A View from the Stars

Like many science fiction fans, I have been swept away by the recent influx of Chinese writers that have been translated. Many of these writers are only new to us but have established careers back in China. The most prominent is the Hugo Award winning Cixin Liu. I have enjoyed the style of stories from China, a mixture of old-fashioned golden era science fiction, with a clear and modern scientific bent. A View from the Stars is a collection of Cixin Liu’s short stories and articles from the late 90s into the 00s that acts as a perfect taster for a new fan, and an interest insight into those that already know the author. 

View is an interesting collection in that it is not just a series of stories. It is as much weighted towards Cixin Liu’s non-fiction, mostly on the art and history of science fiction, both as a genre itself, but how it specifically developed in China. The author found their progress blocked at times, especially in the 80s, when the genre was frowned upon by the state. Articles on how Cixin Liu still managed to write give an insight into the passion to write. There are also interesting breakdowns of how you can create speculative fiction; Cixin Liu takes what may happen in the near future and proposes to the reader what may happen. 

As an amateur scholar of art of science fiction, I found the articles particularly interesting, but the stories are also of a high quality. There are only a few on show and they range from hard science fiction to a more pulp feel. I am a pulp fan at heart, so I have a soft spot for Whale Song and Destiny, both are fun what-if tales. One is about drug smugglers using the mouth of a whale to get their product onto the shore, the other is about a newlywed couple mistakenly altering the history of humankind. They are fun, quick, but have some good science. 

One criticism I have of Cixin Liu’s work is that it can on occasion be too earnest. It has that vintage feel of really getting into the weeds when it comes to the science. Their books can have pages of people talking in rooms about science. For a hard science fiction fan, this is like nectar, but I struggle to keep up.  

There are hard sci fi stories in View, but the length of the tales means that they cannot go on for too long. Heard it in the Morning is an interesting story as it balances the humanity with the science. A physicist is willing to die to learn the ultimate answer from an alien visitor. The physicist is driven only by knowledge, but we feel sympathy for the man’s wife and child as they watch him not only sacrifice himself, but also the relationship he has with his family. 

With the latest text in the book being from 2015, View is more of a retrospective of Cixin Liu’s career and not the latest thinking of the author. However, it is a wonderful insight into the writer and the recent history of the science fiction genre in China. It helped me to formulate some answers to the questions that had been bubbling along in my brain having read a decent amount of translated Chinese fiction in recent years. What I learned was that Cixin Liu has always been a talented writer but is also a deep thinker and conscientious. This collection is a must read for any fan of the author or any fan of the wider world of science fiction that is out there.