Chung Kuo: Difference between revisions

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.

 

 

* [[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. {{spoiler|And it's also heavily implied that the Chinese instigated the whole thing to facilitate their eventual takeover.}}

* [[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

* [[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.

* [[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

* [[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]]: {{spoiler|Hans Ebert}} 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.

* [[Huge Holographic Head]]: Surveillance system scanning random people in the lower City levels

* [[I Did What I Had to Do]]

* [[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]]

* [[Royal Brat]]: Also Ebert

* [[Science Fiction]]: On the hard side of the trope

* [[Sinister Surveillance]]

* [[Son of a Whore]]: Stefan Lehmann's mother has been the concubine of many wealthy men

* [[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

* [[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 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 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.

[[Category:Science Fiction Literature]]

[[Category:Chung Kuo]]