We were excited to have Lillian Wang Selonick back on the podcast as a repeat guest! We discuss her story published in Synthesized Sunsets “The Waters of Lethe”, her recent travels in Japan and Korea, the sense of wonder at the center of Sci-Fi, the evolution of the meaning of the word nerd, and more.

Apologies for the really long delay between episodes. We have two more episodes recorded so the next few should come out in the next few weeks. In more exciting news, Kevin Kodama will be competing on Jeopardy this coming Wednesday February 25th, so check that out if you are interested.

Hope you enjoy listening!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:14 - Introduction

0:43 - Lillian’s recent trip to Korea and Japan

5:17 - It’s cool that for a character language your writing system doesn’t change over time

10:44 - Discussing Lillian’s story “The Waters of Lethe”

12:20 - Writing with a character voice very different from your own

18:35 - Researching the science for short stories

21:13 - Cixin Liu’s “Church of Sci-Fi” essay from “A View From the Stars” and the sense of wonder

25:41 - There is good Sci-Fi that doesn’t try to elicit this feeling

33:30 - Sci-Fi is more centered on this awe feeling in China

35:23 - Western translations try to add gravitas to Cixin Liu

38:03 - Sci-Fi movies like Interstellar and 2001 are good at creating this awe feeling

42:51 - Evolution of what it means to be a “nerd”

48:51 - Nerd culture used to have a high barrier to entry

53:19 - Being a nerd became way cooler in the early 2010s

55:38 - Prose can do things that video can’t

57:46 - Conclusion and Lillian’s story recommendation “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges

59:54 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

1:02:23 - People come of age much more gradually nowadays

1:10:31 - Rehashing the Church of Sci-Fi essay

1:11:45 - Cixin Liu gets the same criticisms in China with regards to characters

1:14:52 - The universe should be a protagonist in Sci-Fi

1:22:32 - There is an unrealized demand for Sci-Fi with this focus on a sense of wonder

1:29:56 - Discussing Kevin’s article “There Is No Antimemetics Division as a Reminder of the Internet’s Wild Potential”

1:32:05 - SCP Foundation and “There Is No Antimemetics Division”

1:37:54 - SCP Foundation was a cool thing you would run into from time to time

1:46:27 - “There Is No Antimemetics Division” will probably not funnel people towards web fiction

1:48:46 - Going on the internet is like looking up at the night sky

1:51:41 - The ol’ reddit switcheroo

1:55:57 - More Sci-fi writers used to be on the cutting edge of science

1:57:02 - Conclusion

This week’s guest is author, lawyer, and engineer Ken Liu— a man of many talents. You may know him for his collections The Paper Menagerie and The Hidden Girl, his fantasy quartet The Dandelion Dynasty, inspiring the show Pantheon, or perhaps even translating The Three-Body Problem. His recent novel All That We See or Seem is a near-future thriller about a beloved AI ‘dream artist’ who disappears without a trace, as well as the hacker trying to find her. It is the first of several planned ‘Julia Z novels’.

In this episode, we discussed Liu’s inspiration for this new novel, his concept of ‘silkpunk’ in the context of The Dandelion Dynasty, and the uncertain future of art in the age of AI. You can find more information about him on his website kenliu.name or right here on Substack at The Lion's Teeth. Enjoy!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:12 – Intro

00:00:56 – Ken Liu’s new thriller All That We See or Seem

00:02:22 – “Dreamweaving” and why using AI feels like a dream

00:09:26 – Why did LLMs not make it into literature earlier?

00:18:13 – Writing near-future SF and “Real Artists”

00:27:36 – AI as a copying machine of the “desired original”

00:34:02 – Compensating artists in the age of AI

00:41:53 – Silkpunk and The Dandelion Dynasty

00:49:05 – Tax policy and cultural technology

00:56:23 – “All life is an experiment”

00:00:57 – Conclusion and final recommendations

01:02:51 – Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins

01:05:17 – Ken Liu is unusually optimistic about AI art

01:12:22 – How will idiolects of AI and humans feed off each other?

