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Taiwan's most innovative science fiction writer presents three tales of intrigue, espionage, betrayal, political strife, time travel, and Chinese history and mysticism. After thousands of years of civil unrest and countless wars, the weary Huhui people of Sunlon City have once again succumbed to a ruthless and overpowering enemy. In Five Jade Disks , the first book in the trilogy, the imperialistic Shan have enslaved the inhabitants of Sunlon City and imposed a harsh martial order. As the Shan fight to retain control of the restless Huhui natives, an unstable rebel alliance prepares to win back its homeland. Amidst the confusion of revolt, Miss Qi, a determined young girl, emerges as an unlikely leader. With the help of her friends and the loyal Green Snake Brotherhood, Miss Qi discovers that an ancient cult and its insidious and unusually powerful leader may hold the key to the rebels' victory--or may yet be the cause of their undoing. As she rushes to put the pieces together, the rebels, divided by internal factions, strive to band together in a heroic attempt to overthrow the Shan.
The story continues in Defenders of the Dragon City. The Shan have been defeated, but the victory celebrations of the Huhui are quickly brought to an end. After deserting Sunlon City, the Shan regroup and return for one final and bitter attempt to destroy the weakened rebel forces. During their exile, the Shan turn their aggressions against the indigenous races of the Huhui planet, a colorful mix of peaceful tribes resembling serpents, eagles, and leopards. Forced into the war to save their remaining territory, the indigenous peoples join the Huhui in their continuing struggle against the Shan.
The third novel, Tale of a Feather , opens with images of chaos and devastation. The conflict with the Shan has left the city in flames, and refugees are fleeing in droves through the main gates. Taking advantage of the turmoil, a ruthless dictator assumes control of the weak interim government and begins a treacherous campaign to eliminate his adversaries. In this volatile atmosphere, Miss Qi continues her desperate search to discover the origin of the mysterious Bronze Statue Cult and come to terms with the dark power it wields over her people.
The trilogy, first published in Taiwan in the late 1980s and early 1990s and widely considered to be a modern classic, is now presented for the first time in English and in a single volume. In these allegorical tales, Chang confronts some of the most serious and divisive issues of our time, including the burden of history and the ravages of oppression, racism, and ethnic displacement.
評論 (5)
《出版社週刊》(Publisher's Weekly)評論
Set in fictional Sunlon City during an unspecified period, these three enigmatic short novels by the father of Taiwanese SF offer Chang's view of "the true nature of human society in general and Chinese society in particular," as the translator says in his preface of the 1980 story "City of the Bronze Statue," which serves as the trilogy's prologue. Five Jade Disks (1984) traces the efforts of the native Huhui to retake Sunlon City ("Sun" plus "lon," as in "Babylon") from their interstellar overlords, the Shan. In Defenders of the Dragon City (1986), the Shan return to try to destroy the city. Several years later, in Tale of a Feather (1996), a dictator seizes the city's government and tries to exterminate all his enemies, including the Shan and the several races of Huhui natives. Despite the translator's valiant attempts to animate these characters through colloquial Americanisms and slangy locutions, Huhui "soul toucher" (singer) Miss Qi and her several comrades never come alive. Shifting alliances among races; warrior brotherhood bonds continually broken and reshaped; kaleidoscopic political machinations as well as a strange pictographic invented language that obstructs rather than enlightens the narrative: these all muddle the bleak, deterministic view of a society dominated by an ever-more malignant "Bronze Statue" and its cult-the embodiment of Chang's terrifying concept of human history. (May) Forecast: This literary curiosity will appeal mainly to Asian scholars, but with promotion playing up the Tolkienian aspects, like the invented language, it stands to sell in higher than usual numbers for a university press book. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus 評論
