a journal of the plague year² [no end near]

Read the beginning of The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu, who also translated Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, and Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide. But I just could not find enough interest in the one-dimensional and cardboardesque characters or the shallow plot to finish his book. In a sense, it reminded me of Jin Yong’s Legends of the Condor Heroes, which I also could not finish.

Kept harvesting large amounts of raspberries, with a second round coming sound. And monitored the tomato patch rise, thanks to a very wet month. But compared with earlier years, the tomatoes are still far from being ready to eat. Hopefully they will resist our vacation break (if COVID permits!). We also harvested the first rhubarb stems in three years (that made for a marmalade) and our very first gherkins/cornichons.

Watched Possessed a fairly dark Korean TV series that seems to merge most of the tropes in the series I have watched so far, from the grumpy cop to the joker role, from evil spirits to slow-paced action, from numerous scenes in cars with tachometers reving up to hint at high speeds to even more scenes in a police station, &tc. Plus the characters giving in to horrible blackmail to “save” loved ones In short, in a sort of cheap trolley dilemna… Not a series I would recommend! And had a second look at The Witcher series, after painfully completing the books: it did not sound so great upon reflection, especially the threadbare battle scenes, even though some parts and characters made more sense after reading the whole series. But Dandelion (not connection with Ken Liu’s trilogy) is even more unbearable on a second run!

waste tide

I presumably bought this book upon a suggestion made by the Amazon AI. It sounded quite original and interesting. And translated by Ken Liu. I had not seen the above cover, but it would have only helped. (And reminded me of the daunting and bittersweet Tales from the Loop.)

“None of this, of course, existed in the digital world. In their place were highly abstract algorithms and programs that turned the complicated messy world into a set of mathematical models and topological spaces. Like a real spiderweb, the web would be deformed by any insect that got caught into it, and the rate at which such deformation evolved exceeded the rate at which information might be transmitted under the restricted-bitrate regulations. In this world, the shortest path between two points was no longer the straight line.”

Waste Tide is immensely puzzling and definitely interesting. A Chinese form of Neuromancer…. With further links to the Windup Girl. The location of the novel is a near-future island in Guiyu, China. Where the World electric waste ends up, to be processed and recycled by “waste people”. Who are despised by the original inhabitants of the island. And exploited by clans and American companies. Several of the main characters find themselves torn between several cultures, but these characters often sound a bit too caricaturesque. Just like the take-over of a “waste girl” by a residual AI is somewhat clumsy. Far from the constructs of Neuromancer or Windup Girl.

Another interesting side of the book is the translation by Ken Liu, who also translated The Three Body Problem. As well as published short stories of his own. The preface warns about the multiple languages co-existing in China, beyond the most well-known Cantonese and Mandarin and the book includes footnotes about the proper pronunciation of some words.