01:18:03 – The Dandelion Dynasty as an experiment in exposition

01:23:45 – The character of Mata Zyndu and writing morality out of time

01:26:06 – The Paper Menagerie and The Hidden Girl are really different

01:27:44 – “Byzantine Empathy” by Ken Liu

01:30:29 – Ken Liu on the irrealism of fiction that avoids technology

01:33:03 – New season / reopening for submissions

01:35:03 – Conclusion and final recommendations

We brought back friends of the podcast Dylan O’Neal and Trevor Waldorf for more of a book club style informal conversation discussing some books and stories with a bit of a loose Halloween theme as we recorded this episode a few days before Halloween. We discussed the novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes” by Ray Bradbury, and short stories “All Summer in a Day,” also by Bradbury, “Mountain” and “Cannonball” by Cixin Liu, as well as “Mono no Aware” by Ken Liu.

In the backstage portion of the podcast, we discuss Kevin’s article Cixin Liu’s Paracosmal Worlds as well as Gordon’s review of the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer.

We hope you enjoy listening!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:12 - Introduction

2:02 - Discussing “All Summer In a Day” by Ray Bradbury

7:34 - Lots of media for children is written for adults

13:29 - Writing humanity as a character

17:00 - The ridiculous situation in which Kevin attempted to read “Something Wicked This Way Comes”

22:37 - Children’s horror is scarier than adult horror

25:25 - Monster House and other scary children’s movies

29:51 - Scary kids movies are supposed to be disorienting and strange

32:19 - Something Wicked This Way Comes is a better coming of age novel than a horror one

37:15 - Circus/Carnival Experiences

42:45 - There are less alternative lifestyles nowadays

47:09 - Kids used to do way more crazy s**t

48:54 - Cixin Liu writes stories that are childishly awesome

51:15 - Discussing “Cannonball” by Cixin Liu

58:31 - Cixin Liu is marketed in a very serious way that clashes with his fiction

1:03:24 - Discussing “Mountain” by Cixin Liu

1:05:26 - Cixin Liu crafts characters who have a single purpose

1:07:21 - Discussing “Mono no Aware” by Ken Liu

1:13:11 - Conclusion short story recommendation of “The Last Rung on the Ladder” by Stephen King and Dylan’s upcoming novel “Orange Sky, Dark Sun”

1:16:00 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

1:16:20 - Getting an outsider’s perspective on Cixin Liu stories

1:18:05 - The swimming up the mountain scene in “Mountain” is awesome

1:25:18 - Discussing Kevin’s article, Cixin Liu’s Paracosmal Worlds

1:33:25 - Discussing Gordon’s Review of the Terra Ignota Series by Ada Palmer

1:38:18 - Some thoughts on Terra Ignota that eventually lead to this essay

1:41:44 - Too Like The Lightning is very difficult to follow

1:44:59 - Really difficult to make all 3 of really interesting speculative ideas, really interesting prose, and understandable

1:46:00 - The Dandelion Dynasty sort of solves this by not having many speculative ideas in the first book, then dumping more on you in future books when it is easier to follow

1:49:49 - Conclusion and Short Fiction Recommendation “Five Stages of Grief after the Alien Invasion” by Caroline M. Yoachim

This week we talked to Dylan O’Neal, author of the first short story submission accepted by Synthesized Sunsets, Snowlight. In addition to the story, we discussed what got him into writing, how to write compelling children in stories, lucid dreaming, Game of Thrones, and the book he is working on currently, “Orange Sky, Dark Sun”.

Similar to the last couple episodes this one was recorded a long time ago, but in the backstage portion was recorded more recently we discussed Kevin’s recent article in Republic of Letters, “Ah, The Nerdish Joys Of Quizbowl.”

We hope you enjoy!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:12 - Introduction

0:52 - How did you get into writing?

4:40 - Everyone reads in elementary school

7:17 - After a certain amount of reading you will probably feel compelled to write

8:26 - What is the starting point for your writing?

13:31 - Discussing Dylan’s story “Snowlight”

17:31 - Kids are often not believable in fiction

22:27 - Kids often don’t think about what they are capable of doing

27:20 - Lucid dreaming

32:42 - How do you create a dreamlike register?

