Publisher: New English Library
Cover Art: Jim Burns (Edition shown)Publication Date: 1989Pages: 480
After having had such an amazing time reading the Asian-influenced first part of The Initiate Brother, I looked around for another book with a simialr theme. I was immediately tempted by my old collection of Chung Kuo novels.
I've toyed with Chung Kuo since it was published in the late eighties. I was remember being completely sold by my first sight of Book 1, The Middle Kingdom, when it came out with a beautiful cover that was predominently red around the borders, with Chinese dragons drapped over the top corners, and the image of an old Han sitting on a throne (see image below). Over the following thirty years, since I first tried to read the opening volume, it has haunted and daunted me to complete it. I'm going to try REALLY HARD this time to see it through to the bitter end (more on the end down below). But the sheer size of Chung Kuo can be a little intimidating.
The original run lasted for eight weighty tomes, and even though they are brilliantly written by author, David Wingrove, by their very nature I found them a bit difficult to get into at first. For me, the barrier holding me back was the inherent premise of the tale being told. You see, Chung Kuo (the new name for Earth) is about and alternative future history where Chinese culture has become the dominant power on our planet, and because of that premise the number of characters with Chinese names takes a bit of getting used to. If you can get past this, then you will be truly rewarded with an excellent read.
Over a turbulant period (covered in later editions - see below) of Earth's history, the Chinese (or Han as they are referred to in these books) take over the running of our planet, and they impose their own culture and principles. As they rise to power they begin construction of a city that begins to expand across every continent.
At the start of this first book, it has been 200 years since the upheavel and the City has all but covered every land mass apart from a few choice areas owned by the very rich and land that has been reserved for food production. The city is constructed of 'stacks' made up of 30 decks, with each deck having 10 levels and in total rises nearly 300 levels and 3 miles above the planet surface (now referred to as The Clay). As with any class-based culture, the lower your class, the lower the level you are allowed to live on. There are even sub-levels, below a protective security net that keeps the city free of ground-dwelling animals and diseases, this is where the criminal and undesirable elements are exiled too. Even with this enormous amount of living space, the population of 34 billion people is begining to stretch the resources of the massive administration. Added to this, the Hung Mao (i.e. non-Han) race crave for change; be that more political power, money, or simply the freedom to search the stars for places to expand the human race into; they are becoming more and more reactionary. There are many powerful men in this position, and they have become known as The Dispertionists.
The rulers of Chung Kuo consist of the ancient descendants of the Chinese ruling classes and are known as Tang. There are seven Tang, each with their own geographical empire to rule over, and this book, The Middle Kingdom, concerns the political and personal struggles faced by the preciding Tang named Li Shai Tung, ruler of City Europe.
Li Shai Tung has to deal with the Dispertionist party, who are made up of extremely wealthy Hung Mao. Among those are Under Secretary Pietr Lehmann, Edmund Wyatt and Soren Berdichev who control mega-corporations involved in such enterprises as the entertainment industry and android manufacturing. These men are morally ambiguous - you can understand their dilemna under the strict edicts of the Tang - but there methods are highly questionable.
The same can be said of the Tangs' supporters, military officer DeVore is a wonderfully nasty character whose intentions may not necessarily be what they seem, and General Tolonen is completely dedicated to his Han superior, regardless of what his instinctual actions might result in.
But it's the younger characters in this initial segment that I most enjoyed reading about. A young man from the grimy underbelly of The Clay, Kim, whose survival instincts might allow him to escape that terrifying carnal environment. The son of the Tang Li Shai Tung, Li Yuan, whose infatuation with his elder brother's fiance, Fei Yen, may lead him to distraction. The two Han killers for hire from below the Net, Chen and Jyan, who have been paid to plant bombs on a building at the start of the book; the resultant explosion is the catalyst for the entire first novel - who has hired them? Was it the Dispertionists or was it a Han wanting to further their political career? And finally there is Ben and Meg Shepard, Hung Mao whose great-great grandfather was responsible for the design of The City. Due to their parentage, the Shepards enjoy a life outside The City in a corner of Britain populated with traditional villages and cottages, called the Domain. They also enjoy total independance from the Seven, and are the only people on Chung Kuo who are allowed to engage with the Tang on an equal basis.
This is a brilliant book. Wingrove uses a multiple viewpoint narrative allowing him to utilise a huge cast of characters, and a highly complex plot with many side-stories. He has room to develop the players in his story from scratch, and many of them visibly grow and change as you see their progress on the page throughout the novel.
He is also able to include a decent amount of great action scenes that are interspersed between the political maneuvering, and this works like a treat. You are never quite sure when something is going to blow up out of nothing - there are traitors, spies and potential assassins around every corner, and the whole atmosphere is steeped in a sense of foreboding and nervous expectation. For me, the stand out sequences were those set in the Clay and the Domain which is strange when you think the whole premise is about a world-enveloping city. I think this is a testament to how good Wingrove's writing is here.
I wouldn't class The Middle Kingdom as a hard-sci-fi novel if you were wondering. If you are a bit put off by "Hard Sci-Fi", don't let this you stop you giving it a go. The science, at least in this opening book, is totally within anyones means. There are no mind-bending scientific thoeries or concepts to get your brain around - this is what I'd describe as a future-history science fiction epic where the emphasis is upon telling an enormous tale both at a highly political and a individual human level. It covers culture clashes amid the need for the human desire to expand or die. And that's just touching the surface - there is so much more, and this is what makes it so damn good.
What about the end of Chung Kuo? I've heard its not complete?
The ending of the Chung Kuo series is shrouded in contention. This is due to the original publishers handing out an ultimatum to Wingroive to finish up with the eighth volume, rather than his intended aim of a ninth book which would have meant it having a three-trilogy structure. Many reviewers and readers at the time of the final book being published were dissapointed - and thats understandable - after such a long set-up, its no wonder the author struggled to deliver a suitably satisfying finale to his magnum opus in an abridged version.
However, all is not lost. Wingrove himself is self-publishing following a previously aborted re-issue by Corvus Press in the 2010's. When Corvus came on board it was announced that the writer would address the issues regarding the truncated ending and add a new beginning which led to the entire saga becoming a 20 volume series. The increased count of books was due to the intention of splitting and/or expanding each original book into two smaller editions. Wingrove is sticking to this plan, and as of the time of writing, he has repackaged and re-released the two new early installments and all of the following novels up to and including volume twelve (which would cover the first five of the original run).
There are still eight books left to complete this science fiction tale of a future Earth and, to be frank, news from Wingrove comes out only very infrequently - for example, his facebook author page show his last post being almost exactly a year ago, in July 2020, to announce Book 12's launch (although to be fair, a previous post indicated he had worked on unpublished Book 17). My hope is that by the time I reach the end of Beneath the Tree of Heaven, we will have a few more of these remaining volumes to savour. Come on David, give us an update on how its going, I know you can do it! 😀
The Chung Kuo series is readily available in eBook and physical formats. You can even choose which edition you want to try out, like I have done, but just be aware that currently the only complete run is the orignal eight book sequence. I guess if you want to get the most out of it, you could start with the new 'preludes' published as Son of Heaven and Daylight on Iron Mountain before moving onto the original eight.
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