From a rural mountain community where elementary students must use physics to prevent an alien invasion, to coal mines in northern China where new technology could unleash a fire that will burn for centuries, to a time very much like our own, when superstring computers predict our every move, Liu's stories transport us to worlds both familiar and strange. If you're a fan of hard science fiction, thought-provoking stories, and stunning writing, then To Hold Up the Sky is a must-read.

Li remains unusual in this, however. Still, even though there is a general lack of complexity in the psychology of this collection’s characters, it's not necessarily something that detracts from the whole experience. It may even be palate-cleansing for readers to read these different types of story that aren’t submerged in a singular perspective. To play out its thought experiments, To Hold Up the Sky requires a big stage—and consequently the human level sometimes disappears. While these stories aren't perfect, however, they are ambitious in their scope and can be mightily entertaining.

Science Fiction is one of my favourite genres because I grew up entirely on Star Wars. Just as with my Fantasy reading I have been trying to expand what I read and specifically from where I read. Cixin Liu has been on my To-Read list for ages so when I saw an audiobook for Hold Up the Sky I decided to go for it and combine it with reading the digital book!

Science Fiction is a genre that is often, I believe, difficult to pin down. Is it about the Science or the Fiction part? And what is this science? Is it robot armies, light sabers, or space colonization? Is it about humans or about all the other potential species out there. To return to Ursula K. LeGuin's definition, 'Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.' And this truly couldn't apply any better to Liu's fiction. Almost all the stories in Hold Up the Sky describe current issues, climate change, political conflict, oppression, and poverty, even while dealing with scientific topics. It may take place in space, but Liu's stories are fully human. While I was occasionally lost in the science talk, I never lost the thread of humanity running through each of the stories. It's in the awe with which his characters stare at the sky, the ingenuity that saves, or the love that lives on.

Hold Up the Sky starts of amazingly. Both 'The Village Teacher' and 'Time Migration' are beautiful. In the former the story of a teacher in a poor village is intertwined with an intergalactic war, all while the story ponders on the beauty of knowledge. The latter sees a group of refugees travel through time looking for a safe space, making you wonder what makes for a good world. Since I absolutely adored these stories some of those that followed didn't hit in quite the same way, such as 'Mirror'. 'Contraction' was a beautiful Other stand-outs for me were 'Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming', an ode to Russian literature and the Russian people. It has one of the most tragic of endings. 'Fire in the Earth' also asks fascinating questions about technical progress and whether the end justifies the means. Two of the latter stories, 'Sea of Dreams' and 'Cloud of Poems', share a similar question, namely the worth of art in the face of ever-advancing technology. These stories will definitely resonate with any art or poetry lover. 'The Thinker' is a lovely end to the collection, a quiet reminiscence on kinship, love, consciousness, and the stars.

Cixin Liu writes beautifully, offering the readers real moments of human feeling amidst the stars. His human characters are truly human in their desires and hopes, their ways of thinking, and the scientific or more abstract elements of his stories serve those feelings, rather than vice versa. It is not about the flashy modern contraptions, the flying cars, or the super computer. These are there to serve the story and the ideas and themes Liu is trying to advance. How much of the science is "correct" I do not know. I have asked my father, a theoretical physicist with an interest in fiction, to give the stories a go, so perhaps I will hear from him. But how "true" it is does not affect how the stories work. I will most definitely be reading more works by Liu, with The Wandering Earth next on my list. The stories are all translated by different writers, so I have chosen to list them all below:

John Chu: '2018-04-01', 'Contraction', 'Sea of Dreams', and 'The Thinker'
Adam Lanphier: 'The Village Teacher'
Joel Martinsen: 'The Time Migration', 'Fire in the Earth', and 'Ode to Joy'
Carmen Yiling Yan: 'Mirror', 'Full-Spectrum Barrage Jamming', and 'Cloud of Poems'

Hold Up the Sky is a stunning collection of short stories that are deeply descriptive of the human condition. Who knew that we would find ourselves amongst the stars.

An impressive collection of brilliantly crafted short stories. Very solid sci-fi with science and reflection on our place in the universe.
I discovered Cixin Liu a couple of years ago and was totally blown away by Supernova Era.
This time, I would like to present the latest collection of his science-fiction short stories: To Hold Up the Sky.

I don’t often read short stories, as they often feel like unfinished pieces to me, but there are a few impressive exceptions.

This collection is definitely one of them. It contains eleven stories:
The Village Teacher, The Time Migration, 2018-04-01, Fire In The Earth, Contraction, Mirror, Ode To Joy, Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming, Sea of Dreams, Cloud of Poems, and The Thinker.

Cixin Liu is here just as impressive as in the novel Supernova Era.
Most stories deal with themes of science, space, astrophysics for instance, IT, genes, and the environment, how humans stand in all that, and what their challenges are, or as the author explains in the introduction, “the relationship between the Great and the Small”, in other words, between the universe and “human smallness”.

I like the high level of science contained in some of them. His writing is very compact, with some amazing endings. This is not beach reads sci-fi, but really very complex stories, so brilliantly crafted. This shows even in translation (which can only be masterful I assume, even though I can’t read Chinese).

I was particularly impressed by Contraction.
We are currently observing space expansion. But is it an infinite phenomenon? Will space-time start to contract at one point? Will it impact matter? These are the issues considered in this story, with a fabulous ending worthy of Oulipo writing.