36:06 - Many of Dylan’s favorite authors are Sci-fi adjacent (Kurt Vonnegut, George Saunders, George R.R. Martin, Stephen King)

37:45 - Do you see yourself as or becoming a sci-fi author?

40:06 - It’s hard to make phone usage seem beautiful

42:37 - Kurt Vonnegut and “Shapes of Stories”

45:26 - Stories with pretty much any shape can work well if executed well

50:08 - It’s hard for short stories to compete with other more attention grabbing forms of short media

53:29 - Screenwriting

57:03 - It’s tough to read a lot if you do not read primarily for entertainment

1:00:33 - A Song of Ice and Fire improves reading other fantasy series by raising the stakes

1:01:35 - Game of Thrones was the first fantasy book to really successfully break from the Lord of the Rings mold

1:04:38 - Dylan pitches his upcoming book “Orange Sky, Dark Sun”

1:10:11 - Conclusion and Short Story Recommendations: “The Man in the Black Suit” by Stephen King, “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, and “Two Talented Bastids” by Stephen King.

1:11:45 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

1:12:13 - It’s cool to have a compulsion to write

1:15:15 - Children are often far more one-dimensional in stories

1:16:34 - Kids have agency

1:17:48 - Discussing Kevin’s Quizbowl article for Republic of Letters “Ah, The Nerdish Joys Of Quizbowl”

1:19:03 - Quizbowl is standardized academic trivia

1:21:54 - Quizbowl is mechanism for turning abstract knowledge into usable knowledge

1:26:33 - Gordon reads Kevin an example Quizbowl tossup

1:30:04 - What did the process of grinding for Quizbowl in high school look like for Kevin?

1:34:22 - Quizbowl is really good for learning history

1:35:49 - Math classes teach you application not just knowledge

1:37:31 - Quizbowl is an experience which burns knowledge into your mind

1:38:24 - Knowledge feels more real if you are able to apply it

1:40:25 - Conclusion and Short Story Recommendation “Call Girl” by Tang Fei

This week on the podcast we had on Xueting Christine Ni, an independent researcher of Chinese culture who is most famous for her collections Sinopticon and Sinophagia (which focus on Chinese science fiction and Chinese horror, respectively), as well as her nonfiction writings on Chinese mythology. We spent a bit of time talking about the stories in those two collections, as well as the wide world of Chinese web fiction (wǎngwén) and the implications that it has for China and the rest of the world.

This episode was recorded quite a long time ago, but the timing nicely coincides with Kevin’s last article “How 'Chinese Goodreads' Illuminates Forgotten Sci-Fi Classics”. We were very glad to hear Xueting’s unique perspective, who has spent quite a bit of time in both China and the UK, experiencing the fiction and life of both cultures.

This episode was edited to be relatively light on spoilers in case people are interested in reading Sinopticon or Sinophagia afterwards— which we would highly recommend! Thanks for listening!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:12 – Episode Start

00:00:49 – Is Chinese speculative fiction more stratified than Western web fiction?

00:02:57 – Xueting's original entrypoint into wǎngwén (Chinese web fiction)

00:05:02 – What is the 'mission statement' of Sinopticon?

00:07:03 – “The Fall of Adam” by Wang Jinkang and getting stories past the publisher

00:10:32 – 2023 WorldCon in Chengdu and a Reddit thread about the nominees that reveals cultural gaps in science fiction

00:14:48 – “The Great Migration” by Ma Boyong and notes about translation

00:17:54 – Xueting talks about her elite translator notes in Sinopticon and Sinophagia

00:26:44 – “The Waking Dream” by Fan Zhou

00:31:28 – “Net Novels and the She-Era” by Xueting Christine Ni

00:35:52 – Understanding the scale of the Chinese web novel economy

00:44:17 – What a Western web fiction market might look like and Seven Seas Entertainment

00:47:47 – Xueting and Gordon talk about how the insular web fiction community enables certain kinds of playful experimentation with recurring elements

