In the '90s, my favourite series of science fiction/speculative fiction books was "Chung Kuo" by David Wingrove. At the time the premise seemed preposterous to some people, but it's gone on to arguably be prescient: a slow economic and political decline over a couple of generations leads to an energy poor society in the West that's dropped to subsistence level. China steps into the midst and, though a few fight to stop them, many welcome the stability, comfort, and safety they offer.
It was originally intended as a 9 book epic, and the first 7 books were created on schedule and were absolutely awesome. The final two were merged into one horrific mess of a final volume in the series, so bad that many fans have never read it, and simply ended the series in their mind at the end of the 7th volume.
Now David Wingrove is re-releasing Chung Kuo as a 20 book set, with two new prequel novels, a completely new ending novel that replaces the original ending entirely, and the remaining 7 books reformatted and rewritten with new content added. The 20 new volumes share 500K new words in total.
Vol. 1 is out now on Kobo (
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Son-o...JWA/page1.html) and Amazon (
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Store/s...wingrove&ajr=0).
Note that this is from non-agency publisher Corvus, and is eligible for Kobo discount codes, including this 35% off Kobo code, "thankyou2012", and if you've used that one then this new 20% off code, "mar16ca20".
I can't recommend this more highly. I've read a significant chunk of the first of the two new prequel novels, and it's been up to David Wingrove's normal, high standards. Here is the series description by David himself (it appears to be the description of the classic 8 volume set):
Quote:
Chung Kuo means ‘Middle Kingdom’, and since 221 bc, when the first emperor Ch’in Shih Huang Ti, unified the seven Warring States, it is what the Han, or Chinese, have called their great country.
For them Chung Kuo was the whole world; a world bounded by insurmountable mountain chains to the north and west, by the sea to east and south. Beyond lay only desert and barbarism.
And so it was for two thousand years, through sixteen great dynasties.
But then, from the far west came young, aggressive nations with superior weaponry and an unshakable belief in progress and change. It was, to the surprise of the Han, an unequal contest and China’s myth of supreme strength and self-sufficiency was shattered.
By the early twentieth century, China was the sick old man of the East, the future, it was assumed, belonged to the West. But from the disastrous ravages of the century grew a giant of a nation, capable of competing with the West from a position of incomparable strength.
The twenty-first century, ‘the Pacific Century’ as it was known even before it began, saw China become once more a world unto itself, but this time its only boundary was space.
This is the story of what happens next...
Life will revolve around the ‘World of Levels’: a rigidly hierarchical society where success and prestige is measured by how far above the ground one lives. Some – in the Above – live in ornate comfort, basing their lives on the customs of imperial China. Others – in the Lowers – live in crowded squalor, and beneath them – Below the Net – lie the basement levels where the luckless and the criminal have been cast down and left to rot. Yet worse still, beneath the City lie the ruins of old Earth, ‘the Clay’, built over by the Han – a lightless, stygian hell in which, astonishingly, humans still exist.
Skirting the cities are vast plantations manned with indentured labourers, huge pens of genetically engineered, grub-like meat animals – while in Earth’s few remaining mountain fastnesses dissidents and rebels build their fortresses...
Far above all this, in geostationary orbit, float the palaces of the Seven – the planet’s hereditary rulers. Beyond their exquisite finery lie the commercial research bases of Mars, and in deep space, the industrial outer colonies, and, perhaps, mankind’s destiny...
Spanning nearly 200 years, CHUNG KUO is a monumental history of the future told through the eyes of a cast of hundreds, drawn from all levels of society: triad bosses and assassins, emperors and artists, courtesans and soldiers, scientists and thieves, terrorists and princes.
At the very heart of their stories lies the ‘War of Two Directions’ – a struggle for the destiny of mankind. For the Seven the goal is stability and security – at the expense of individual freedoms if necessary – while a commercially-orientated faction desires change and the uncharted challenge of the new – even though loosening constraints on a overpopulated planet could be lethal. Political tensions between the two factions will lead to assassination, biological and nano-technological terrorism, and ultimately to war.
The War of Two Directions is much more than the simple clash of East and West. The world will have to choose between Change or Stasis. The safety of the Past or the uncertainty of the Future? Inwardness or Outwardness? Darkness or Light? Connection or Separation? These choices, like the perpetual yin and yang of the Tao itself, form the mighty threads from which the epic tapestry of CHUNG KUO has been woven.
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