Not only is there apparently a "father of science fiction" among Taiwanese writers, but the man himself (a professor at the Univ. of Pittsburgh) is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Chang's trilogy, in English translation for the first time, is set on the world of HuHui, some ridiculous number of years in the future, and is mostly centered on the sprawling metropolis of Sunlon City. Suffused with bad luck since its early history--when human explorers apparently settled the planet--the city has suffered an ungodly amount of tragedy, which continues in the first volume, "Five Jade Disks." An interstellar empire, the Shan, have conquered the planet, but a rebellion is fomenting. "Defenders of the Dragon City" sets in motion the bloody infighting that could ultimately doom the HuHui people, while "Tale of a Feather" unveils more of the planet's tragic, ghostly past. The cast of characters is huge, from the battling Green Snake and Leopard brotherhoods (who not unintentionally resemble the warring cults of premodern China) to the imperious but strangely sympathetic Shan, suspicious cult members, and the mysterious, semihuman "native" HuHui Serpent and Leopard peoples, who figure quite dramatically in the trilogy's frequent battles. Chang's tone is pitch-perfect from the start, sketching out the mythic outlines of HuHui's history with magisterial grace while later delivering an action-filled epic that toys with the truly philosophical and all the while infuses the text with a loopy humor. In one instance, a seemingly innocuous conversation about the early bird getting the worm becomes a thorny, surreally logical debate about whether the worm should accept its fate or just get up earlier than the bird. A true original, like an epic of Chinese history retold with Tolkien-esque grandeur and yet wholly unique: a masterpiece. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
《書目》(Booklist)評論
The first English translation of leading Taiwanese sf writer Chang's work is a trilogy densely woven out of history, politics, and philosophy and set in a recognizable but quite alien world. The prologue to Five Jade Disks introduces the bronze statue that towers over Sunlon City even after imperialist Shan invaders destroy the place. In Five Jade Disks, the Huhui people rebel against Shan occupation forces. In Defenders of the Dragon City, the Shan use Huhui factions--feathered people, serpent people, and leopard people--in an attempt to regain the city. Several years later, in Tale of a Feather, Sunlon City is finally brought to blazing ruin by the machinations of a petty power-hungry dictator, Mayor Ma. The historical depth with which Chang endows the world he creates reflects great comprehension of our world. In the manner of the very best sf, Chang's makes readers think about ideas of great importance to the world they inhabit by posing them in the context of a well-realized, intricately detailed alien society. His Sunlon City, with its masses as well as the almost allegorical leading figures in the action, is virtually a rounded character itself, which, while it facilitates Chang's historicizing, makes for gripping reading. --Regina Schroeder
Choice 評論
A minor though not insignificant genre of middlebrow Chinese fiction, science fiction and fantasy emerged a century ago during the late Qing. The development of Chinese sci-fi quickened over the past couple of decades, and Chang Hsi-kuo (Zhang Xiguo) became known as its most skillful Taiwanese practitioner. The work offered here is more of a novel than a "trilogy"; the end of part 1 would be unclear and dangling without the beginning of part 2. As is the case with both Tolkien's novels and the Star Wars movies, the reader of Chang's City Trilogy easily sympathizes with a suspense-laden rebellion against a wicked empire or domineering power and feels drawn into the action with the aid of pungent dialogue and a fresh array of fantastic neologisms and weird aliens. A distinctly Chinese accent reminiscent of Luo Guanzhong's Three Kingdoms, the Ming novel of statecraft, may be found in the story's focus on the complexities of conflicting or wavering loyalties and the intricacies of shifting alliances between states and factions that are embroiled in conflict. The book is expertly translated, and the inclusion of the occasional explanatory footnote is most helpful, and far preferable to endnotes. ^BSumming Up: Optional. Large collections supporting the study of Asian popular fiction in translation. P. F. Williams Arizona State University
《圖書館雜誌》(Library Journal )書評
Three short novels chronicle the rise and fall of Sunlon City, heart of a faraway world populated by warring nations. In Five Jade Disks, the warlike Shan conquer Sunlon City and a rebel movement rises up to overthrow their conquerors. Defenders of the Dragon City details a second attempt by the Shan to conquer Sunlon City and impose their way of life upon its people. Tale of a Feather describes the rise of a despot and the city's internal struggles to fight off tyranny. Filled with its own legendry, philosophy, poetry, and social mores, the world created by Chang, considered to be Taiwan's "father of science fiction," resounds with grace and style. Elegantly told in a quasi-formal style, this unusual work, first published in Taiwan and now available for the first time in English, belongs in most sf collections. Libraries with an interest in contemporary Chinese literature should also acquire. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
目錄
| Five Jade Disks |
| Defenders of the Dragon City |
| Tale of a Feather |