Chung Kuo

A science-fiction series of eight novels by David Wingrove, where Earth in the 22nd century is in the iron grip of a Chinese empire run by the Seven T'ang. This world is called the Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom. Mankind's 36 billion people live in one vast City, which is actually seven cities: City Europe, City West Asia, City East Asia, City Africa, and so on. The lowest city levels, called the Net, are cut off and run by Triad mafia. Famine and poverty loom in the near future, while a group of wealthy Hung Mao (whites) in Europe plan to bring Change back to the world. The result is a back-and-forth war of assassinations that increasingly weakens the City financially and politically. And that is only the beginning.

The series is known for being a rich and complex vision of a Byzantine future where no sides are completely good or bad; for having a long list of characters on both sides of the conflict; and for its graphic descriptions of both sex and violence. The complexity (and length) of the series can be attributed to David Wingrove's background. In 1982, having left his career as a bank Associate, he obtained a First Class Honours degree in English and won one of only ten research grants given by the UK Department of Education and Science that year, which began three years of a doctorate appraising the works of leading British literary names such as William Golding. He would also co-author the heavy-duty study Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, earning a Hugo Award for best non-fiction work in the SF genre in 1986, among other honors. In short, it is not his habit to compromise when setting pen to paper.

Over the next few years, beginning in 2010, there are plans for a massive rewrite of the series, adding at least ten new books that go into more detail on the background of the setting and flesh out other details.


 * After the End: The world-spanning Chung Kuo was built after a global war that ended the old way of life.
 * It's revealed in one of the redone novels that it was due to the collapse of a heavily-digitized world economy Twenty Minutes in The Future followed by full-scale war, shattering societies around the globe.
 * Alternative Calendar
 * Anyone Can Die: Don't get too attached to a character
 * Arranged Marriage: Jelka Tolonen is arranged to marry the son of her father's lifelong friend, not a happy thought.
 * Also the norm for all members of the High and Low Families
 * Artificial Human: Servants created by the Gen Syn Corporation
 * A Taste of the Lash: Being a maid to a sadistic prince has its disadvantages, as Little Bee discovers
 * Attempted Rape: Really not the right trope to try on Jelka
 * Banned in China: You betcha
 * Break the Cutie: Sweet Flute, a young and inexperienced prostitute in a high-end brothel, is sold as a concubine to a man who does not have her best interests at heart
 * Brother-Sister Incest: Ben Shepherd and his sister.
 * Call to Agriculture: A police major fits this trope, as he moves from the City to the farming fields in Eastern Europe
 * The Chessmaster: Howard deVore - although he is actually a Go master, explicitly comparing being a leader to placing pieces on the board.
 * China Takes Over the World: The basis for the series
 * Civil War:
 * Conspiracy Theorist: Kim in his teens turns out to be the world's most successful conspiracy theorist
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Several, and no one bats an eye
 * Cultural Posturing: "Three thousand years of unbroken civilisation - that was the heritage of the Han. Against that these large-nosed foreigners could claim what? Six centuries of chaos and ill-discipline."
 * Cyberspace An entertainment system called the Shell
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Wang Sau-leyan
 * Death Is Dramatic: While is a bastard, he knows how to die. Since he so naturally acts  until the very end, the enemy soldiers find it almost impossible to fire at him.
 * Deliberate Values Dissonance: So, so much. Holding up a frozen human head to your business associates to reminisce? They will only be bothered that you are stalling the meeting.
 * Divided We Fall: So much. The Ping Tiao rebels, the splinter-faction Yu rebels, the group of businessmen in Europe and later the Young Sons in North America, the Black Hand, and of course Howard deVore's operations, and later Stefan Lehmann's going at it himself as he rises in power in Europe's criminal underworld. Then again, it's a big world, so various different groups of rebels is not surprising.
 * Domed Hometown
 * Dystopia: With its dictatorship, overpopulated slum levels and ban on Change this world qualifies as a dystopia, although not as bad as many other examples out there
 * Elaborate Underground Base: Hidden in the Alps, the only uninhabited part of Europe
 * End of an Age: The last years of the world-spanning empire. Li Yuan, the T'ang of Europe, has made it his life's work to forestall the end.
