Thursday, July 15, 2021

The Wandering Earth: Classic Science Fiction Collection

The Wandering Earth movie was based on the open short story of this collection. However, the two are quite different. Both deal with the challenge of moving the earth to a new location to escape the exploding sun. There are also cataclysms and problems with the earth thrusters. There are also a space station overseeing the work. However, the short story paints a much broader picture, while the movie goes into small details of certain events. The short story also extends further into the future, with the earth doing serious wandering, while the movie ends earlier. 

The people in the story story have Chinese sentiments. When encountering a major problem, the hierarchy helps create a unified solution. People drop religion in favor of the science of moving the earth.

However, after the earth starts to move, there are doubters. They see that the sun is still there. A rebel group appears to complain that the sun is not going to die. There was no need to move the earth. They capture those in charge of moving the earth and sentence them to death. However, they then see the helium flash of the sun dying. Oops! We see people move from heroes to villains to heroes again. Now the earth can be on its way. The book has a strong message against mob descent that is totally absent from the movie.

The Mountain begins with the tale of a scientist who never leaves the ship. It turns out he loved climbing mountains. However, on an attempt to scale Everest he sacrificed everyone else so that he could live. Not going on land again is his penance. As they are sailing near the equator, a giant alien ship appears. People are concerned that it will destroy the world. However, in the process, it creates a giant "water mountain". He feels inclined to climb it (as everyone else goes away fearing the end of the earth.) Once there, he talks with the aliens. This begins the main part of the book. The aliens are electro-mechanical lifeforms that came from a hollow world. They had no concept of anything other than vacuum and rock. They struggled through millennia of exploration and politics before finally tunneling through to the surface, where they were killed by water. Eventually they managed to survive it and finally got to the surface. In the process, their theories of the extent of the universe were constantly evolving and changing, often moving backwards before going forwards. They consider the earth "lucky" to have a head start and already be living on the surface. It is a good example of the power of framing the situation. (It is also a case of more challenges encouraging more innovation.)

Of Ants and Dinosaurs is an alternative history of the fall of dinosaurs. They had created a great civilization. However, they had split into two groups. They took mutually assured destruction to the extreme and eventually blew up the world with anti-matter. These seem to be the US and Soviet Union in the cold war. The ants play the role of China. They help to manufacture most of the high technology that the ants invent. They are not nearly as creative, but they are more industrious and creative. The dinos become very dependent on the ants. The two groups work symbiotically to create an advanced civilization. However, the ants tire of the dinosaur fighting and go on strike, and later decide to take down the dinosaurs. Alas, this also stop the "deadman" switch. The contained antimatter obliterates the world and the ants come to the "dark age" of ants. This seems to be a very political message addressed at the Chinese. "You know those other countries are brutes. However, they do have some redeeming qualities. We will be much better keeping together than trying to eliminate them."

The Sun of China is an interesting story of the Chinese villager venturing out - way out. A barely literate peasant goes to the city and gets a job as a window washer. At the same time, China has launched a "reflective sun" to help control the weather. It gets dirty and they need people to clean it. They were going to get astronauts with PHds. However, they were convinced that the window washers had the needed expertise. Eventually, Stephen Hawking goes up there. This country boy brefriends him and learns about space. When it comes time to decommission the "sun station" this former peasant advocates manning it to sail off into the unknown. I wonder if this is how sailors going to the new world would fail. After all, many of those crews never did return. 

The Wages of Humanity centers on a hitman for hire. He is hired by some rich people to gun down some poor people because they refuse to accept money. He is later highered by one of his victims to gun down the rich people. He truly is for hire. The science fiction aspect revolves around aliens that have come to colonize earth. They plan on creating a reservation on Australia (an idea he will use in another book.) The standard of living there will be based on the minimal standard needed by earthlings. Thus, there is a desire to have a high level of equality. It turns out that the invading force comes from a planet where one man had managed to accumulate all resources (even air), and thus all of their residents had sought a new abode.

Curse 5.0. is about 5 iterations of the Curse virus. The author himself makes an appearance and starts the 4th version in a drunken stuper. (This one destroys Taiyuan, China) The 5th version is set to destroy the world. The virus uses AI to manipulate people. And first it was just to hurt Si Ba, but the "handcuffs" were gradually removed.

Micro-Age is a civilization of mini-humans that were created to survive after the sun flared. A big human that came in a ship came back and realized they were better, so he killed off the few remaining embryos. The "small" humans can fly like dust.

The Devourer is a giant space ship that is set to gobble up earth. Humans try an attempt to block it by setting nuclear blasts on the moon. The ship manages to avoid it by accelerating, but is damaged. The devourers want to use humans as food. Those "food" humans are happy, and then they are slaughtered for meat. It turns out that the devourers are dinosaurs that set on a long voyage many years ago.

Take Care of Gods is an allegory of taking care of our seniors. The gods are the original creators of humanity. They have come back and live among the humans, who take car of them. They tried to impart of their great knowledge. However, humanity doesn't have the capacity to understand. Eventually humans tire of taking care of their gods. However, the gods are ready to leave, and impart wisdom that people have "brothers" that have turned out much worse.

In With Her Eyes a technology allows space travelers to experience the sensory stimuli of somebody wearing special glasses. We learn that the person that experienced them was not in space, but in a vehicle tunnelled deep within the earth. The vehicle accidentally hit the earth's core and lost the engine. The occupant is now stuck there for the rest of her life. The experience with the "eyes" was the last she had before she lost the bandwidth to communicate.

The Longest Fall centers around the experience of a man who wakes up from a quarter-century of sleep to discover the world had changed. The atmosphere is polluted and his recently deceased son is considered a scourge of society. He spent countless sums of money to create a tube through the earth from China to Antarctica. The people throw him in the tube. On the other end, people are alerted to him coming and he is able to exit. He goes to sleep again for another half century. When awakes the the world is in even worse condition and the tube has now been modified to launch people into space. The man's granddaughter is he girl from the previous story.

The book could use a little editing help. There are some obvious typos. However, it is still understandable. The stories have an "East meets west" feeling, with themes borrowed from both China and the west. The stories do explore some of the same ideas from each other (and from his novels.) He does have a tendency to stretch things to universal proportions, with the destruction of the earth happening frequently. 

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