I really enjoy Anthologies, I often say that this is like a box of chocolate, some you really love, others you really like, others you just eat and others you don’t really care for, but you know someone that will enjoy all the same. And this collection wasn't the exception, I just wish I had read it sooner, I read it recently and it was a pleasant read.

All the stories have to do with space in a way or the other, and I recommend for everyone who likes short stories and are willing to dive in this science fiction book.

Thank you NetGalley and Flame Tree Press, for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

3.5

As with most anthologies, entries are hit or miss but I do appreciate the intent behind this collection to bring attention to lesser known authors, both Chinese and otherwise. The only author I had read from before was Bao Shu.

Unfortunately a lot of these were misses for me. Several of the stories felt too long/drawn out so while I might have liked the intent or idea st the center of the story I found myself not caring because of the pacing, and others had too much emphasis on hard science fiction for me. I do wonder how much of that had to do with the translation choices for the Chinese stories.

Standouts for me were On the Ship by Leah Cypess, and Bao Shu’s Doomsday Tour.

I have just finished reading this wonderful anthology of stories by Chinese and English writers. All of them are about space in some way, but thrown in are VR, aliens, mind transfers, potential wars, crew conflict, amnesia, disability, children, androids replacing dead people, aloneness, colonising new planets, and scary unknown things on Mars.

There were some really delightful stories in here. My favourites:
- Alex Shvartsman’s The Race for Arcadia has a fascinating question at its centre: Do you have to be embodied to travel in space?
- On The Ship by Leah Cypess and Her Glimmering Facade by Eleanor Wood have similar ideas with VR, but the latter is deeply sad (won’t spoil it for you);
- Seeds of Mercury by Wang Jinkang just grazed my warning button for its representation of disability, but is also immensely imaginative and amazing;
- Russell James’s The Emissary is a quick Independence Day-type story;
- Doomsday Tour by Bao Shu, an amusing (depending on your perspective) tale about Doomsday on December 21, 2012;
- A Minuet of Corpses by Amdi Silvestri is incredibly spooky, and unexpected. That one’s going to stay with me.

I didn’t like every single story, and the ones I didn’t like, I really didn’t like. However, all of the stories had great worldbuilding and were interesting, and my favourites were great. So, although the anthology is a little uneven, it is an excellent and recommended read.

Thank you to Flame Tree Press and to NetGalley for giving me access.

Like in any other short story collection this one was a mixed bag. Some of the stories were amazing, while others were less so. However I really liked a different world view and ideas these stories give us, as is usually the case with non-Anglocentric stories. I am looking forward to more similar collections.

As you'd expect from the title all of these stories involve being in space, or having space come to them. Seven were written in English and six were translated from Chinese by Alex Woodend. Five of the English-language stories are reprints and two are new. The six Chinese-language stories appear here translated for the first time, as far as I can tell anyway.

Alex Shvartsman - The Race for Arcadia (2015)
This is a mildly amusing and severely critical story of a deeply embarrassed Russian government that is desperate to prove that they still matter. I don't believe it to be satire because this story seems entirely plausible within the context presented. The protagonist, whose death is imminent from a terminal illness, is blatantly told that he's being sent on a suicide space mission for the purpose of propaganda. If they're willing to admit that much, what aren't they admitting?
Meh

Chin Zijun - Shine (2016)
Qi Fengyang is in despair of never being able to achieve his dream when the extremely wealthy Huo Changao offers to fulfill it for him. All he has to do is accept what may a suicide mission to rescue Sun Shi'ning from a failed Europa expedition. She's the former's ex-lover and the latter's wife. The rescue will take the cooperation of the world and much science, though that's nothing compared to their passion and determination. However, neither one is being honest about their motives, so what's this really all about?
This reminded me superficially of a mix between 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Martian, the former of which is explicitly referenced in the text, and the latter if it was told from an Earth-side perspective. I continue be amazed how often Elon Musk is included in such stories, as he's mentioned here in passing as Alan Musk.
Meh

Leah Cypess - On The Ship (2017)
This is the sixth story by Cypess that I've read and I've enjoyed them all. I believe this is the first science fiction story I've read by her. Generation ships are a setting I tend to like and this one more so than usual because it reminded me of Philip K. Dick. That's both all I want to say about it and all I think needs to be said.
Enjoyable