 * Evil Albino: Although not evil as such, Stefan Lehmann is merciless in achieving his goals, and doesn't hesitate to kill innocents when needed. To his underlings he appears to be without emotions.
 * Eye Scream: In the first novel, a kidnapped child is returned with his eyeballs gouged out, his eyelids sewn shut and the eye sockets filled with maggots.
 * French Maid: Several maids working for the T'ang or their sons
 * Freudian Excuse: Wang Sau-leyan, ugly, fat and clumsy, was treated as a poor sequel to his brothers while he grew up. This is not presented as an excuse for his behavior, but it helps explain it.
 * Global Currency: Not surprisingly, the Chinese yuan is now the only currency
 * Good Scars, Evil Scars: Gangster boss Whiskers Lu has had half his face scarred by acid
 * Government Conspiracy: The world is led to believe that the Han conquered the Roman Empire and have been in control ever since. Not as impossible as it may seem. The false history was enforced by the death penalty and massive propaganda for two generations, and the City destroyed all physical traces of the old world.
 * Grey and Gray Morality: Both the Council of Seven and the European rebels have their good and bad sides
 * Heel Face Turn:  in book five, after having lost everything
 * Honor Before Reason: Early on, members of the House (the parliament) have the son of the T'ang of Europe killed. Knowing where this could lead, the T'ang decides to let matters be. The leader of his army, Marshal Tolonen, does not obey orders. Instead he marches into the House in session and slits the throat of one of the plotters. This sets the stage for everything that comes after.
 * Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Mu Chua, former prostitute and now Madam of her own high-end brothel, is protective and caring toward her girls, to the point where she will eventually make a great sacrifice for their safety
 * Huge Holographic Head: Surveillance system scanning random people in the lower City levels
 * I Did What I Had to Do
 * Inherent in the System: The world is simply a big, corrupt, spirit-crushing prison for both the Europeans and the Han (most of them). The world-encompassing City was created to fulfill the promise of having as many children as you want, a fundamental wish for the clan-oriented Han society. The drawback: you don't get to see the sky and the sun, all birds are in cages, the very nature of the City makes it impossible to improve without physically tearing it down. Which in a world of 36 billion people would mean mass death.
 * Interservice Rivalry: A more politicized police detail sometimes shows up to suppress the truth about a terrorist attack (e.g. the message left at the scene of an assassination by the rebels, or the fact that a massacre of higher-ups took place at a depraved orgy establishment), causing no small bitterness among the more honest police.
 * Kick the Dog
 * La Résistance: A group of European businessmen and officers, but also the Ping Tiao, rebels from the lower city levels
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: From the second novel and onward, there is a helpful character list added
 * Love At First Sight: Happens to and
 * Love Hurts: Yuan, T'ang of City Europe, falls for the wrong woman early on
 * Made of Phlebotinum: "Ice," the material by which the City is built
 * Mad Artist: Ben Shepherd makes excellent drawings but often with disturbing symbolism; this is due to being highly intelligent and also schizophrenic
 * Manchurian Agent: A servant is brainwashed into attacking a high-ranking officer
 * Marty Stu: Karr was a prize fighter in the Net slums. He is made an officer and later major, sent to hunt down rebel leaders. When he shows up in a chapter, you know he will succeed in everything without breaking a sweat.
 * Millionaire Playboy: Tsu Ma, T'ang of City West Asia, fits this trope
 * Noble Savage: The Osu, in isolated settlements on Mars
 * Old Retainer: Nan Ho, Master of the Inner Chambers to the T'ang of City Europe, remains in the same position for his son Li Yuan. He enjoys considerable trust. He is even tasked with choosing three wives for Li Yuan, who accepts his choices without question.