00:51:55 – Conclusion and final recommendations

00:52:43 – Xueting asks Kevin and Gordon about wuxia

00:55:26 – Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins

00:57:08 – Talking to curators v. authors about their work

00:58:53 – “Flower of the Other Shore” by A Que

01:01:35 – “The Tide of Moon City” by Regina Kanyu Wang

01:03:58 – Kevin goes on a long side tangent about hating unnecessary frame stories

01:07:48 – Kevin’s article “How 'Chinese Goodreads' Illuminates Forgotten Sci-Fi Classics”

01:12:27 – Kevin’s initial “wrong” conclusions about Chinese science fiction

01:15:19 – Why “The Martian” was so popular

01:16:21 – Kevin talks about meeting Chinese science fiction fans

01:18:39 – Is Cixin Liu that popular in China?

01:21:08 – The popularity of Japanese mystery fiction in China

01:23:00 – Curators are to authors as original contexts are to foreign contexts?

01:25:35 – Conclusion and final recommendations

We were super excited to talk to science fiction writer and fellow Substacker Lillian Wang Selonick. We discuss some topics from her essays on the value of Worldbuilding, the adoption of sci-fi tropes in literary books, what is meant by the term speculative fiction, Death’s End, Philip K. Dick, and more.

Apologies for the long delay between episodes. We recorded this episode about three weeks ago, but due to going to Worldcon, Gordon getting sick (twice!), and Kevin going on vacation it took a while to publish. In the backstage portion, we talk about our experience at Worldcon and accepting fiction submissions for Synthesized Sunsets.

Also, if you like the episode you can check out Lillian on the Futurist Letters podcast as well.

Hope you enjoy listening!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:12 - Introduction

1:17 - Discussing “Worldbuilding”

3:38 - You don't need to have a rigorous, highly-engineered, world to write a SFF story

5:53 - Is worldbuilding overused as a concept for fantasy?

6:40 - Worldbuilding vs. world conjuring

8:43 - What makes something real science fiction

11:55 - It's cool when it is clear an author is really passionate about science

13:37 - Sci-fi has become a bit too defined by its tropes

14:46 - Speculative-literary hybrid books

17:32 - We shouldn't be giving sci-fi awards to successful literary books

19:53 - What is meant by the term speculative fiction?

22:27 - Speculative fiction partially evolved as a term due to sci-fi authors seeing it as more serious

23:46 - Defining speculative fiction by its community

26:44 - Speculative is starting to be used more for literary books with some tropes

28:45 - The Dune movies were big for sci-fi

30:49 - Villeneuve has been an ambassador for sci-fi

31:38 - Blade Runner 2049 looks amazing but is unmemorable otherwise

33:49 - What makes Philip K. Dick so good?

35:48 - PKD creates fiction that plays with epistemic certainty

39:33 - Ray Bradbury and PKD feel similar

40:55 - PKD is very popular in China

43:13 - Talking about “Death's End”

45:15 - Death's End starting at the Siege of Constantinople was crazy

49:02 - How is PKD similar to Saul Bellow?

52:26 - The different types of men writing women

58:40 - Writing at Futurist Letters

1:01:05 - Discussing Lillian’s story “A Riot at Red Plan-It! Park”

1:04:52 - Conclusion and Short Story Recommendation of “Hinterlands” by William Gibson from his collection “Burning Chrome”

1:06:18 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

1:06:42 - Poorly remembered thoughts on the episode

1:07:26 - Discussing “Ubik” and “The Lathe of Heaven”

1:13:57 - Elaborating on the case for a circular definition of speculative fiction

1:18:41 - Military sci-fi is becoming less speculative fiction

1:20:40 - A genre being defined circularly is less strange than it may sound

1:21:25 - Our experience at Worldcon

1:22:01 - It's very easy to see and talk to relatively famous people at Worldcon

1:25:49 - Ada Palmer was really impressive

1:28:38 - Interesting Joanna Russ panel with friend of the pod Rich Horton

1:31:25 - Talking about the Hugo Awards

1:32:51 - It would have been cool if the Hugo Awards were more of a spectacle

1:36:52 - The Hugo Awards should be more focused around Best Novel

1:37:21 - The convention as a whole was quite well run

1:41:28 - Our experience receiving fiction submissions

1:43:30 - We've been pleasantly surprised with the general level of quality from submissions

