A View from the Stars - Cixin Liu

In the introduction to A View from the Stars - a collection of short stories, essays and an interview with the author - Cixin Liu acknowledges how much of a debt is owed to the masters of classic science-fiction, but in such works as The Three-Body Problem series, Liu has also demonstrated the fresh perspective that he and other Chinese writers can bring to the genre with their own particular history and background. Like a lot of SF writers, much of that writing experience and confidence was gained through publication of short stories in specialist SF magazines and online publications, a few of which are collected here along with introductions and essays where the author expands on his ideas for technology, the future and the place of humanity in the universe.

When we think of science-fiction, it's usually about advances in technology that make improvements to our lives, allow us to communicate quicker and faster, expand the range of human knowledge, see new worlds, imagine new ways of living. A significant - perhaps larger - proportion of SF however is devoted to the misuse of technology and how it can all go badly wrong. One such example is the short story Whale Song, where a drug smuggler seeks to evade the technology that makes drops into the lucrative trade in America extremely difficult. He turns to creative new technologies, but in the end is defeated by old ones!

Another story, The Messenger, takes another look at similar familiar themes found in The Three-Body Problem. A respected former professor playing music on violin ponders the problems that humanity has failed to grasp, the knowledge they have failed to put to good use and despairs of it having a future, until a stranger comes to bring an important message. There's an interesting spin on human intervention with science to influence political events in Butterfly, where a Serbian scientist has developed a system that can identify “sensitivity points” around the world where he can figuratively flap butterfly wings to cause disturbances and disrupt war zones, all to save his sick daughter. Destiny takes another spin on the butterfly theory from the classic time-travel perspective of inadvertently meddling with the past. The longest story, Heard it in the Morning, is the most ambitious, considering the search for a grand unified theory of the universe and what it might mean to finally discover the ultimate secrets of the universe.

Among these stories are scattered essays and an interview - again all very accessible - dealing with the nature of science and science-fiction writing, all revealing interesting insights into Liu's personal views on the subjects. He holds a view that it's not sci-fi’s job “to represent reality or human nature”, but that sci-fi is strongest “when it depicts the relationship between people and the universe”, citing Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey as the finest example of that. His views on how civilisation can only survive and propagate out into the universe through miniaturisation and macrocivilisations, as well as speculation on what can be achieved through fusion technology and molecular biology, is typically thinking beyond current limited views of science, not just science-fiction. Some of the 'predictions' are a little naive in places, failing to really grasp human nature, but always fun and adventurous.

In this way, the ideas in the essays and the short stories complement and feed into each other well, giving a good overview of where Liu is and what he - and China - has to contribute to the always progressive body of science-fiction. There is evidently nothing here on the scale of his major works, but it does present an extension (and some repetition) of those theories and the kind of ideas and accessible writing and consideration of serious theories, that make Liu one of the most interesting current SF writers around at the moment.

Reading notes: A View from the Stars is published by Head of Zeus, Ad Astra on 9th May 2024. My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance eBook copy for review. It's currently up for pre-order in hardback and in a low-price Kindle edition.