Another impressive story is dealing with art. I will not give any details about Sea of Dreams, it’s like a major universe-size fresco reflection on art and life.
The introduction helped me measure even more Cixin Liu’s impact on the genre. Indeed, most of his stories presented here were written more than a decade ago, at a time when “sci-fi was still a very marginal pursuit in China.”
NB: my review on my blog contains one short quotation from the book

To Hold Up the Sky es una recopilación de relatos del afamado autor chino Cixin Liu, pero no son obras recientes si no más antiguas que las publicadas en The Wandering Earth. Esto no desmerece la selección de cuentos, con algunos realmente rebosantes de sentido de la maravilla, pero tampoco es menos cierto que si se ha leído antes la otra recopilación esta parezca algo inferior.


The Village Teacher

Una relato con clarísima inspiración asimoviana, con dos partes diferenciadas que juega con el contraste de las civilizaciones más avanzadas y la labor de un profesor rural en China. Es todo un homenaje a la abnegada labor de los maestros y marca una tendencia en la propia antología.

The Time Migration

Otra historia con cierto regusto clásico, esta vez con raíces aún más antiguas bebiendo de H.G. Wells y su máquina del tiempo, Cixin Liu nos habla de emigrantes temporales que viajan hacia el futuro buscando un sitio donde encajar.


2018-04-01

La idea de base del relato, la extensión de la vida humana mediante la terapia genética ya ha sido bastante tratada en la ciencia ficción y la aproximación del autor se queda un poco corta tanto en las consecuencias como en el impacto sociológico.


Fire In The Earth

En esta ocasión más que un cuento de ciencia ficción nos encontramos ante un alegato ecológico a favor del uso de la tecnología más avanzada para evitar la contaminación que conlleva la explotación de los combustibles fósiles, pero me parece fallido. La parte tecnológica es poco especulativa y no resulta fácil conectar con la parte emocional que nos ofrece el autor.


Contraction

Con una simple cambio en las constantes de las ecuaciones que hemos inventado para comprender mejor el universo, el autor es capaz de crear un cuento sobre la futilidad de la obra humana. Sigue fallando un poco en el aspecto humano de la narración, pero no deja de ser interesante.


Mirror

Quizá el mejor relato de la recopilación, el autor utiliza el poder de la simulación (haciendo algo de trampa) para especular cómo sería la sociedad si todas las acciones fueran perfectamente observables. Esquiva de manera bastante ajustada el determinismo y deja algo de margen al libre albedrío.


Ode To Joy

Puro sentido de la maravilla, con un concierto espacial del que la humanidad es asombrado espectador.


Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming

Este relato es eminentemente militarista, y también es un pequeño homenaje del autor a la nación rusa. En una guerra tecnológica , quizá la única manera de que el bando menos avanzado tenga alguna oportunidad sea destruir las capacidades de comunicación de ambos contendientes. El autor especula sobre la posibilidad de utilizar un pulso electromagnético de grandes dimensiones, pero también hay que tener en cuenta las consecuencias.


Sea of Dreams

De nuevo aparece lo que es un elemento recurrente en esta recopilación de Cixin Liu, el concepto de arte a nivel astronómico. Aunque en esta ocasión haya que lidiar con las consecuencias que deja en la Tierra la utilización intensiva de material para la creación artística del artista de baja temperatura, también tiene un cierto aire optimista sobre la capacidad de superación de la humanidad.


Cloud of Poems

Hay varias formas de resolver problemas mediante algoritmos, pero no es menos cierto que a veces se puede recurrir a la fuerza bruta si la capacidad computacional es suficiente. En este interesantísimo relato hacen acto de presencia la civilización de dinosaurios que ya conocimos en otro cuento del autor, pero son meros intermediarios entre la relación entre unos seres semejantes a dioses y un humano (un mero regalo de los dinosaurios al dios). Se muestran distintas medidas para valorar la valía de una civilización, pero el autor vuelve a hacer hincapié en el arte como algo tan valioso como difícil de mesurar.


The Thinker

Un descubrimiento casual sobre las estrellas permite al autor lanzar una idea de implicaciones tan vastas que resulta difícil hacerse una idea de la escala en la que se desarrolla el cuento, aunque pase una vida humana casi completa entre el inicio y el final del relato, apenas es apreciable.

To Hold Up the Sky es un gran libro que sin embargo palidece en comparación con la otra recopilación de relatos del mismo autor que ya conocíamos.

Liu’s short story collection comes in the wake of his breakthrough success with the award-winning The Three-Body Problem. Translated by several translators (none of which was Ken Liu, who translated The Three-Body Problem, and Ican’t help but wonder if politics wasn’t the reasond for that) To Hold Up the Sky offers 11 diverse stories spanning near and far future of our own reality; their main common point seems to be their prominent focus on China and a strong undercurrent of Chinese nationalism. As usual with short stories collections, I’ll review each story separately and give a composite score at the end.

The Village Teacher 0/10

I’d give it 0/10 if I could. Oh, wait, you know what? I can.

Over a quarter century after the collapse of the USSR I never expected to read such a prime example of soc-realist fiction fresh off the publishing press. The primitivity of this story is simply staggering on every level: from the utterly two-dimensional character of the martyr to knowledge – the selfless village teacher bravely giving his life in the heroic quest to teach little kids the Newton’s laws of motion on his death bed in the mountain shed serving as a classroom – to the cosmic conflict between the good carbon-based life-forms who live peacefully in a Federation and the bad silicone-based life-forms who formed a bloodthirsty Empire… Having read both the Polish positivist literature (Orzeszkowa’s ABC vividly comes to mind, and that’s a horrific memory of sickly good intentions married to a total inability to write) and the USSR bestseller and soc-realist opus magnum Story of the Real Man by the Hero of Socialist Labor Boris Polevoy I’ve been scarred for life already. But this… This was even worse. Much, much worse. Polevoy’s book was actually interesting, if you stripped it of the Soviet propaganda – maybe because it was based on a true story. Here? Nothing makes sense.