Wang Jinkang - Seeds of Mercury (2002)
What an astounding story. It started out enjoyably and by the end it became one of the best translated works of short fiction I've read and possibly one of the better ones I've ever read.
Chen Yizhe has a blessed life of comfort, wealth, and familial bliss. One day He Jun, a lawyer, informs him that his aunt Sha Wu has died and she wants him to carry on her legacy. She's created a new life that can only prosper on Mercury, hence the title, which would be the seeds of a new civilization. The parts of the story that take place in that civilization are an utterly delightful exploration of Mercurian society, science, and religion.
Highly Enjoyable

Eleanor R. Wood - Her Glimmering Façade (2016)
This is another type of story that I really like. There's just something about someone waking up alone in a mysterious location with no idea of their situation that appeals to me. That allows me to entirely overlook that it's entirely conceptual and nothing else. Saying what the concept is would spoil the story.
Enjoyable

Han Song - Answerless Journey (1995)
Creature wakes up in a location with no memories and meets Same Kind, who has the same condition. It's an allegorical existential comedy horror, but I'd only be guessing about what. The title is apt, too much so really. This is the seventh story I've read by Han Song, though it's only the second that I haven't assigned my worst rating to. He writes in a way that I personally strongly dislike.
Meh

Ronald D. Ferguson - Cylinders (2017)
Jerry is a robot guardian for Rachael, a teenage girl, and is modeled on her deceased father. They live in a cylindrical space station that is developing a new technology that will revolutionize humanity and exploration. Saboteurs on board would see it all stopped. Mostly the story is Jerry watching Rachael's day to day life as his upgrades have him becoming more and more similar to her father.
Enjoyable

He Xi - Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet (2010)
Humanity desires to settle many planets to avoid extinction, but many of them have conditions unsuitable for standard humans. Many different pioneer species were designed to settle these planets. They only have provisional status as humans. A team has been sent to judge whether the settlers of a certain planet qualify as human or not.
Ok

Allen Stroud - The First (2023)
Two astronauts arrive on Mars believing that no humans had come before them, but they were wrong. Those before them were the earliest humans, though they were not The First to be on Mars.
Meh

Zhao Haihong - The Darkness of Mirror Planet (2003)
This seems to be a wholly allegorical story that I think I understood, but didn't like at all for what it was saying or how it was said. Mirror, the protagonist, wants to join the mission to Planet Dark, which requires leaving her husband Lack and passing a psychological test.
Blah

Amdi Silvestri - A Minuet of Corpses (2018)
This was meant to be a creepy horror story, but it didn't do anything at all for me. A spaceship comes across what me be a rouge planetary graveyard or something more sinister and spooky stuff happens. Not my kind of horror at all.
Blah

Bao Shu - Doomsday Tour (2013)
A self-fulfilling 2012 end of the world story. Alien disaster tourists want to make sure their money was well spent. A galactic travel agency want to ensure their profits continue unimpeded. Corruption is an universal ideal.
Ok

Russell James - The Emissary (2023)
Shane had always wanted to be an astronaut. After the Apollo missions ended in 1972 he thought that chance had passed. In 1976, he's kidnapped by the CIA at the behest of NASA. They tell him that he's their last chance and everything counts on him. The secret truth of Apollo 17 is revealed.
Meh

I received this book from Flame Tree Press through NetGalley.

I enjoy reading scifi anthologies and I was really glad to read something like this! It was nice to read stuff from new writers that we wouldn't have gotten word of otherwise. I really hope there will be more cultural joint projects of this nature in the future - Filipino scifi, anyone? 🤭

There are plenty stories to enjoy in this collection, though most lean toward hard scifi and scifi horror. The hard scifi ones were fascinating, but I felt like I wasn't able to fully appreciate them simply because I'm not well versed in the more technical, science parts of scifi. But, well, the theme is space exploration and it's kind of like that, yeah? Different stories, different worlds, different takes on the theme. It's a vast universe and there should be something for you to enjoy!

