Reviews and Comments

A better than average anthology of SFF by writers from China. The editor and translator, Ken Liu, is careful to say that the anthology is not meant to represent the best SFF from China, but to showcase some stories and give readers a taste of the kind of SFF being written in China. The anthology ends with some eassys by the writers on some aspects of Chinese SF.

• “The Year of the Rat” by Chen Qiufan: without jobs, university graduates have to go for the only work available: the Rodent-Control Force, troops tasked with the job of killing genetically engineered rats meant for the market in the West that had escaped. As they try to meet their quota of rats (to be reassigned to other jobs), it is gradually revealed that the rats are not all they seem to be, and neither are the people catching them.

• “The Fish of Lijian” by Chen Qiufan: an up-and-coming employee is suddenly told to take time off from work for rehabilitation. Now in Lijiang, he meets a nurse who leads his rehabilitation and it is gradually revealed why rehabilitation is necessary due to the way work has now messed up workers sense of time due to workloads.

• “The Flower of Shazui” by Chen Qiufan: a person hiding in Shenzen meets an attractive prostitute who asks him to help repair some organic film applied to her body. As he gets to know her more after the meeting, we learn the reason why he is hiding in Shenzen and also what troubles the prostitute, and he decides to help her. But the results would turn out not to be as expected.

• “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” by Xia Jia: on a street filled with ghosts inhabiting various animated bodies (as a tourist attraction), a boy grows up under the care of a ghost lady. The street has fallen on hard times with few, if any tourist, walking it. And one day, a calamity hits the street and the boy's attempts to save it might not be successful.

• “Tongtong’s Summer” by Xia Jia: a robot, which turns out to be remotely controlled, comes into the household to take care of the grandfather, who is grumpy that he now cannot walk and socialise. But an attempt to get a more competitive Chinese Chess player for the grandfather would set off a revolution in remote robotic care.

• “Night Journey of the Dragon-Horse” by Xia jia: a mechanical dragon-horse (body of a horse, head of a dragon) comes to life in a future where humans have gone. As it explores its new world, it meets a bat who becomes its friend and leads it on to a new life. The author's note at the end gives links to the real life dragon-horse gifted from France to China on which the story is based.

• “The City of Silence” by Ma Boyong: in a future where only authorized web links can be accessed and only certain 'safe' words may be used in conversations that are constantly listened to by the authorities, a man decides to sign up to use a BBS (bulletin board system). But a secret message encoded into the permission forms returned to him would lead him to join a secret society that would block the listening authorities for a brief time while they indulged their secret desires for conversation and companionship. But it would all come to an end and the man must decide on whether to take the next step in a world that is now becoming silent; for while everybody is listening, nobody would dare to say a word.

• “Invisible Planets” by Hao Jingfang: a series of brief stories about fantastial world as told by one person to another, leading to a brief meeting of minds.

• “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang: in a future where Beijing as been physically divided to two halves (for the elite and the rest), with one half 'folded' into the earth and dormant while the other is active, a man is asked to pass on a message from one side to the other, from a man to a woman. The journey would reveal the story of how Beijing came to be the way it is.

• “Call Girl” by Tang Fei: a story that initially starts out giving the impression of a school girl who may have trysts with strangers turns into an altogether fantastical tale when the "Call Girl" turns out to have to ability to call strange things into existence to fulfil the expectations of her clients.

• “Grave of the Fireflies” by Cheng Jingbo: a story of a journey in the far future to a castle that may hold the future (or past) of a girl and a universe where the stars are going out.

• “The Circle” by Liu Cixin: a conquering king believes that the secret of eternal life may lie in the digits that make up Pi, and commands his adviser to calculate it for him. The answer to generating the digits would be a computing machine made up of his soldiers acting as the logic gates of a huge computing machine. But in the end, the king's hubris would lead to his downfall.

• “Taking Care of God” by Liu Cixin: an ancient civilization who claims to have created all life on earth suddenly appears, and ask humanity to take care of the last remaining members of the civilization, whose ships are now failing. As first, it goes well, but those taking care of ailing and forgetful elders may know, conflicts between generations will occur, and it all breaks down. But not before the gods pass on a message to mankind about their possible future.

By Alan Grant and Arthur Ranson, "Mazeworld" is an interesting story with an anti-hero protagonist, Adam Cadman. In our world, he has been sentenced to hang. But something strange happens during the hanging: he is transported to Mazeworld where, unable to remove his hanging hood, he is hailed as the returned 'Hooded Man' who will free the oppressed people from the masters of Mazeworld. Mazeworld itself is a set of mazes, set on a plateau which rises out of a sea of mysterious mists or clouds.

Unable to believe what is happening to him at first, Cadman's first instincts is to flee and hide, but events happen to make him change his mind and help the rebels.

Told in three parts, the first part starts with his hanging and first appearance in Mazeworld. It ends with the overthrow of one of the masters of Mazeworld and his reappearance in our world when his hanging is aborted.

Cadman is then transported to a medical facility, where an attempt to understand what is happening to him (by probing his brain) transports him back to Mazeworld when he once again is involved with the rebels and faces a new threat: the Dark Man who has supernatural powers granted to him by an 'angel' he has imprisoned. In our world, the brain probe makes doctors realize that his mind has gone to another world and he is worthy of further examination.