The Time Migration 1/10

A sickly sweet, unbelievable happy ending belatedly tacked on a nihilistic philosophical story about how humanity is bad and how its progress will eventually lead to its self-inflicted demise. While the main arc at least tried to introduce some ideas about the relationship between humanity and its environment, the conclusion was at once predictable and nonsensical, serving only some vague aim of ending on a positive note. Extremely heavy-handed, populated with cardboard representations of roles (not people, just positions), it reads like a juvenile piece dug out from a drawer after several decades. It should have been left in that drawer.

2018-04-01 5/10

Immortality is costly, and inducive to crime. Love is a mirage of convenience; the only love one can find in life is self-love, and if you’re criminally-minded enough, you can have an eternity of it. The characters are still paper-thin, but at least the story breaks the mold a little and in its depressing depiction of egoism feels more honest than Time Migration.

Fire in the Earth 0/10

Gaaah! This was an even worse example of soc-realist blather. The “Salt of the earth” people, the simple, down to earth blue-collar workers, are by definition inherently good and wise with the accumulated wisdom of life leaching through the soles of their shoes from the land on which they ceaselessly toil (even if they remain corrupt and inane) whereas the educated city slickers bring only woe and tragedy with their high-minded hubris and egoistic inventions. The egotistic educated fops get their just deserts, and only after justice is served can we get a happy ending. I can’t help but find similarities between this story’s attitude toward the value and uniqueness (or their lack) of an individual life and the ultimate message of Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002). In this worldview human life is just the necessary grease for the collective progress.

Contraction 8/10

A very cool, short story which doesn’t make any scientific sense according to our current knowledge, but is highly enjoyable, nonetheless. I really liked Liu’s consistency in taking the story to its end. An interesting take on the possible (no longer, really, but that’s not the point) future end of the universe. Can’t say anything else if I want to keep it spoiler-free.

Mirror 0/10

Another 0/10. Utterly nonsensical from the scientific standpoint, but what really infuriated me was its ideological content. The utterly corrupt, ruthless middle echelon Chinese bureaucrats (very intelligent, because of course they studied physics before they became politicians) are ultimately sacrificing their lives for the idea of individual freedom – contrary to the fanatical Christian Harvard professor who reinvents the Big Brother in his misguided crusade against sin. Yes, the last scene actually depicts said professor kissing the silver cross on his breast. It is ironic, really (well, admittedly I could only appreciate it after I got rid of the foam from my mouth) that in Liu’s aptly named story it’s the West that doesn’t understand the value of individual freedom. I’d argue Liu should turn this Mirror on the Chinese state: the Uighurs, the Nepalese, the Taiwanese would have a lot to say to him, I imagine. Plus, I cannot help but notice how the Christian elements of this story play into wider current Chinese politics with regards to Christianity. A really illuminating piece of propaganda.

Ode to Joy 1/10

Humanity is so at odds with itself that heads of states decide to disband UN. Fortunately for humans, during the ceremony a gigantic Mirror appears above the Earth, claiming to be a musician playing on stars and deciding it’s time to give a concert. Turning Alpha Centauri into a supernova seems to do the trick and humans give UN a second chance. There are several interesting elements in this story: for example, only the Chinese president seems observant enough to notice Southern Hemisphere constellations above New York, but later, inexplicably, every head of state turns out to be a closet astrophysicist and has some remark to add to the discussion with the Mirror. I also noted down a quote that to me seems particularly revealing:

“When a civilization travels far enough on the road of time, individual and collective both disappear.”

In most SF that I read, this blurring and ultimate annihilation of the division between individual and collective is a cause for serious concern and more often than not a mark of the ultimate villainy – see Asher, or Reynolds (though the latter not entirely, but that’s a different discussion), or Star Trek, or Star Wars, or so many other Western examples, really. Here, it’s the mark of inevitable progress, the only possible road to power and knowledge. I could seriously start dissecting this worldview as a radical variation of the mythical worldview rooted in the human need of belonging to something greater, as Kolakowski put it, and start analyzing it from the perspective of the modern Chinese aggressive nationalism – but this is just a book review, not a sociological essay. Interestingly enough, the Mirror speaks in the first person. Talk about schizophrenia.

Full-Spectrum Barrage Jamming 0/10

Unbelievable. A solemn tribute to the heroic Russian soldiers whose Motherland has been invaded by NATO (!) because Russian democratic elections (!!) had been won by the Communist party. The brave Russians die with their PhDs and poetic verses on their lips, while their lovers in the Russian space station find a happy convergence between their patriotic duty and their doomed love and blast into the Sun, plunging Earth back into the Stone Age (or Bayonet Age, to be more precise). The last scene depicts NATO invaders (ruthless Americans and cowardly French) being overwhelmed by the human-and-tank tide of Russians. I especially loved the reference to the Vietnam War as it’s my area of study. Let’s be frank here: I have nothing good to say about the American involvement in Vietnam, and quite a lot of very bad things; but here it seems that the author has subconsciously treated Vietnam as Chinese/Russian territory, as a result completely forgetting that it’s its own nation-state, that it fell under the Communist Chinese influence as a result of the Vietnam War and not all of Vietnam (not even the majority of it) welcomed said Communist influence (in the form of an invasion from the North) with open arms – on the contrary.