A truly thrilling, engaging, and diverse set of short stores in the science fiction genre. The first half were particularly memorable and mind-expanding. I couldn't put it down. But about halfway the pace started to lag. I can't quite put my finger on it. There were some rather experimental stories that seemed to meander or lean too much on shock value or obscurity. (Trying to avoid spoilers.) I was also surprised at the lack of diversity beyond the writers' backgrounds ... sex and gender ... sexuality ... race and ethnicity ... even class, a staple of the social climate in science fiction when all else is left to the wayside, yet barely touched upon here. These are more like visions and nightmares of future space-faring, focused more on the more golden age question of "what could happen if ...?" I also wasn't sure why the mix of Chinese and English writers -- not complaining, just not understanding the connection and selection. Finally, the galley copy was truly a challenge to read, with sudden headers in the middle of the text, partly a chunk of the narrative and partly a warning not to share or resell ... I hope that the publisher fixes the formatting for future offerings. Altogether, well worth reading, even if it's a bit all over the place ... and not just in terms of traversing time and the universe.

This short story collection of Chinese and English authors was a first for me. I found it a mixed bag, a bit disjointed as I'm not accustomed to translated stories, maybe as it often happens, the author's feelings and ideas were lost in translation and it was a bit flat for me.

Of all the stories there was one which I really enjoyed “The Race for Arcadia” about a race between the Russians, Americans and Indians to send a manned mission to a planet first explored by a Chinese drone. The lightest ship will have the advantage, Nikolai, a mathematician diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour piloting the “Yuri Gargarin” plans to be first but all is not as it appears. It may be far-fetched but I believe it would be the best way to visit far-flung worlds which would take hundreds if not thousands of years.

Overall not a bad collection but sadly not for me as I'm a huge Sci-Fi fan. I gave it a 3.5 rounded to 4 stars.

It’s hard to evaluate anthologies - how do you give a sum of parts that may be so unlike each other? And harder still when there doesn’t appear to be a cohesive theme linking the stories. I have really enjoyed what I have read of Chinese scifi — Sinopticon was a great collection, and a recent TOR collection of Asian queer SFF voices was lovely. That is to say, I can imagine that some people came here with similar reasons and were similarly bewildered by the logic behind interlacing them with English-language authors. Or vice versa! The stories are not in dialogue, they are just - there? If you want to find some new names for yourself, by all means, this works for that. And of course evaluating the merits of each individual story is fun for fans of the genre. YMMV! I definitely made a few discoveries, but I didn’t get any clarity behind the selection choices at all.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of the book.

This Review will be published on Wordpress on the 5th of April. https://restingandreviewing.wordpress.com/2023/04/05/book-review-adventures-in-space-short-stories-by-chinese-and-english-science-fiction-writers-flame-tree-press/