Returned to our world, Cadman is now in a corporate testing facility, who hopes to make use of the world he has revealed. But here, Cadman (transported back to Mazeworld) faces his greatest test: to navigate the maze at the heart of Mazeworld in an attempt to save it from an invasion of devilish creatures. But it may end in failure, for evil is at the heart of the maze, and it wants to use Cadman to invade our world.

A fascinating, dark, fantasy story, with artwork that is full of details that, sometimes obscures what is happening, this is a story with an ending that shows Cadman saving the world, but with many little tragedies along the way.

"Age of the Wolf" is a three-part werewolf story by Alec Worley and Jon Davis-Hunt. It is told from the viewpoint of Rowan Morrigan. At the start, most of humanity is transformed into werewolves. Rowan discovers that she is being hunted, for she is part of a prophecy that would see werewolves driving humans extinct unless she can stop it. At the end of the first part, she fulfils (or does she?) the prophecy.

In the second part, years have passed. Humanity still survives (barely) and Rowan leads a band of survivors hoping to find a safe place. But she is opposed by another band of survivalists who sell fellow humans and has a grudge against her. After much tragedy, Rowan escapes with a baby to safety.

In the last part, many years have passed. The werewolves themselves have changed and become intelligent creatures, intent on harnessing magical powers to ensure that humanity is wiped out. But that requires a sacrifice, specifically, the baby (now a woman) rescued by Rowan. Rowan herself is now weaker, but intends to save humanity any way she can, even if it requires sacrificing those that she loves.

This story was apparently based on an ancient Norse prophecy of Ragnarök, in which most of humanity become werewolves. How much it follows and deviates from it is left to the reader as an exercise. The situation features runes and ancient British and Irish forms of magic. The artwork is coloured, dramatic, and somewhat bloody (can't be helped: it's a werewolf story).

An excellent read that immerses the reader in a steampunk and magical alternative world set in the early 20th century, where djinns and other magical creatures exist in Egypt and the rest of the world. This was made possible when a mysterious mystic named al-Jahiz broke the barrier between our world and the magical one. This allowed Egypt to resist European colonization (with the help of djinn) and to become a world power.

Into this world steps Fatma el-Sha’arawi, who works at the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities. She helped save Egypt (and the world) from being taken over by ancient beings from another world in a previous tale ("A Dead Djinn in Cairo"). In this story, she starts with an investigation into the mysterious deaths of a secret brotherhood group that would lead her to confront a person with immense magical powers who claim to be al-Jahiz, who has returned to lead a revolution against the elite.

With a supporting cast of fascinating characters like her new partner, her secret lover, a man channelling (or becoming?) an ancient Egyptian god, djinns, 'angels' and others personnel from the Ministry, she would confront the person, leading to a climactic battle that would determine the fate of the world. And only she may be able to wield the ultimate item of magical power that can stop that person, and others, from carrying out a plan to dominate the world.

The author hints of magical beings inhabiting other parts of the world, which opens up the possibility of a series of future stories involving Fatma and other characters in other adventures around the world. If true, this is one reader eager to join in their adventures.

A lovely book about the natural history of spiders. Packed full of information about spiders, it starts off with an introduction to what is a spider and what differentiates it from other spider-like organisms (like harvestmen, scorpions and so on). It then goes into some biology of spiders, then the classification of spiders.

The book then introduces some specific spiders from different families, describing their physical appearance and what we know about their behaviour (hunting, hiding, mating, etc.) and their geographical range.

Detailed pictures of the spiders are also provided, some of which are of spiders that are tiny: less than 1 mm in size. That might give you an idea of how dedicated some spider researcher must be, to seek out and try to understand such tiny organisms.

A good book to read to get to know some of the spiders in the world. General readers are free to skip over some of the more technical descriptions about spider anatomy and biology, which would interest those who want to know more about the spiders shown in the book.

If you dived into this book, expecting more about Beagle's unicorn, you will be disappointed. Instead, it is a fascinating and moving set of linked stories around the main character, Sooz, and peripherally linked to the world of the unicorn.

The first story, "Two Hearts", republished here, sets the stage. Children in Sooz's village are being hunted by a griffin. Sooz, determined to stop it, disobeys her parents and sneaks away to get the King to come and deal with the griffin. She then bumps into Schmendrick the Magician and Molly Grue, who have their own reasons for seeing the King Lir (for he is the king Sooz is seeking). Seeing the condition the king is in, old and decrepit, Sooz nearly gives up, but upon hearing her request, Lir revives and cannot be stopped from the quest, even if it might mean his death.

The battle with the griffin is fierce, deadly, and would require a last-minute intervention from the unicorn to save the day; but not for one person. Thus, they learn the price for getting rid of the griffin. In closing, Molly Grue gives Sooz instructions that she is only to do when she turns seventeen.

The second, longer story, "Sooz", shows what happens on that day when she executes the instructions. The results are world changing as Sooz discovers a hidden past involving a missing elder sister who has been 'lost' to the 'Dreamies' (fairy folk). She sets out on a quest to find her and to bring her back home.

The quest would be long and involve one brief but violent episode. She also meets an unusual companion who is also on her own quest, but one involving Death. Together, they have to travel through the changing land of the Dreaming, looking for and convincing her sister to come home. But one question they would have to answer is: what is home to them?

A well written story of growing up, discovering secrets, being determined to fulfil your quest, and also learning just who you want to be.