Invisible Planets: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese SF in Translation

by Ken Liu

It is true that there is a long tradition in China of voicing dissent and criticism through the use of literary metaphor; however, this is but one of the purposes for which writers write and for which readers read.

time flies past the laborer, the poor, the “third world”; time crawls for the rich, the idle, the “developed world”; time stays still for those in charge, the idols, the gods …

No one had thought that men and women in their seventies and eighties could still be so creative and imaginative.

“When the poets are gone, poems are even more precious.”

Humans may be gone, but the world goes on. Look at how lovely the moon is tonight. If you want to sing, sing. If you don’t want to sing, just lie still. When you sing, the world will listen; when you are quiet, you’ll hear the song of all creation.”

The pieces of paper were actually meaningless, as the electronic copies had been sent to his e-mail already. But the appropriate authorities felt that formal documents on paper were helpful in inducing in users the proper feelings of fear and respect.

A society full of stupid men is a stable one.”

the progress of technology will cause a free world to become ever freer, and a totalitarian world to become ever more repressive.”

I have lost the ambition and the will to change the world, but I do not want to see everyone become like me.”

Most live alone all their lives. The inhabitants do not feel any lack because of this. Indeed, they hear about the overpopulation problems of other planets and feel that their own world is the only one that understands the secret of good living.

“Yes, what you say sounds like Truth. But the world is full of Truths. So what if you have a Truth?”

No one is jealous of another’s work, just as a monkey would not be jealous of a dinosaur.

Numerous steps, each meaningless by itself, when added together become a rule, a principle.

I want you to check the table signs one more time. I don’t trust robots for things like this. Sometimes they don’t know how to be flexible.”

The deserted banquet hall after the party looked messy and grubby, like a woman who had taken off her makeup after a long, tiring day.

He didn’t know what was the point of knowing the truth. If he could see some things clearly but was still powerless to change them, what good did that do?

“A civilization only has a fixed location in her infancy. Planets and stars are unstable and change. The civilization must then move. By the time she becomes a young woman, she has already moved multiple times. Then they will make this discovery: no planetary environment is as stable as a sealed spaceship. So they’ll make spaceships their home, and planets will just be places where they sojourn. Thus, any civilization that has reached adulthood will be a starfaring civilization, permanently wandering through the cosmos. The spaceship is her home. Where are we from? We come from the ships.”

‘to each according to need’ fulfills only the most basic needs of a civilization.

if a man lives longer than three thousand years, he might as well be dead. For a civilization, extreme longevity for the individual can be fatal.”

A civilization’s survival depends on the effort of every individual. Even the common people like you have a role to play.”

reforming reality requires not only science and technology, but also the belief by all of us that life should be better—and can be made better—if we possess imagination, courage, initiative, unity, love, and hope as well as a bit of understanding and empathy for strangers.