I received a reviewer’s edition of Flame Tree Press's book, "Adventures in Space (Short stories by Chinese and English Science Fiction writers)" from Netgalley and Flame Tree Press. I received the Ebook version and any references I make will be 'locations' instead of pages; as I read this on the kindle app. Thank you again to Flame Tree Press for allowing me to read and review one of your latest books!
Before we get into the book, I want to discuss its presentation. The forewords normally present before a story, are summarised in "biographies" at the back of the book. Without being able to flip through the pages, and for people who do not read forewords (they do exist), they might miss these biographies and I think it is a shame. I like to know about the writers who have crafted these tales. I would think it would have been a better choice to include them before the story, as from my perspective, this is more ergonomic.
This is an important part of my review if you are considering purchasing the ebook. Firstly I would like to say, ebooks are great! They can hold from 3000 - 15000 books (Goodreader, 2022). That's a lot of books. If you're travelling and are an avid reader, an ereader will be lighter than books to travel with. I received the ebook version of this book from netgalley, and I have some issues with the version.
Short stories are brilliant. I have devoured lots of anthologies and collections of short stories, I just can't get enough. But one thing I like about short stories is: knowing how long they are before going in. I've read short stories that are a paragraph, a page and over a quarter of a book. They were all brilliant, but in this modern age, we find ourselves juggling time. Due to this it is nice to be able to plan, and if a short story is a page, I know I can read it quickly. This way I know I can finish the story without putting it down. With this ebook version there was no indication of length, other than when it ended.
This links with story length, as I could not manually check the story length, as there was no content's page. Other ebooks do have contents pages, therefore I would be able to see how long the story is and they have sections and links in those contents pages. Unfortunately, for my reading this annoyed me, as short stories require thought and I like to go back and return to some stories and think about them. From an ergonomic point of view this became more difficult, for an otherwise standard approach to ebooks.
This would not be a problem with the paperback version, however I can only review the one I was given.
I love Science Fiction, but often what I read is British or American. There are so many wonderful writers, from both countries and some of my favourite books and stories come from them. But, it is a shame my library is limited to just America and Britain. We are all missing out. We need more translated Science Fiction! It's something I am very passionate about. There are 193 countries in this world (Britannica, n,d) and as a Science Fiction reader, I would like to see more of them in print. I occasionally get my hands on a translated copy, I remember a French anthology which stuck with me, but I cannot remember the name, a story involved a soap factory on another planet. It was interesting and unique (If anybody knows the story, please do get in touch). The point is, international science fiction is important. It is good to hear from other voices around the world, see from different perspectives and encourage other points of view. I have previously read the Sinopticon (Xueting, 2021) which had some fantastic stories in it. So I was really looking forward to reading this book. Something to know before going in, there are stories from both English speaking and Chinese speaking writers - so this is not a completely Chinese Science Fiction Anthology. But thank you to all the writers, the editor and Flame Tree Press for publishing more translated Science Fiction! We need more of it and it is good to know some publishers understand and are acting!
Previous reviews have called this collection "mediocre" (Goodreads, n,d), but I do not think that word is good enough for these stories. These writers put in a supreme amount of effort with their ideas, however, cutting through every story in the book, and reviewing my favourite stories, nothing stood out, in fact I was underwhelmed. My mind was not blown. I was not surprised. I was not invested in the characters or world. Which was a shame. I can only compare my experience with another Chinese translation, Sinopticon. Those stories did stand out to me, there was time travel, death, space, immortality - but there is the crux. This book is about Space. There are other themes involved, but they all centre around space. Keep that in mind before you buy.
The twist seemed clichéd and even though Shvartsman addressed the plot holes, I don’t like it when a writer says “Aha, you are right reader, there are holes in my story, I will address them now.” It is like having a joke explained to you, takes all the fun out of it. Personally, this story did not need the twist. It was a great concept, a terminally ill man going in space. The writing includes flashbacks, and quite a bit of exposition. But! What else would someone do alone on a ship, other than remember their life? I did enjoy the jokes, they made me laugh and also the Russian history anecdotes. But, I have studied Russian history, so it’s not hard to rope me in.
I was reminded a lot of Fallout 3 (Fallout 3, 2008). I won't say anymore, in case I spoil anything, but there were two main twists. The first was predictable, the second I thought made up for it. I understand what the writer was trying to do, but again, I would have been happy with just watching the unending disappointment and despair of people on board a spaceship. Does this say something about publishing? How so far, two writers would have been fine without twisting up their story? I don’t know, you would have to ask them and the publishers, personally, I don’t need several things jammed into a story, to make me want to read it. But maybe audiences are changing.
This seemed like "Hard Science Fiction". It was a very ambitious story, but I did feel like it went on too long. It was absolutely bizarre and was centred around religion, disability and humanity. It was an interesting idea and raised some interesting questions.
An anthology of short stories is always hit and miss. There will be some in there that blow you away, they'll be some that you'll flick through and they'll be some you don't even give a second glance. With Adventures in Space (Short stories by Chinese and English Science Fiction writers) I went in excited. I love translations of Science Fiction, they broaden your horizons, but I could not help comparing this anthology to other translations I have read, like the Sinopticon (Xueting, 2021). I think it is great what Flame Tree Press are doing and I would say, if you ever get the chance to buy the book, do it, to support international translations and Science Fiction. But, however much I wanted this collection to blow me away, it did not end up doing it. If you just want a brilliant anthology, maybe try another collection.

References:
Goodreader (2022). How many ebooks or manga can a kindle hold. Goodreader. Accessed via: https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/how-many-ebooks-or-manga-titles-can-a-kindle-hold

Britannica, (n,d). How Many Countries Are There in The World? Accessed via: https://www.britannica.com/story/how-many-countries-are-there-in-the-world

Xueting, (2021). Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction. Solaris.