 * One World Order: Chung Kuo
 * Penal Colony: The convenient use for the levels in the Net
 * Professional Killer: Jyan and Chen, definitely of the "poor hitman" side of the trope
 * Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil
 * Rebellious Princess: Jelka Tolonen borders on this, because of the Arranged Marriage trope above
 * Rich Bitch: Ebert
 * Royal Brat: Also Ebert
 * Science Fiction: On the hard side of the trope
 * Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Yes, Ebert again
 * Sibling Yin-Yang: Li Han Ch'in and Li Yuan, sons of one of the T'ang Lords
 * Sinister Surveillance
 * Son of a Whore: Stefan Lehmann's mother has been the concubine of many wealthy men
 * Space Amish: The Osu
 * Split Personality: Happens to some of those who were rescued from living as savages in the Clay when under pressure.
 * Split Personality Takeover: The fate of some of the unfortunate Clayborn. Followed by swift execution.
 * The Evil Prince: Wang Sau-leyan has to wait for his father and three older brothers to die before it is his turn on the throne for City Africa. But why wait?
 * The Conspiracy: The secret and unnamed Ministry is tasked with hiding the truth about the past by all means necessary
 * The Government: The seven T'ang Lords even seriously discuss wiring the brains of the world's population (all 36 billion of them) in order to achieve total control: track anyone who is present at a riot or rebel attack for example, and send out pain signals as crowd control. Now that's state power.
 * The Mentor: Li Yuan's son is saved from softness when an old officer is assigned to training him
 * Utopia Justifies the Means: A common view among both defenders and rebels in the City, although not all-pervasive
 * What the Hell, Hero?: The T'ang Li Yuan is one of the main protagonists, seeking to stave off the inevitable end of the empire. His pet idea for doing this is to insert electronics in every citizen's brain, so that they can be easily tracked and punished, even killed, by the push of a button in the case of crime or rioting. Bear in mind that there are 36 billion citizens.
 * World War III: China conquered the world when it was engulfed in conflict
 * Morality Kitchen Sink: One of the T'angs has a whole team of physicians executed when his wife dies in childbirth; many of the rebels, having grown up in this world, are not so much better
 * The City Narrows: The levels below the walls called the Net
 * The Dragon: Howard deVore, although he later gets a promotion
 * The Empire: Chung Kuo
 * The Fettered: Marshal Knut Tolonen
 * The Lancer: Karr, for the T'ang of Europe, or (early) Howard deVore, depending on how you look at it
 * Marshal Knut Tolonen for the T'ang, most of the series
 * The Triads and the Tongs: Triads rule the Net
 * The Unfettered: Howard deVore and Stefan Lehmann
 * Ubermensch: It is revealed that Howard deVore's motivation for seeking the empire's destruction is to a large degree about allowing a stronger and better kind of human to be developed.
 * Urban Segregation: Planned and explicit, with different city levels offering different living conditions
 * Why Mao Changed His Name: Chung Kuo is the obsolescent Wade-Giles romanization of 中国. Modern pinyin would be Zhōngguó. Wingrove does at least usually get his Wade-Giles right, including the all-important (and not at all decorative) apostrophe.
 * David Wingrove explicitly states in the appendix that he knows of the more commonly used pinyin today, the use of which he is well familiar with, but that he prefers the Wade-Giles romanization for this series.
 * As for apostrophes, there are 101 names of characters listed in the second novel, of which an overwhelming three (3) have apostrophes. Actually reading the novels helps in finding this out.
 * Wise Beyond Their Years: Some of the characters who start out as children in the first novel
 * Woman Scorned: The beautiful but volatile Fei Yen is furious after finding out that her husband Li Yuan, the future T'ang of City Europe, has brought back the two servant girls that he slept with as a teenager. It gets worse from there.
 * Wrong Side of the Tracks: Those born in the Net
 * Yellow Peril: One might think this would be the case, but the Chinese are not a peril; the founder of Chung Kuo saved the world from a time of great chaos, which is not questioned by those who know the real history - although his methods were certainly not praised. The peril is in what Chung Kuo has become. Chinese and European dissenters cooperate, and in some cases they belong to the same rebel groups.
 * Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Especially true for the Ping Tiao rebels, for whom the morality of their actions becomes a big issue both within and without the group