3.75/5



In the 22nd century, China has replaced America as the world’s dominant political, economic and cultural capital, following a political revolution in America that has displaced its capitalistic economy and brought in an era of socialism.



It is an immensely well-imagined and portrayed account of a plausible future where China takes precedence over the States – the latter becomes akin to a third-world dump following a financial crisis, while China rises in economic importance, and consequentl

3.75/5



In the 22nd century, China has replaced America as the world’s dominant political, economic and cultural capital, following a political revolution in America that has displaced its capitalistic economy and brought in an era of socialism.



It is an immensely well-imagined and portrayed account of a plausible future where China takes precedence over the States – the latter becomes akin to a third-world dump following a financial crisis, while China rises in economic importance, and consequently, in cultural importance. Chinese phrases, Mandarin itself, Chinese dress and cuisine and Chinese genes suddenly become the next-gen cool things, the way everything symbolizing America/the West is hip now. With the Great Cleansing Winds in the US, followed by a Second American Revolution and a Second Civil War, the status-quo is changed.



Zhang Zhong Shan (Rafael), the protagonist, is a young gay man of mixed heritage, a Chinese father and Hispanic mother – born in Brooklyn and having undergone gene splicing in infancy in order to look more ‘Chinese’ (the reverse of what the Chinese are doing today – double eyelid surgery, for instance, to look more ‘Western’) and therefore attempting to gain social leverage as well as possible opportunity to study and live in China, his life takes a series of unexpected turns as he navigates through the turmoil of sexuality, cosmetically altered genes, identity and cultural legacy in and out of America, China and the Arctic.



The novel takes place in roughly the same time, following different threads that sometimes merge, and sometimes merely touch each other. While Zhang comes to terms with his life, Martine and Alexis, on Mars, try to eke out a living that ensures them a different kind of security, but at the same time, demands of them a hefty price. San-Xiang, a young Chinese girl in the US struggles to come to terms with her own marginalization on account of her ugly face, and then with the consequences of her cosmetically-enhanced beauty. Haobai, perhaps, followed by San-Xiang, is the most compelling character – the social critique hits the hardest and sharpest in these characters, while it is akin to merely a pervading mist in the rest of the work.



There is so much to both like and dislike in this work – there are aspects of it that sparkle throughout the text – its subtexts, its layers of thought and experience form the crux of the work – the sadness, the sarcasm, the brutality of an unequal, hypocritical world, the variously covert forms of marginalization that follow the lives of hundreds of people eking out a precarious survival. It is a story less of hope, more of the desperation to survive, merely survive – because the dream of flourishing is forbidden. Of forever having to move in the shadows, in the dark. Knowing that coming out in the light would not bestow warmth, but blister their lives, simply because they do not fit into the majority’s ideas of normalcy, of acceptability.



The LGBT angle, the marginalization by making it illegal, is a double blow to the hypocrisy of the world – not just a critique of the present, but also a sharp jab at the communists’ claim of equality of all, irrespective of everything. One is constantly reminded of Orwell’s statement in Animal Farm – Everyone is equal, but some people are more equal than others.



This critique of communism is also resonant in its economic critique, where despite landing as a student of the reputed Nanjing University, Zhang finds it difficult to find a decent job back in the US. As a critique of communism and its ideal of perfect equality, it is breathtaking. The critique is often thinly-veiled, making it all the more impressive in places. As a work that examines the way in which misfits are marginalized, strongly alluding to own our present times, it is truly engaging, and in some scenes, brilliant even. The politics of marginalization are acutely present throughout the work as one of its subtexts.



Where this work fails to engage is primarily its plot – the world-building is pretty neat and convincing, the science part adequate to qualify as SF (climate-control equipped homes - and the Kite-flying and ball-game sequences are pure brilliance), but the plot is not linear – chronologically, it is – but it follows no clear direction, even at the end. Like the characters themselves, the reader too is clueless of the novel’s destination, which is a bad thing when it turns out at the end that the story has no coherent plot at all.



Agreed, this is more of a Bildungsroman novel, but then it fails mostly on that account too. The story of Zhang is only one of the many threads of the novel, such as Martine/Alexis on Mars, Haobai in China or San-Xiang in the US, and yet, it is, despite taking up the most space, the most flimsy character. He comes out only slightly more mature than he first encounters the world’s injustices. A hugely disproportionate time is also spent upon Alexis/Martine, and though it is a charming little episode, they, or the whole existence of the Martian colony, does not in any way affect Zhang’s life, save allowing him to think in a different way of solving engineering problems.



The most glaring drawback is that the story of Alexis/Martine is left incomplete, in the sense that there is no definite conclusion into what happened to their farms, which could have been used magnify even better the consequences of being pushed back onto the fringes.



The most striking characters, rather, are the ones that have served as the background in Zhang’s life – San-Xiang, the ugly girl (she appears fleetingly in Zhang’s life, but does not make any impact on the way his life turns out, so in that sense her role is inconsequential to the main crux of the novel), and Zhang’s erstwhile mentor and secret lover Haobai. Their scenes are truly touching. It is primarily in these two characters and their scenes that this novel achieves its brilliance, bringing out the sadness, the thinly-veiled critiques, the helplessness and the incurable anguish of surviving on the periphery of an unforgiving society, of being utterly marginalized without hope of redemption – their stories, especially of Haobai, is dealt with astounding maturity and skill, which sort of falls flat in the case of the major character, Zhang Zhong Shan.



Another major drawback of this work is in how much space is allocated to insignificant details. Cooking and eating take up an enormous time, both in the US, China and Mars – food, when used as metaphor, is a brilliant device – but gets in the way when used without significance. Almost every other page threw up pizzas, pastas, salads, noodles, tandoori chicken, burgers, poori, rice and beans, cakes and God-knows-what Thai food.



While it exceeds expectations and shines bright in many places, it also falls below its own spectacular achievements in quite a lot instances. And yet, this is one book I’m glad to have read. Not one of the best, but definitely commendable. Although, I think, it has garnered adequate attention by winning the Lambda, the Locus and the Tiptree Awards, while rightly getting only a nomination for the Hugo and Nebula Awards.