Sea of Dreams 4/10

Another alien entity, inspired by Earth ice sculptures, takes away all Earth’s water to create a superior work of art. Once the sculpture is finished, it disappears, leaving humans to deal with their upcoming waterless deaths. Fortunately, the adversity brings humanity together and a rescue plan is devised and enacted, proving that will and need can trump technological advancement… Umm, should we look for hidden meanings? No need, Liu spells some of them out for us in capital letters:

“The existence of individuals is also a troublesome part of infant civilizations. Later, individuals melt into the whole. There’s no society or politics as such.”

Oh, well, yes: this again. Thanks, but NO.

Cloud of Poems 7/10

A totally bonkers story about a hollowed-out (well, reconstituted, really) Earth, a dinosaur empire breeding humans like cattle for food, an alien consciousness downloaded to a human clone, and a poetry challenge resulting in an absolute annihilation of the Solar system. As an adventure story it is quite entertaining, as a showcase of imagination – even better. Forgive me if after so many aggressively nationalistic stories I look at the attempt to prove the universal superiority of Chinese poetry with a somewhat jaded eye.

The Thinker 9/10

Star-crossed lovers from different walks of life bonding over the discovery that stars in the universe communicate like neurons in a brain. A lovely, melancholy story that touchingly underscores the tragic shortness of human life span and the wonderful miracle of consciousness. If you need proof that Liu can actually write something that is not a primitive propaganda piece, you need not look any further. I were to read one Liu’s story, that would be it.

That was one rough ride. The only undeniable positive coming from this mostly harrowing experience is that because I was able to consider it as an anthropological case study I became more interested in Chinese culture and socio-political situation. But judging Liu’s collection on purely literary merits, as a whole it can get only one score from me (unweighted mean is a bit higher, 3/10, but my overall experience was definitely worse than that):

Score: 2/10

I have received a copy of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.

I'm really thorn about how I feel about this book. Some of the stories were dull and too long, but the ones that were good we're absolutely brilliant!
I'll look for some of his other books for sure (it was the first time I read this author) and I'll probably read something translated to portuguese (my first language) because I think it might feels different.

I loved the first three stories, than I enjoyed some and hated others, but the last one stole my heart and might be one of my favorite short stories ever.

3.5 stars.

True to his form as seen in his most renowned science fiction series, The Remembrance of Earth's Past, Cixin Liu's imagination in this short story collection, To Hold Up the Sky, was truly remarkable.

The Three-Body Problem is probably the most well-known translated Asian science fiction novel in the world right now. In fact, I hardly hear or read about the series being mentioned in its actual name, but always in reference to the title of the first book. The Remembrance of Earth's Past is probably my favourite science fiction series right now, and having been treated to the wildly imaginative mind of Cixin Liu in the application of theoretical and astrophysics, I know I'll read anything that he writes.

To Hold Up The Sky is Liu's second collection of short stories, the first being The Wandering Earth, which I owned and have yet to read. As with pretty much most collections, the short stories here could either be a hit or a miss. I would say that the majority of the stories hovered around 3-stars for me. Some of the stories were almost too profound or high concept. The few that I really liked and hence rated 4-stars are the ones which resonated with me more on an emotional level or have a powerful message to humanity.

"When you read or make science fiction, your sympathy automatically moves away from ideas of ethnicity or nation and toward a higher idea of humanity as a whole."

I've summarised my thoughts along with my rating as I finished each story.

The Village Teacher
4 stars - How does a touching story of a dying village teacher relate to an interstellar war fought over 20 millenia 50k lightyears away in the center of the Milky Way? An oddly contrasting narrative that worked as tribute to some of most underrated heroes of our world - teachers. The story about the teacher moved me to tears!!

The Time Migration
3 stars - Philosophical and impactful. The scary proposition of what the future might be when humanity's collective memories and consciousness are just programmes in a supercomputer, and people giving up reality for imagined lives in quantum memory.

2018-04-01
3 stars - The grasp for eternal life. The growing schism between rich and poor. The scary possibility of what could happen when wealth is purely denominated in computer bytes.

Fire in the Earth
3 stars - Story about a young man whose father passed away from the health perils of working in a coal mine. Determined that the future of coal mining should not subject people to such dangers, he studied and proposed a new tech/way of extracting energy from coal. Let's just say attempts to tamper with energy are never without its perils.

The Contraction
4 stars - In reference to the contraction of the (currently expanding) universe, this one has brilliant conceptual thinking that I've come to expect from Liu with powerful and mind-bending implications.

Mirror
4 stars - A fairly long but powerful story. The imagination is astounding. Superstring computers being able to create models at an atomic level.. of entire universes based on the parameters of the singularity. What happens if one discovers the exact model of our universe and could peel through its entire history.. including that of Earth and its people.

Ode to Joy
3 stars - This is almost way too high concept to fathom. Strange story about a ultra-super-advanced entity that travels through the universe and plays the music of the cosmos that it collects on its way.

Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming
2 stars - I got the message but the story felt too long and too full of war technicalities and jargon that it left me feeling a bit cold and bored.

Sea of Dreams
3 stars - Climate science featured heavily in this wildly imaginative story of the most bizarre combo of hyper-advanced aliens, art and losing all our oceans.

Cloud of Poems
3 stars - Profound and bizarre at the same time. There's subtle beauty in the idea that technology may never replace the soul and essence of human intelligence, which in this case is represented in Classical Chinese poetry.

The Thinker
3.5 stars - A story of fate and love bonded by the twinkling of stars.

As I reached the end of the book, I recalled a passage in Liu's Foreword which made me appreciate how this collection of stories fit his ideas about the relationship between humanity and the universe. It's just that on an individual level, we are too small and short-lived to see the vast tapestry woven over millions of years.

