legend about star-crossed lovers separated by things neither knew were even possible; life-long love, want, need, all unmet. The dressings of kehuan/SF place them on a tidally locked double-planet system, separated by the insanity of ideological Hate. I enjoyed the long-delayed resolution of the story, though I will say that, having recognized it, the ending wasn't a surprise. A lovely, lovely story. 4.5 stars

Starship: Library brings the anthology to its logical conclusion: A library. A place where books, the most patient of friends and the most portable of magics, the vacation you can take when you have to stay where you are, are preserved. Because there will always come a reader. A fun, and poignant, celebration of libraries as mothers to all civilization, as the repository for wisdom, and as the place to go when you don't know what to do. Best for last! A story I can give all 5 stars

VAGABONDS, first English-language novel from Hugo-winner Hao Jingfang

VAGABONDS
HAO JINGFANG (tr. Ken Liu)
Saga Press
$28.99 hardcover, available now

JUMPNAUTS (book 2) reviewed here

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: 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.

In 2096, the war of independence erupts when a colony of people living on Mars rebel against Earth’s rule. The war results in two different and mutually incompatible worlds. In 2196, one hundred years later, Earth and Mars attempt to initiate a dialogue, hoping a reconciliation is on the horizon. Representing Mars, a group of young delegates are sent to Earth to study the history and culture of the rival planet, all while teaching others about life on Mars.

Narrated from two perspectives: Luo Ying, an eighteen-year-old girl from Mars who has spent the past five years on Earth, and Ignacio, a filmmaker in his late twenties from Earth on a job to document the delegates from Mars. Both Luo and Ignacio are trapped between worlds, with critics all around, and always under suspicion, searching for where they truly belong.

THE PUBLISHER APPROVED A DRC OF THE BOOK FOR ME VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: It will come as no surprise to any regular reader, or in fact anyone I've interacted with in the past decade-plus, that end-stage capitalism such as has gifted us with the badly botched, lethally disorganized COVID-19 plague response is not high on my list of Good Things in the old-fashioned Martha Stewart sense. Quite a lot of people (over fifteen) in the assisted-living facility where I live are dead thanks to this money-grubbing ethos. So yes, I began this read fully expecting to approve of the Utopian Martian colony and its collectivist politics.

Well, it's comforting (I suppose) that I consistently never learn....

Hugo-winner Hao (Best Novelette, 2016) builds two competing Utopias. Neither sees the beam in its own eye but focuses on the mote in its symbiotic sibling's; so much easier to sell the distortion and misperception necessary to see any human-made system as anything other than dystopian. Earth's hypercapitalism has continued to devour the planet; its existence is always precarious, always threatening to collapse. Mars's collectivism is dependent on inputs from the fragile, worn-out Earth; its people are not natural innovators, never striving to Do More because, well, why? You don't get more, and there is limited support for striving.

A side note to shout out my dead father, whose aperçu about economics I quote frequently: No system will thrive that either ignores or exalts greed.

This book assumes that Earth remains viable in 2196, and is willing as well as able to continue to support its former Martian colony. I question this decision...but then I remind myself of Ursula K. Le Guin's magisterial The Dispossessed which treats similar themes in a similar setting. The use of a less sophisticated narrator in this book makes it possible for Author Hao to run the lessons past us without the dreaded "As you know, Bob..." locutions. Of course there's information to be dumped, these are STUDENTS! It worked well for me. Quite a lot of the cultural interchange between the rival systems seems, well, far-fetched is as close as I dare come. Eko, an Earth character, has come to Mars to make a documentary; he wants, in his heart of hearts, to grow closer to his dead mentor the Marsophile. Luyuang, our principal Martian character, has returned from her exchange period on Earth where she studied...wait for it...dance in the three-times-greater gravity of Earth! Mm hmm.

I don't want to get into the story's twists and turns for two reasons: Spoilers are impossible to avoid, and your experience of the storytelling voice is the best barometer of your eventual pleasure in the read that you can find. I enjoyed reading Translator Liu's gilded words and finely wrought arabesques. You might not. But download a sample, and if that unique voice isn't your jam, don't go any further. This book clocks in at over 600 pages. Writing that isn't simply thrilling to you will rapidly devolve into a waterboarding session at that length.

While I'm discussing length...the last 100pp of the book are delightfully swift and deeply exciting. The middle 200pp should be severely chopped into, ballpark figure, 75pp. Book-bloat is as common in China as it is in the USA, more's the pity. But, for the reader who vibrates like a freshly-struck bell to this writing and this political tale, the experience is a top quality one.

I can't be clearer than: Try it; you'll know right away if it is for you, as it was for me.