1300 187 187
 

Paperback

Published: 1st March 2011
RRP $32.99
$27.50
17%
OFF
This title is not in stock at the Booktopia Warehouse and needs to be ordered from our supplier.
Click here to read more about delivery expectations.

A monumental publishing event: Introducing Chung Kuo, a masterwork of future history standing alongside Herbert's Dune and Asimov's Foundation.

The year is 2065, two decades after the great economic collapse that destroyed Western civilisation. With its power broken and its cities ruined, life in the West continues in scattered communities. In rural Dorset, Jake Reed lives with his fourteen year old son and memories of the great collapse. Back in '43, Jake was a rich, young futures broker, immersed in the datascape of the world's financial markets. He saw what was coming - and who was behind it. Forewarned, he was one of the few to escape the fall.

For 22 years, he has lived in fear of the future, and finally it is coming - quite literally - across the plain towards him. Chinese airships are in the skies and a strange, glacial structure has begun to dominate the horizon. Jake finds himself forcibly incorporated into the ever-expanding 'World of Levels' a global city of some 34 billion souls, where social status is reflected by how far above the ground you live. Here, under the rule of the mighty Tsao Ch'un, a resurgent China is seeking to abolish the past and bring about world peace through rigidly enforced order. But a civil war looms, and Jake will find himself at the heart of the struggle for the future.

About the Author

David Wingrove is the Hugo-Award winning co-author (with Brian Aldiss) of The Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction. He is also the co-author of the first three Myst Books - novelisations of one of the world's bestselling computer games. He lives in North London with his wife and four daughters.

Reviewed By Toni Whitmont, Booktopia Buzz Editor
To read more reviews by Toni Whitmont, click here to visit the Booktopia Newsletter Archive.

Chung Kuo means 'Middle Kingdom', and since 221 bc, when the first emperor Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, unified the seven Warring States, it is what the Han, or Chinese, have called their great country.

The first eight Chung Kuo books were published between 1988 and 1998 to resounding international acclaim. The series has now been recast, remastered, rewritten in 20 volumes, including two new 'prequel' volumes and an entirely new ending; there are over 500,000 additional words of new story.

The author, David Wingrove, says 'this is no Director's Cut, but a total revision, giving the series the power and breadth of vision it was always meant to have. In Son of Heaven (book 1) I depict a world in the throes of violent change, a world in which all that is now familiar is about to pass. As the two great empires of our age clash there can only be one winner, that victory effectively ending the centuries-long rule of the West. When I began writing In 1988, the idea of a world dominated by China seemed outlandish, but two decades later, Chung Kuo's vision of the future seems all too plausible.'

Other Reviews
"One of the masterpieces of the decade." --"Washington Post"

ISBN: 9781848875258
ISBN-10: 1848875258
Series: Chung Kuo
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 400
Published: 1st March 2011
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Dimensions (cm): 23.4 x 15.8
Weight (kg): 0.526