Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation

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384 pages

Published Nov. 1, 2016 by Tor Books.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-8418-8
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3 stars (1 review)

Invisible Planets, edited by multi award-winning writer Ken Liu—translator of the bestselling and Hugo Award-winning novel The Three Body Problem by acclaimed Chinese author Cixin Liu—is his second thought-provoking anthology of Chinese short speculative fiction. Invisible Planets is a groundbreaking anthology of Chinese short speculative fiction.

The thirteen stories in this collection, including two by Cixin Liu and the Hugo and Sturgeon award-nominated "Folding Beijing" by Hao Jingfang, add up to a strong and diverse representation of Chinese SF. Some have won awards, some have garnered serioius critical acclaim, some have been selected for Year's Best anthologies, and some are simply Ken Liu's personal favorites.

To round out the collection, there are several essays from Chinese scholars and authors, plus an illuminating introduction by Ken Liu. Anyone with an interest in international science fiction will find Invisible Planets an indispensable addition to their collection.

2 editions

An anthology of SFF by writers from China picked by Ken Liu.

3 stars

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 …