SINOPHAGIA: A Celebration of Chinese Horror, fourteen unsettling tales chosen and translated by Xueting Christine Ni

SINOPHAGIA: A Celebration of Chinese Horror
XUETING CHRISTINE NI, editor and translator
Solaris Books
$16.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: An anthology of unsettling tales from contemporary China, translated into English for the very first time.

Fourteen dazzling horror stories delve deep into the psyche of modern China in this new anthology curated by acclaimed writer and essayist Xueting C. Ni, editor and translator of the British Fantasy Award-winning Sinopticon.

From the menacing vision of a red umbrella, to the ominous atmosphere of the Laughing Mountain; from the waking dream of virtual working to the sinister games of the locked room… this is a fascinating insight into the spine-chilling voices working within China today—a long way from the traditional expectations of hopping vampires and hanging ghosts.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE AUTHOR. THANK YOU.

My Review: These fourteen tales of eerie events, unnerving occurrences, and dreadful doings all work as a unit to dispel the expectations of Western readers that there is one Chinese way to "do" horror. We're accustomed to thinking of China in monolithic terms, as a single unitary entity with a single (incomprehensible) culture and language.

So here comes Xueting Christine Ni, one-person wrecking crew, to show us in the monolithic, culturally incurious West, what we're slowly coming to realize: There's a lot of great storytelling in the rest of the world, and it's hella fun to discover what creeps other folks out...and how often it creeps us out too. Which leads me to one of the oddest modern phenomena ever to make me snort: The content warning. These are horror stories. If you are not triggered by them all, at some level, they are not doing their collective job! I am not including them because, well, horror. The translator/editor is kinder than I am and includes a story-by-story list of them.

As is the custom of this country here (aka my blog), we'll go story-by-story with a note and rating, then a summation, or the Bryce Method as it's better known around here.

The Girl in the Rain by Hong Niangzi has the most eerie vibe...anything that smacks of perception manipulation gives me serious shuddering horrors.

As a way to start the collection, it's got a serious punch. It gets 4.5*.

The Waking Dream by Fan Zhou moves the perception manipulation up a notch, and uses it to fuel the more-expected among Western readers bodily pains and restraints. Is any of this real? Or is there a deep disturbance in the psyche? Is the disturbance in the psyche causing victimhood, or perpetration?

A combination I wasn't expecting, and that didn't really land in either direction, so 4*

Immortal Beauty by Chu Xidao is remorselessly, grindingly physical...abuse is horrifying, though not horror in my personal taste. I felt this was more a report of awful events than a story.

Least successful to me. 3*

Those Who Walk at Night, Walk With Ghosts by She Cong Ge adds bugs to the psychoterror, and does so in a way I was genuinely dreading. The disability angle caused my horripilation to become visible from across the room.

Affecting, upsetting, dark, and just plain nasty. 4*

The Yin Yang Pot by Chuan Ge was more or less a take on "The Girl in the Rain"'s themes...I was still very, very unsettled by the physical restraint aspect, as I always will be, but the perception manipulation in this story was what Did. Me. In.

I want to rate it "zero stars, do not recommend", so that means it did a 4.5* job of creeping me out.

The Shanxiao by Goodnight, Xiaoqing gets my CW because animals are abused. Do what you want to adults, but never harm an animal.

Two stars, because there's some very memorable, lurid non-animal-harm imagery.

Have You Heard of Ancient Glory? by Zhou Dedong did its level best to make my axniety circuits fry. Adding to perception manipulation the scourges of addiction, deliberate and intentional triggering of CPTSD, and mental illness issues galore, gave me a jolt that caused me to put the book down for a week. But I could not stop thinking about it during that week. Read the story again, and *click* on came the light: I am in this same headspace—but I can leave it!

That is a giant success. It's the story I'd call the most successful at what horror fiction does. 5*

Records of Xiang Xi by Nanpai Sanshu was unpleasant on every axis: Animal abuse, use of slurs and a kind of contemptuous belittling attitude, a sense of horrifyingly real entitlement, that repulsed me without the cathartic benefit of other stories. A grudging 2*

The Ghost Wedding by Yimei Tangguo did all of that, and more...but did not project the nauseating sense of entitlement, of an absolute right to inflict these horrors, which in my mind made this story (while unpleasant to me) less inexcusable and intolerable.

Evil exists. We must look at it to poultice away some of its toxic power and its appalling fascination. 3* because it was absolutely no fun at all to read, but does something I value.

Night Climb by Chi Hui felt like a Crimean vacation after a Moscow blizzard! Atmospheric and eerie, dread in place of horror, and a slammin' command of imagery.

Never so glad to give something I finished in shivers 4* in my life.

Forbidden Rooms by Zhou Haohui places too much of its harms on children. It doesn't do so gratuitously, and this isn't The Focus like in earlier stories, but...well...ew. I was interested, not repelled, by the slurs used in this story...honestly, human inventiveness is marvelous even when used for scumbaggery. Because this story's ending is what it is, I felt able to get to 4*

Tian'nang by Su Min trads the territories above, and really stomps the floorboards with it...felt like a tale meant to push you outside its narrative to compel you to look, really look, at what you're reading as an entertainment, not merely a story.

I could totally be projecting with this and it has no bearing whatever to the author's intent. But that's how I found it, and it worked well on that level. 3.5*

Huangcun by Cai Jun leans into the slur-use...for my taste, this is just plain ol' abuse meant to disgust. This, plus a hafty dose of graphic violence, could've led to a poor rating. The trick, when selling horror stories to an ambivalent consumer like me, is to bring the goods...this does...but to offer a level of reflection on, or assessment of, the goods in a differently slanted frame.

It's down to the prose in this story. In less adept hands, this would've sent me on my way for good. As it is, 4*

The Death of Nala by Gu Shi is the last story, and would've been no matter what because the animal harm was just too much for me. 3*

All in all the seasoned horror-reader will get the desired chills and thrills from these stories, and from some unexpected directions. I'm always sure that my horror reading is bog-standard until I get a horror title to read! I'm a complete wuss...animals and kids should be left alone. You can talk hauntings and demons all nigh, won't bother me a whit because I don't care, but hurt a creature that can't fight back and I am very angry.

So why did I rate this collection so highly? Because I learned a lot about what scares the Sinophone world. Because I am, like most in that world, stirred into fear and rage by the same sorts of things.

Because Xueting Ni has annotated this collection, you can go learn a lot if you like. If you don't care to do that, you can get your scary-story needs (whatever they may be) met here unbothered. I think it's a fine emotional investment.

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