Waste Tide

352 pages

Published April 30, 2019 by Tor Books.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-8931-2
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4 stars (3 reviews)

7 editions

A beautifully haunting novel

5 stars

Chen Qiufan's "The Waste Tide" is a beautifully haunting novel. A highly recommend read.

Set in the fictitious future city of Silicon Isle -- a depressing nightmare where migrant workers toil night and day to take apart e-waste in an unforgiving filthy, toxic, cancer-inducing environment.

The world-building and characters Chen captures are rich and deep. You feel for Mimi and her unfortunate migrant workers who are treated like worthless dirt by Silicon Isle's affluent & arrogant caste.

And you encounter many gems along the way, such as the fusion of Chinese myths, a spirit-powered mech of death, as well as hilarious and visually entertaining snippets:

"The woman grabbed him by the left leg and dragged the powerless Kaizong into a temporary shed filled with junked prostheses. She pulled a rubber dildo out of the pile and, with astounding arm strength, stretched it into a rope, which she used to tie …

Review of 'Waste Tide' on 'LibraryThing'

4 stars

A powerful, gripping book, that suffers a little from leaving some of its most potentially interesting characters insufficiently fleshed out.[return][return]It wonderfully subverts typical hero / saviour narratives, and complicates questions about who holds power and who is on the "good" or "bad" side of a conflict. But it still renders its privileged non-heroes a lot more three-dimensional than any of the less privileged people who as a collective this book is largely about.

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4 stars