The return of Chung Kuo

[Jason]

This news sort of fell underneath my radar...apparently Chung Kuo is back!

There's kind of an interesting story here: back in the late 80s and nineties, author David Wingrove wrote a series called Chung Kuo. Truly excellent world building sci-fi in the vein of Dune, only taking place on Earth which has been unified by a new, technologically advanced Chinese empire. It was great stuff, really.

While it was planned as a nine book series, Wingrove's publisher forced him to wrap it up in eight. He hated the ending, as did fans. Then it all went out of print.

Apparently the rights bounced around a while, but now it's back, and Wingrove's new plan is to publish two new prequel novels, followed by the entire series, reformatted and re-edited, with his original ending. Instead of nine enormous books, it will now be 20 more reasonably sized novels.

The first two are out in the UK Son of Heaven and Daylight on Iron Mountain. The first is out here in the US. The plan is to publish them all, wrapping it up in 2015.

I'm super excited about this, since I only got a few books in before they became super hard to find. I just downloaded Son of Heaven to my Kindle, but word is that it's good! Chung Kuo was always one of those sci-fi series that seemed to be ignored by a lot of people, so hopefully it gets a bit more exposure this time around.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks for the heads up. I remember seeing this a while back but completely forgot.

[Dirk]

Thank god the Chung Kuo books are actually real. I read seven of them one summer working as a park superintendent. Someone had left them behind in the cabin I lived in. I could never find the final volume when I got back to civilization (pre-Amazon.) After a time it felt like I had dreamed the whole series up in my isolation because I have never found anyone else who has ever read them.

Now I only have to wait another three years to find out how it ended...yay.

[Paul]

Dirk wrote: "Now I only have to wait another three years to find out how it ended...yay. "

LOL.

This is something I've been meaning to read for years. I knew a guy who was a HUGE fan and recommended it to me, but I've kind of been avoiding multi-volume epics. Sounds like an opportunity to correct that.

[Kris]

I am going to have to look this up...good read that I never followed up on...

[John]

Does anyone know what happened to "Daylight on Iron Mountain" in the Kindle store? It was there, but doesn't seem to be available any longer :-(

[Ken]

I read all seven on the recommendation of a friend and loved them (though if I remember right, #7 was a bit strained.) He warned me that eight wasn't highly recommended, so he never read it. I tried in vain to find it via libraries, stores, amazon, ... and the best I could find was an ebay copy for something like $160 for a paperback. Needless to say I didn't buy it. I'm looking forward to revisiting this and seeing how it really ends. Son of Heaven is currently on my Kindle and waiting it's turn.

[Ian]

I read all 8 back in the 80s - I remember the first 4 or 5 being fantastic, then towards the end it sort of tailed off and the last one was complete rubbish. Guess the fact that the publisher pushed him into an early finish explains some of that!

I will definitely re-read, I hope he does some rewriting of the 2nd half though. The theme will have huge resonance now, with the rise of China as such a huge eceonomic powerhouse, even more than it did back in the 80s.

[Casey]

Nice! I used to see these on the shelf all the time when I worked at a book store in the early 90's, but never got around to them. Sounds like the new Prequel is the perfect place to start!

[Jason]

Baloode wrote: "Does anyone know what happened to "Daylight on Iron Mountain" in the Kindle store? It was there, but doesn't seem to be available any longer :-("

It's out, but only in the UK. You may have accidentally been on Amazon UK. It's not available on Amazon US yet.

[Kevin]

I can't wait to get back into these. I absolutely loved them back in the day.