emergencily 's review for:

Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction by Jiang Bo, Gu Shi, Ma Boyong, Anna Wu, Regina Kanyu Wang, Zhao Haihong, Han Song, Hao Jingfang, Bao Shu, Nian Yu, Tang Fei, A Que, Wang Jinkang

3.5

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• a collection of sci-fi short stories translated to english from a diverse range of chinese authors
• as with any collection of stories, some hit high notes and some hit lows. but overall this collection has more mid and low points. some of the stories are pretty basic sci-fi premises and don't offer anything interesting to say about the world beyond what's immediately obvious
• the foreword discusses the editor's hope to represent chinese women authors in sci-fi through this collection; this makes the inclusion of a few stories with very old-school, trite misogynistic tropes extra irritating in retrospect!
• standout stories:
  • tombs of the universe - a reflection on the evolution of human funerary practices in the age of space travel
  • rendezvous 1937: a time travelling story about the atrocities committed by japan in nanjing during WWII
  • flower of the other shore: an apocalyptic zombie story about a zombie falling in love. quirky love story, reminiscent of "warm bodies"
  • starship: library - a love letter to libraries as the community spaces & living archives of humanity