1:46:34 - Conclusion and Short Story Recommendation of “10207” by Emma Burnett

Today marks exactly one year since the first post on Synthesized Sunsets. To celebrate the occasion, Gordon and Kevin take a look back at how it all began. We also discuss Kevin’s recent article, “Shunrō Oshikawa, ChatGPT, and the Birth of the "Pre-Translator"”, as well as its follow-up post and the ways in which AI translation might (or might not) pave the way for a utopian multilingual Internet future.

It’s been a great season at Synthesized Sunsets, and we thank you all for reading! We’ll see you next season for the Hugo Awards!!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:12 – Episode Start

00:00:37 – Inspiration for Synthesized Sunsets

00:03:57 – How did Gordon react to being asked to co-host Synthesized Sunsets?

00:08:06 – Synthesized Sunsets was not originally super sci-fi focused

00:10:47 – Has Synthesized Sunsets become audience-captured?

00:14:39 – Favorite “core memories” of Synthesized Sunsets and the first post on Synthesized Sunsets: 'The Wandering Inn' Allows Us to Properly Fear the Sea

00:19:08 – Kevin did not expect to get particularly into visual art

00:21:37 – Synthesized Sunsets is less popular but more influential at this stage than Gordon + Kevin expected

00:25:02 – Has Synthesized Sunsets become audience captured? (cont.)

00:27:53 – Does Synthesized Sunsets plan to experiment with the form of fiction?

00:29:29 – Why haven't Gordon and Kevin written more fiction?

00:31:43 – Hoping for more audience engagement / possible trivia events in the future

00:33:52 – Discussion of “Shunrō Oshikawa, ChatGPT, and the Birth of the "Pre-Translator"” begins

00:39:21 – Somewhat fair negative feedback of the article

00:40:35 – Attempting translation is a very novel experience

00:47:39 – Kevin would have done some things differently in retrospect

00:49:40 – How gatekeep-y is translation and is this good?

00:51:02 – Will monolingual translation ever become widespread?

00:52:21 – Kevin speculates about our glorious multilingual Internet future

00:56:07 – Conclusion and final recommendations

00:57:45 – Thank you to everyone who has supported Synthesized Sunsets! We are very grateful for your support!!

This week we spoke with long time Science Fiction reviewer and anthologist Rich Horton. We talked about his experience in the early internet sci-fi community on Usenet, his career in sci-fi criticism at Tangent and Locus, his work creating sci-fi/fantasy best of the year anthologies, our thoughts on the current slate of Hugo Award nominees, and more.

We hope you enjoy!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:14 - Introduction

0:39 - What drew you to Substack?

1:33 - Rich Horton started Substack by reading people already here (Ted Gioia, Lincoln Michel, Naomi Kanakia)

2:25 - Usenet as a hub for sci-fi discourse

6:07 - Substack is a place where you can talk about books

7:07 - Stories about sci-fi discussion on Usenet

13:08 - Starting Writing Reviews for Tangent

18:19 - Becoming a columnist at Locus

21:13 - Creating SFF best of the year anthologies

25:49 - It was cool to publish stories from literary writers in sci-fi anthologies

28:38 - The challenge of only writing positive reviews

29:57 - It's hard to write negative reviews for people you know

32:32 - Should you be able to spoil a story as the critic?