"Stories about such relationships between people and the universe are not science fiction; they are realism. In my scif-fi, I work to imagine the direct, tangible relationship between people and the universe. In this relationship, the evolution and metamorphoses of the universe are inseparable from human life and human fate."

Writing this review is hard because this book is a whole universe, and even if we don’t really have spaceships and interstellar travels in there (or to be precise, we have them too but they are not the biggest part, or the most important part of this book) it is like every single short story is a planet that you visit for a while, and then you would go on, hopping on another one and another one (in a metaphorical way!).

There is so much between these pages, and the author manages to make all his stories really different from one another, even if all of them are, in some ways, really profound and thoughts inducing. I loved the first half of the book, I was captivated by these stories and I was fascinated by all the things you can find in them. But my interest simply turned off by itself around the midway point. And I don’t know why. Really. I was fascinated and interested and then… I was not. I don’t really know what happened and it was the strangest of things! But even if I found myself at a loss, and even if I wasn’t enjoying myself so much anymore, I appreciated the stories he told. Yes, it took me more time to read the second half because I was not so eager anymore to immerse myself in the reading, and yes the sense of wonder faded away, but all the stories of this book, both the ones of the first half and the ones of the second half, made me think. All of them were original and interesting.

I appreciated a lot the introduction because the author said a thing that I was discounting as obvious, but that it seems it was obvious to me because I live constantly immersed in a fantasy world (and between fantasy and sci-fi some borders are quite fleeting) and fantasy and sci-fi are quite global as literary genres, not in the meaning that they are read everywhere around the globe, but meaning that they are not quite settled in a single place, culture or tradition.
Yes, the authors put their culture and tradition and view of the world and etcetera in their work, because their identity affects their work, and their nationality is a big part of their identity, obviously, but the story they narrated, the world they create and the characters they put in action aren’t firmly linked to a real nationality. And this is one of the best things about sci-fi and fantasy, at least for me. I swear that this concept that I tangled and muddled in here, Liu Cixin explains in the introduction in a clearer way. Much much clearer!

Another peculiar thing about this book is that it is a sci-fi collection, but the sci-fi element is, for the majority of the stories, quite subtle. Yes, we have wonders, and aliens and planets and science, but it has a subdued quality to it all. And it is true that we have some stories in which the sci-fi is pervasive (we get dinosaurs in space, and yep, you read that right! For example, and alien artists too) but they are just a part of the book and not the whole. The first story, The Village Teacher, is the perfect example of what I am saying here.
I really appreciated this story, and even if it starts out plain enough it kept me wondering and it really surprised me. On one hand, we have a sad and really human story about a man who loves his work, he is dedicated and even if he is quite alone in his efforts, he won’t be moved. He is a communal teacher for a really poor village. The people in this village are ignorant and the village suffers from it. But this is nothing new, sadly. And the teacher tries his best with the boys that the families send him. He has passion and love for them and for culture and knowledge. I was quite intrigued by it because by example this poor character made you want to be a better person.
And it really shows us the importance of culture and knowledge. And of the importance to be able to not only think about the present moment. But all this was not sci-fi at all. And so I kept wondering why this story was in this collection, until… Until the twist. And it was unexpected! And just so perfect! And this was not the only story of this kind.

Sure, all the stories in there are quite different from each other, so you won’t meet this structure again, but we get a lot of stories in there in which the sci-fi element is not so evident in the beginning. But let’s continue! I have another really interesting thing to note. And it is the importance of the art in there.
We have some stories in which science and art go side by side. We have a musician from the space, for example. And the way in which the music is described in there was so interesting. I loved this concept, and it made me think of Asimov who, in Foundation and Empire, introduce a completely different kind of music. It is not that these two are really similar, but both of them try to create a new sensorial experience, and the pair of art and science is a brilliant one, at least for me.
And this is not the only new kind of art representation that the author gifts us with. We have poetry and sculptures too.

And every story is there to tell us something different. It can take us outside the anthropocentrism, for example, or it can make us think about the uniqueness of the artistic experience. But those are just a couple of thoughts, and the author gives us so much food for our thoughts. It was pretty amazing. I think that this was the best thing about this book. The fact that the author gives us so much to munch about. All the stories are different, you can feel that they are all from the same author but it is subtle because you have the impression that this all can have been written by different hands. And every single of them is unique in its own ways. It is not an easy and lighthearted book, and it is not a really fast one either. But it is a book that would stay with you, at least for a time.

To Hold Up the Sky
Collection of science fiction short stories

I received a copy of this eBook courtesy of the publisher, and I was really excited to read it. I have read the first book in this author’s trilogy previously, and have been meaning to read more of his work, so this is the perfect interlude.


“To Hold Up the Sky” by Cixin Liu and translated by multiple translators is a collection of science fiction stories set primarily in China. There are 11 stories in the collection set in the past, present, future, on earth and in the furthermost reaches of outer space.

Liu is a very creative writer who is contributing significantly to the genre of hard science fiction. Using quite a classic science fiction style, he explores fascinating ideas about maths, science and humanity through a Chinese lens. Science fiction is a genre dominated by Western-, and particularly American-, centric ideas and reading stories about alien encounters, time travel and the future of humanity from a non-Western perspective is unbelievably refreshing. Although all the stories contained in this collection are vastly different in subject-matter, I felt that they were all connected by the theme of trying to reconcile the macro with the micro. Liu also explores a number of real-world issues in his books such as industrialism, government surveillance and control, poverty, war and environmental issues. He writes confidently and creatively about physics and mathematical concepts, assisted significantly by his background in computer engineering.

