It’s difficult to start this review, because I’m having a bit of dejavu. Wasn’t it just a few years ago that I read the first installment to David Wingrove’s Chung Kuo series—and given up on it only seventy or so pages in?
Yes, a full seven years ago, I tried to read Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom (1989), but didn’t make it through the first several chapters, because I didn’t think I’d have the energy to continue. The problem for me was far less the underlying concept of the book—an intriguing world David Wingrove has developed for sure!—than it was the fact that the series was eight books long, with more than 1,000 pages each. I didn’t think I had the time or stamina to finish 10,000 or more pages of a make-believe epoch set in an impossible future of Chinese rule. I’ve never even sourced the gumption to read Frank Herbert’s first volume of Dune (not to mention the complete series), so how could I expect to read all of Chung Kuo?
So what changed? Well, let me first introduce what changed for Wingrove before I describe what changed for me.
In 2011 and under a stroke of inspiration, Wingrove decided to rehash his Chinese world for a new age, a new audience. The back story for this rewrite (as far as I figure it) is that the British author had never been quite happy with his original series written between 1989-1997. As modern technology improved, his series appeared all the more dated and ridiculous. Slowly it sank beneath the waves of history, forgotten despite all his imaginative investments. Rather than wielding that imagination into a new and unrelated project, Wingrove decided to revive the world of Chung Kuo for a new generation. He’d modernize the technology, develop a stronger backstory, and re-release his tales, not in 8 measly books but in 20! Or more!
He’d recover his original fanbase! He’d spread his genius to new readers far and wide! He’d be rich beyond belief!
He’d lose his contract less than half-way through the series…he’d be forced to support himself via Kickstarter (or whatever platform he uses)…he’d keep writing, despite what the critics said and no matter how many fans he’d lose along the way.
As of 2020, Wingrove has published 12 of his proposed 20 volumes in the series, and this book from 2011 is merely the first. For what it’s worth, I loved it, and I wish every installment hereafter were as engaging as this one was.
This first book, Son of Heaven, felt to me like a mixture of several other styles of fiction. The atmosphere of its post-apocalyptic world felt like The Walking Dead (minus the zombies). The technology felt a lot like Ender’s Game (minus the aliens). The Chinese threats and attacks felt a bit like Vaughn Heppner’s Invasion series. All told, it was a good mix of action and sci-fi, yet real-world and with nothing terribly supernatural going on.
Essentially what we have in this fantastical world is a colony of British folks eking out their lives together twenty years after the global markets (and society as the world knew it) crashed. Jake, the supposed hero of the story, has seen it all happen while working inside the computers back then in the 2040s. Now it’s the 2060s, life is hard, yet change appears to be coming.
Some of the material and lots of the language in the book is “adult,” so from a Christian reviewer’s perspective, be careful of all that. Still, I found this book engaging, exciting, and enjoyable and I was excited to pick up book two once I finally put this one down. That the second book was a huge letdown surprised me, yet I feel like it’s only fair to state that in this review of the first book.
Stay posted, I guess, for my review of Book Two to learn why I’ll probably not be reading the third installment…at least why I won’t be tempted to read it anytime within the next seven years.
©2021 E.T.
Read More from David Wingrove:
- Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom (1989)
- Son of Heaven (2011)
- Daylight on Iron Mountain (2011)
Read More Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Novels:
- The Last New Yorkers by George Allen England (1911)
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
- The Last Ship by William Brinkley (1988)
- Minority Report and Other Stories by Philip K. Dick (2004)
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
- The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins (2008)
- Son of Heaven (series) by David Wingrove (2011)
- Contamination (series) by T.W. Piperbrook (2013)
- Yellowstone (series) by Bobby Akart (2018)
- The Giver by Lois Lowry, adapted by P. Craig Russell (2019)
- Fairy Godparents: Raising a Fairy Child by Indahari Setyo (2020)