33:40 - It's easier to write bad reviews for already well-aclaimed books

38:18 - Society doesn't have much respect for critics

39:55 - Newspaper book reviews are dying off

41:18 - The best critics are worth reading even outside of any engagement with the original text

44:57 - Rating books by entertainment and ambition

45:40 - Discussing Hugo Award Nominee Novels

48:54 - Having separate literary and speculative ratings

52:04 - A lot of "hard" science fiction is written by people with an actual background in science

56:13 - Experiences at WorldCon and other sci-fi conventions

1:04:13 - Conclusion and short fiction recommendations of short story The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar and novella New Light On the Drake Equation by Ian R. MacLeod

1:06:22 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

1:07:32 - It was cool to learn about early sci-fi internet with Usenet

1:08:22 - A higher barrier to engagement can create better conversations

1:10:42 - Discussing Hugo Awards Review #3: The Tainted Cup + A Sorceress Comes to Call

1:11:08 - We both liked The Tainted Cup a lot

1:13:09 - The Tainted Cup had a somewhat unambitious style

1:16:20 - The Ana + Din scenes in The Tainted Cup remind Kevin of ASMR videos

1:17:29 - Neither of us liked A Sorceress Comes To Call

1:17:55 - A Sorceress Comes to Call would be a pretty good kids book

1:19:27 - It's hard to separate personal opinion from objective quality when reviewing something

1:20:48 - It's important to believe in a character's existence

1:25:57 - Knowledge of the artist's vision can enhance the enjoyment of some art object

1:27:19 - "Earlier in my life I was unable to connect with the art objects of music" (songs)

1:28:28 - Discussing The SFF Magazine Canon

1:29:27 - The line between prozines and semiprozines is quite blurry

1:33:26 - Magazine recommendations

* Reactor has longer form stories and is the most approachable as a sci-fi novel reader

* Lightspeed has the widest variety of sci-fi stories

* Beneath Ceaseless Skies has the most consistent style of secondary world fantasy stories

1:36:59 - Conclusion and short story recommendation of “The Electric Ant” by Philip K. Dick

The week we were joined by prolific author of rational fiction Alexander Wales. We of course discuss his works, particularly Worth the Candle, This Used to be About Dungeons, and The Metropolitan Man, but also talk about time travel, writing under a pseudonym, crafting believable characters, and more.

Thanks for Listening!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:12 - Introduction

0:55 - What are the characteristics of Rational Fiction?

6:11 - Discussing Worth the Candle

7:14 - Using a pseudonym releases pressure as an author

10:32 - How much of Worth the Candle is taken from D&D campaigns you ran?

13:41 - Does being a DM prepare you for being a fiction writer?

16:18 - Being a web serial author you can't go back and change your work

18:19 - Continuously tinkering with a book for ages is overrated

20:00 - Unlike webcomics web serials actually finish sometimes

24:09 - Do web fiction authors ever use Pseudonyms to write something other than the main fic they are known for?

27:37 - Writing under a pseudonym can give you a more authentic reaction

29:06 - Discussing This Used To Be About Dungeons

32:16 - It was cool to have characters who were believably unlikeable in ways

36:35 - Not all conflict should come from misunderstandings

40:11 - Chrononauts in This Used To Be About Dungeons and time travel as a trope

44:36 - It's hard to do everything exactly the same as you did in the past

45:36 - Time loops are like speedrunning

47:04 - Time Travel Story Recommendations

* Palimpsest by Charles Stross

* Primer (rewatch with commentary from Sam Hughes/qntm)

* The Time Traveler’s Wife (only the book)

49:59 - Discussing The Metropolitan Man

51:20 - Is it more interesting to write fanfiction focused on more mundane characters?

55:04 - Lois Lane is an interesting character in The Metropolitan Man

58:34 - The Metropolitan Man owes its biggest inspiration to Superman: Red Son

1:02:09 - Your fanfiction has some high quality footnotes

1:05:03 - Discussing the cthuluraejepsen pseudonym

1:06:37 - Conclusion + Short Fiction Recommendation of Eager Readers in Your Area

1:08:45 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

1:10:49 - It was cool to talk about Metropolitan Man directly after reading

1:12:43 - Discussing Kevin’s article Golden Age Science Fiction is Being Reborn... in China?