I really enjoyed the first story The Village Teacher which was about the different a small piece of information and fortuitous timing can make to the survival of an entire race. I also enjoyed The Time Migration, a new take on the idea of remaining in stasis to re-emerge in a new era, and The Thinker which was as much about platonic love as it was about finding a pattern in the stars. However, I think Contraction was the one that really stuck with me in a brilliant yet disturbing way.

Although I enjoyed a lot of the stories, there were some that felt a little slower than others. Even though it had some interesting concepts around humans being raised as farm animals for an alien race, Cloud of Poems didn’t really capture me overall. Full-Spectrum Barrage Jamming was very heavy on military tactics, something that I find a bit hard in sci-fi, and even though it had some fascinating ideas about the impact of predicting the future on society, Mirror took a really long time to get there.

A thought-provoking collection that is a must for sci-fi fans.

https://openlettersreview.com/posts/to-hold-up-the-sky-by-cixin-liu

Cixin Liu has been a key figure in raising awareness of Chinese science fiction in the Western world ever since the publication and translation into English of his Hugo Award winning The Three-Body Problem, the first in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy.

The short story is a long-standing tradition in genre fiction. Many readers cut their teeth on science fiction and fantasy magazines that are decades old and still run today. Other readers enjoy reading short story collections, such as Gardner Dozois’ The Year's Best Science Fiction. Liu continues that tradition with his first translated short work in To Hold Up the Sky, a collection of eleven stories.

This collection’s brief introduction, from Liu himself, gives the reader an overall sense of where Liu will take them, with one primary goal being “to try hard to imagine and describe the relationship between the Great and the Small” – “The Small” referring to humanity’s smallness within “The Great” universe. To some, Liu’s concepts may seem wistful, but there is a sense of wonderment even within his introduction. To put it more simply, Liu’s stories read like parables, instructing the reader that tiny, seemingly unimportant actions can have a greater impact on the world than they might think, and despite the short time human beings have on Earth, the universe will continue on.

Fans of Liu’s epic, sprawling trilogy should fear not, for despite their length, there is conceptual weight behind these stories and their themes. In one standout, “Contraction,” (1985, the oldest story here) Liu details politicians and scientists waiting to witness the universe contract, a unique take on the idea of time moving backward:

The starlight in the universe changes from a troublesome red to an empty white…

… time reaches a strange point …

… starlight changes from white to a beautiful, tranquil blue. The blueshift has begun. The contraction has begun.

…

…

.nugeb sah noitcartnoc ehT .nugeb sah tfihseulb ehT .eulb liuqnart, lufituaeb a ot etihw morf segnahc thgilrats …

Other stories run the gamut with their peculiarity - there is a technology war between America and Russia, time travel by way of hibernation, and Earth conquering dinosaurs who have an impassioned opinion on poetry. Enticingly, only one of the eleven tales has previously been available to Western readers (Sea of Dreams via Asimov's Science Fiction), about an alien being disrupting an ice art exhibit to attempt to make its own art by commandeering Earth’s oceans as its medium, and is another standout. While the mileage may vary in terms of quality, there is enough strong storytelling here to make To Hold Up the Sky worth any science fiction fan’s time. A second collection of translated fiction would be a welcome entry into the Liu bibliography.

—Michael Feeney is a book reviewer and pop culture junkie from the Philadelphia area. He is an avid reader of fantasy and science fiction.

Interesting and thought provoking collection of short stories from acclaimed SFF writer. It’s a good anthology but like almost all anthologies there were a few stories that fell flat. Overall it was more than worth the price of admission though.

I wanted to read The Three-Body Problem. But, the waiting list for the book at the library was MONTHS long. I still haven't gotten access yet! With my book buying budget pretty well dead in the water due to 2020 and it's continuing calamities, I'm still waiting in line for a digital library copy. Luckily, this collection of short stories popped up for review. I jumped on it immediately!

I read through this collection of eleven short stories slowly, and then read them all again. Wow! Liu's writing combines Chinese culture and hard hitting science fiction. His work is not an easy read -- this is hard science fiction -- but these stories are wonderful! I still want to read one of his novels though. After finishing this story collection, I think I will dedicate a portion of my meager book buying budget to buy a copy of The Three-Body Problem.

This collection was not a quick read for me. I enjoy savoring short story collections. I read carefully, especially when it's science fiction. Oftentimes, I end up researching actual technology or science topics after reading a really good sci-fi short story. This collection was a deep read for me. I ended up doing side reading on all sorts of tech and Chinese culture, politics and history. Very interesting!

This is my first delve into Cixin Liu's writing. I want to read more! Excellent science fiction!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Tor Books. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

A wonderful collection of short stories by the science fiction genius that is Liu Cixin! He expertly blends literature and poetry with technological advancements and a scope that covers the entire universe and a huge span of time. Every time I read his books I’m left in awe of his creativeness, the insane and brilliantly imagined scenarios, and the way he brings them to life. Very thought-provoking and translated beautifully. Highly recommend this collection if you’re already a fan!

This is my first time reading Liu's works and it won't be my last! Every short story in this collection was thought-provoking with interesting, new concepts. As a Chinese person myself, it was lovely to see how he had incorporated the Chinese culture with sci-fi elements. It made the stories so much more intimate and personal. I loved the central themes of humanity and culture throughout every story. So many philosophical questions were raised and it left a long-lasting impression on me.

My favorite stores were:
- Mirror
- Contraction
- Cloud of Poems
- The Thinker

Overall, I highly recommend this to every fan of sci-fi or if you're interested in reading mind-bending sci-fi concepts with philosophical musings.

4.5 stars

Before To Hold Up the Sky, I had never read Cixin Liu. I wanted to read The Three-Body Problem, but I was so afraid of misunderstanding it that I didn't dare. Then I received this ARC from NetGalley, so I decided to finally dive in.

These stories are intelligent and push the reader to think and to challenge his ordinary thoughts and beliefs. Here, they will encounter alien life, spaceships, existential questions, and so on. All the stories aren't coming from the same SF subgenres: I'm not an expert, but some of them are "harder" than others which seem "softer". Most of them take place in the future, but some picture the present, or, at least, start in the present!
The subjects are varied but they all focus on reflection, on questioning the world, our perception. It was surprising, even astonishing sometimes. I was on the verge of laughing sometimes, because it was so unbelievable.
These stories are also quite striking and leave the reader to ponder after they read them.
As for the writing-style, and considering it is a translation, I have nothing special to say: not particularly good, but not bad either.

So much as I loved these stories and was surprised by them, it was sometimes hard to follow for me due to the vocabulary used or the scientific precisions. I'm not sure I 100% understood everything, but I still enjoyed this collection.

I'll try to talk about each of the stories now:

"The Village Teacher"
A story that particularly moved me because it focuses on a teacher who tries, before he dies, to pass knowledge to his young pupils. The reader understands that the village doesn't value what the teacher brings, but that he persists through hardship.
In the beginning, I didn't understand why this story was in this collection because the first part has nothing to do with SF; I understood a few pages later.
Strangely, and in a small amount of pages, I got attached to the characters and wanted them to succeed!
When I finished this story - I have to precise I am a teacher myself -, I felt proud to do my job. It was heartwarming to read, and, at the same time, a bit sad, because the teacher is an outcast in the village.

"The Time Migration"
One of my favorite stories in this collection!
People decide to migrate in time because there is not enough ressources for everyone on Earth during their lifetime.
It was interesting to see Earth changing hundreds of years after the immigrants left. It was a bit frustrating because we do not have the details and we don't understand how they got here, but it was interesting to be in an immigrant's skin and to see Earth through their eyes, without any other explanation.
The ending was both sad and beautiful - but I feel like it might be one of the author's specialties!

"2018-04-01"
Here, we follow a man who has a difficult choice to make: he can choose the woman he loves or something everyone dreams about.
This story, like "The Time Migration", is more focused on the future and mostly on new technologies. The reader gets a glimpse of what the human future could be. It is both fascinating and frightening.

"Fire in the Earth"
This is one of the stories I was less interested in, but it's still stuck in my mind for some reason. It deals with mines, a subject I know practically nothing about.
It was immersive because it was long, and it was long because there were explanations about the change the main character wants to make. I'm sure I didn't understand everything, but it was still striking and vivid to read. I was there, with the characters.
The ending stroke me, I wasn't expecting this at all!

"Contraction"
One of my favorites: a scientist greets a politician who will witness the contraction of the universe after its long expansion.
I didn't expect the revelation at all, just like the other characters! I really loved the main character, who seems to be a mad man among his peers. I can't say too much because this story is really short compared with the others, but it was... shaking I'd say, because it contradicts our perception!

"Mirror"
One of the most disturbing stories of the whole collection.
A man is arrested, the reader doesn't know why. Another seems to know too much, it's not humanly possible. It worries the Senior Official. How can this man know unknowable things?
This story is focused on knowledge, surveillance and "evil".
It was striking because it questioned what "evil" is, if everything can be known, if it is wise if it is possible. I really loved this one, even if it disturbed me.
It made me think of Black Mirror, even more with the title and ... something in the story which has "mirror" in its name!

"Ode to Joy"
During my reading of this one, I was like: "but... am I reading?" It was strange, but still fascinating and giving food for thought.
It was also terrifying in a way, mostly the beginning of the story!
Once more, original and thought-provoking: I wasn't expecting this and it opened up new horizons! Last thing: it deals with music, as you might have guessed with the title of the story!
(I won't say more and let you discover it!)

"Full-Spectrum Barrage Jamming"
This one is quite like "Fire in the Earth" for me: I wasn't interested in the subject and didn't think I would like it - well, I was gripped, but still wasn't a huge fan.
It starts on a battlefield and ends in space. It deals with war, with Russia and NATO, with scientific things I didn't entirely understood, even if I got what it did to end armies win the war.
I loved the relationship father/son the reader gets to discover; I didn't like the political side of it - which is really rare!

"Sea of Dreams"
Same as "Ode to Joy": what am I actually reading? Quite strange, and still interesting because this story focuses on art, what it means, what it is worth. It also pushes the reader to think about art in a way you might not think about: to live for art is beautiful, but does it justify what happens here?

"Cloud of Poems"
This story also focuses on art, but, this time, on poetry and human civilisation. It was, once more, strange to discover that human beings are here lesser creatures. I thought about how we treat animals in our societies: it clearly echoes the situation in the story. I also thought about how we consider ourselves as super-evolved compared to other species we know: the author knocks humans off their pedestal, while still recognizing the worth of their civilisation.

"The Thinker"
To end this collection, this story is located on Earth, with humans discovering something strange in the twinkling of stars.
I liked the relationship between the characters and the mention of fate: it was a good way to show how life is, indeed, short and bitter, but also beautiful and surprising. Kind of a sweet story to leave the collection.

TW: suicide, gore, violence.

So, I'm glad I read Cixin Liu; I think I'll read his trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Past one day!

Much like any collection of short stories, some held me fast while others didn't pull my attention in the same manner. Liu is a solid writer, and the approach of having different translators showcased on a minor level what differences as subtle as that can do across stories. I feel as though I was expecting a little different in this book tonally than what was delivered given the mental image the cover paired with the description invokes. That both is and isn't a fault of the book.