1:15:34 - Sci-fi has lost optimism and reverence for science and technology in general

1:19:49 - University Sci-fi clubs have died off in the U.S

1:21:10 - There are a lot more outlets for being nerdy than there used to be

1:23:11 - Discussing our review article Hugo Awards Review #2: Alien Clay + Service Model

1:23:25 - Kevin really liked Alien Clay

1:26:04 - Gordon really wanted to like Alien Clay

1:27:40 - Alien Clay sort of spoils its own climax

1:29:48 - Alien Clay has some really interesting characters

1:31:55 - Kevin and Gordon are in agreement that Service Model was very okay

1:32:20 - Service Model was too long and took itself too seriously

1:34:43 - Kevin suggests an alternate version of this book where The Wonk is a figment of Uncharles's imagination

1:37:14 - Service Model was very reliant on its settings being captivating

1:39:39 - It’s hard to rate reading experience too heavily because it is influenced by factors other than the quality of the book

1:41:33 - Conclusion + Short Story Recommendation Human Resources (prequel to Service Model)

This week we hosted Regina Kanyu Wang, an award-winning writer and editor of Chinese science fiction. In 2022, she co-edited The Way Spring Arrives, a pioneering collection of stories from Chinese female and non-binary authors. We were super excited to have someone from the scene help us develop our thoughts about Chinese science fiction, which eventually turned into Kevin’s article “Golden Age Science Fiction is Being Reborn… in China?”.

In this episode, we discuss Regina’s curatorial approach, the differences between America and China, and what it’s like to be a sci-fi fan outside of the Anglosphere. Plus… whether learning Chinese can expand your cognition? Listen to find out!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:12 - Intro

00:00:53 - What was it like to see sci-fi become wildly popular in China?

00:04:13 - To what extent does Cixin Liu define Chinese science fiction?

00:10:50 - Why are Chinese science fiction fans younger than their American counterparts?

00:11:52 - The “Bus Theory” of Chinese science fiction fans

00:15:35 - China still romanticizes science as a culture

00:18:54 - The “triangle” driving Chinese science fiction

00:20:21 - Why doesn't China have more cultural exports, and why is Three-Body Problem the exception?

00:24:24 - Is there a lot of censorship in Chinese science fiction?

00:28:09 - The Way Spring Arrives, edited by Yu Chen & Regina Kanyu Wang

00:31:35 - “Dragonslaying” by Shen Yingying, translated by Emily Jin

00:36:28 - Is Chinese web fiction more addictive than hard drugs?

00:41:46 - What is cultivation fantasy? / “The Tale of Wude’s Heavenly Tribulation” by Count E, translated by etvolare

00:44:56 - Regina's travels in Northern Europe + being adopted by Finnish fandom

00:50:48 - Does Chinese sci-fi have different attitudes about AI?

00:56:18 - Could AI-assisted language learning be used to expand human cognition?

00:59:05 - Haruki Murakami's weird writing process

01:02:25 - Conclusion and final recommendations

01:04:17 - Synthesized Stage Backstage Begins

01:05:41 - Why does China have so much more of a university sci-fi club experience?

01:09:11 - How is Western science fiction different from American science fiction?

01:11:30 - Why Kevin became slightly less intimidated by the Chinese government during the episode

01:12:23 - Gordon appreciates the simplicity of Chinese Golden Age-style SF story

01:13:28 - Why Chinese SF is kind of like George R. R. Martin in its effects

01:14:09 - Kevin and Gordon review the Hugo Award for Best Short Story nominees

01:15:28 - “We Will Teach You How to Read, We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoachim

01:19:34 - Kevin was surprised by how postmodern the Hugo Awards slate was

01:20:25 - “Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim

01:23:25 - “Three Faces of a Beheading” by Arkady Martine

01:27:20 - “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” by Rachael K. Morgan and “Marginalia” by Mary Robinette Kowal

01:31:09 - “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” by Nghi Vo

01:35:11 - Conclusion

LINKS

* “The Winter Garden” by Regina Kanyu Wang

* “The Language Sheath” by Regina Kanyu Wang

* “A Record of Lost Time” by Regina Kanyu Wang

* Kevin’s article “Golden Age Science Fiction is Being Reborn… in China?”

* Kevin and Gordon review the Hugo Award for Best Short Story nominees

* Douban, a very interesting Chinese site that combines Goodreads, IMDB, and Rate Your Music all in one

* “US Man Credits Chinese Web Novels for Curing His Addiction to Drugs”