I enjoyed some of the stories in this collection, but most felt like a chore. I struggled to finish this book, and I'm really sad, cause I'm a huge fan of the Remembrance of Earth's Past series. Part of this could be because I rarely enjoy short story collections (their themes tend to be too varied and the stories too different to really resonate with me). I hoped I'd still like them, cause this is Liu Cixin. But that didn't work out. I'm still giving it 3 stars though, because some of the stories are really good - I don't know, it's always so hard to evaluate story collections. They're all very different.

The author talks about connecting the big and the small in the preface - and indeed the stories do. The smallest of the people can save an entire civilization, and the smallest person can be compared to the biggest cosmic entity. Liu Cixin has always known how to contrast the tiny and the huge, how to make seingly insignificant things appear looming and world-changing. I guess that is the message he wants to put across with his writing, and these stories certainly carry this vibe well.

More About Each Story Individually

The Village Teacher was a touching, although very wistful and sad. However, I found deep meaning in it. It's a story of unrecognized huge deeds, or heroes who were forgotten before anyone even knew they were heroes. It is also a song of praise for the profession of teachers. This story will stay with me for a long time.

The Time Migration is a short philosophical musing on what we, as humans, leave behind as a heritage and the meaning of who we are. It's also a very classical scifi time travel story which lacked a little bit of substance for me.

2018-04-01 was similar, a super short story meant to evoke the idea of making a big choice that will decide the rest of your whole life and what you lose and gain because of it, but it failed to really hook me and was over before it really started it seemed. By the end of the book, I already barely remember what it was about.

Fire in the Earth contrasts human hubris and the power of the elements, and what cost must be paid for thinking of the human will as too grand, but also about the cost of progress and improvement. This story felt really powerful and tragic. The descriptions of the elements were both masterfully written, as well as masterfully translated. I was at the edge of my seat. (Also, after reading this one you'll Google Chinese ground fires of coal mines. There's one been burning since 1644 or something. It's bigger than you or me or anything, basically. That fire will burn long after me and you are gone. It's WILD. And I never knew this even existed, before I read this story.) This story will also stay with me a while.

Contraction is quite interesting and it has a nice twist, if you are unfamiliar with some bigger physics theories about the expansion and contraction of the universe. I, unfortunately, knew where it was going so it didn't really catch me unawares. However, it was a nice idea.

Mirror was longer and I immediately liked it. The characters were developed more than in the other stories, and the story was more involved. It's about what would happen to society if we knew what everyone was up to, all the time. The answer? Big changes, and definitely not good. This one reminded me of Liu Cixin's style, as I know it, the most - which is to say, it felt the most like the Three Body Problem books.

Ode to Joy was a brilliant revisiting of the idea of Sophon, the intelligent and quite omnipotent quantum particle from Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past (Three Body Problem etc.) series, except in this one, it's not the same Sophon and has nothing to do with Trisolaris, so it poses no danger to humanity. Instead, it has come to play a magical concert to Earthlings as an audience. The concert becomes meaningful not only musically, but historically. I found this story delightful and full of emotional significance, and I'm sure I'll remember it for a while as well.

Full-Spectrum Barrage Jamming - I barely got through this one. First of all, it's about war and it's fairly bloody - I have no interest in either of these two things. Second of all, the war is between Russia and NATO, and seeing as how my country is situated in between of what would be the frontline and it would get absolutely pulverized in something like that, I don't even want to think about it. Also, it was written by a Chinese man, so guess who wins? I mostly skipped through this one and wasn't comfortable reading it.

Sea of Dreams was a very depressing story and I didn't like it much because it was just too much of a downer. But I have to admit, it did carry a deep meaning - about how art survives above all. It doesn't matter if you lose everything and it's so hard to survive - art can still live even in the harshest environment - you can't tie down the human soul.

Cloud of Poems was quite a lovely story, about art and technology and what's superior, and its placement straight after Sea of Dreams makes sense too. In a world where humans are now livestock to dinosaurs, the meaning of ancient Chinese poetry changes the destiny of humanity.

The Thinker was quite magnificent, and a really lovely story to end the book on. It is made up of two elements - one is a very Asian love story - reminded me of the Japanese Tanabata, lovers in the sky who meet once a year during this festival. I am more familiar with Japanese culture which is why this came to mind, but I'm sure something like that exist in the Chinese mythology as well. The reason I'm calling it very Asian was because I've read Liu Cixin himself talk about this Chinese romanticism regarding one of his Remembrance of Earth's Past character story lines, which is why when reading this I thought he's doing the same here. So this story was kind of like that - a neuroscientist and an astronomer meet by accident, and then keep meeting with many years apart, secretly in love but not acting on it - it's very symbolic and very romantic, in the Chinese manner. It was beautiful. The other part of the storyline was that there's a cosmic consciousness for which a whole human lifetime is less than a single heartbeat long. It was a brilliant contrast of the big and small, and the marriage of romance plus science and intellect. If every story in the book was like this one, I would have given it 5 stars.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

Enjoyed this book as usual with this author. If you enjoyed Three Body Problem, the you will be engrossed in these shorter stories!

This was my introduction into Cixin Liu's writing, and it was perfect. I liked all of the eleven stories in this collection, but I'm especially fond of the last three stories: Sea of Dreams, Cloud of Poems, The Thinker.

The way hard Sci-Fi meets Chinese Culture in these stories is excellent. Down-to-Earth characters meeting mind-bending Sci-Fi.

Guess it's high time I read the Three Body Problem.