Goodreads (n,d). Adventures in Space (Short stories by Chinese and English Science Fiction writers). Accessed via: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61317815-adventures-in-space

Bethesda Softworks. (2008) Fallout 3. Xbox 360. Ashley Cheng et al

I have been studying short stories recently so was keen to be offered the opportunity to read these science fiction stories as an ARC via NetGalley. Maybe I am not the biggest fan of science fiction deep down as I struggled with a lot of them. For my taste, many of the stories contained a fair amount of exposition. I know that with fantasy and science fiction writers can get away with more exposition than in other genres however I have read science fiction flash fiction that still manages to get across the idea of another world without info dumps. Having said that, my favourite story by far was 'Doomsday Tour' by Bao Shu (Translated by Alex Woodend) as I thought that this one had a great concept that was executed well.

Any Science Fiction fans in a reading drought? This book is the remedy you need! This was just what I have been missing in Science Fiction!

I used to love Science Fiction anthologies as a way to discover new authors and I became interested in Chinese Science Fiction after reading The Three Body Problem. But, lately, I have been shying away from the “Best American Science Fiction” and the “Best Science Fiction of the year” books as they seem to be trying too hard to be edgy and “woke” and include very little good, wholesome, entertaining science fiction.

This book had the type of stories that sparked my love of the genre. This book had entertaining, near future stories set in near-Earth orbit, on Mars, on the moons of Jupiter, and on spaceships bound for places unknown. Some moments that were memorable to me (without giving too much away) were the “haunted” space ship, the matrix type virtual reality situation, the spooky “asteroid” field, zombies(?) on Mars, the mirror-world alternate universe, and the alien in trouble—reminiscent of ET.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and am eager to explore more work by the authors featured here.

This is a 3.5 star read for me. I always round half stars down.

This anthology was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I found some stories more enjoyable than others. On the Ship, Cylinders, The Darkness of Mirror Planet, and The Emissary were my favorites, though not the only great stories in this collection. I was especially moved by Cylinders and The Emissary; they were heartfelt stories full of love for the universe and the beings that reside in it. I tend to gravitate toward uplifting stories, so perhaps other readers will have different favorites.
Overall, I found the stories to be well researched; they will appeal to fans of The Martian and other hard sci-fi. There’s also a lot to love here if you’re a fan of sci-fi horror. I appreciated the variety of stories included. Each one added something unique while still aligning with the central theme of the anthology. I found that a lot of the stories I didn’t enjoy as much were those with writing I couldn’t easily connect to. I personally felt like some of the same prose choices that bothered me were present in all the translated stories. It’s a shame that in the translated stories, I didn’t get a sense of the author’s individual style and voice as a writer. I think I would have enjoyed this anthology more overall if I did. Nevertheless, I’m glad I encountered so many authors I hadn’t read before, and I think I’ll seek out more from some of them now that I’ve read this anthology.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a curious - and slightly unsatisfying - collection of short stories. There's no cohesive theme; some are about space travel, some alien invasion, some about madness on Mars, some about interstellar religions. You bounce around between themes without much chance to reflect on how different authors tackle the same subject.

The stories alternate between Chinese authors and English-speaking authors. Again, it feels a little disjointed. Will general audiences not read Chinese sci-fi unless it is intermingled with western tales? It feels a bit like hiding vegetables in mashed potatoes. And it isn't like the English stories deal with Chinese themes or characters - so it feel like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

For all that, the stories are pretty good. There are some amazingly original ideas tucked away in there. Visions of Doomsday and Dæmons, flights into the unknown, and the bureaucracy of inter-planetary relations.

If you're happy with a mish-mash of themes and styles, this is a fine assortment of tales.

Quite a mixed collection in terms of readability, but I think there's something in here for most sci-fi fans. There were one or two stories in here that I thought were very thematically resonant, but quite a few fell flat for me.

This is a collection of 13 solid science fiction stories with a common theme of space exploration. The authors are a mix of Chinese and Western authors. There are wormholes, skip points for accelerating a ship outside the solar system, nanotechnology, cryogenic suspension, familiar ideas in the sci-fi realm. For me there were two standout stories, the first “The Race for Arcadia” by Alex Shvartsman about a race between the Russians, Americans and Indians to send a manned mission to a planet first explored by a Chinese drone called Arcadia. The lightest ship will have the advantage, Nikolai, a mathematician who has been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor piloting the “Yuri Gargarin” plans to be first but all is not as it appears. The other story that stood out for me was “The Seeds of Mercury” by Wang Jinkang, which is about a Chinese scientist’s work to establish and evolve a non-carbon based life form on the planet Mercury, where carbon-based life forms would be frazzled. Anyone interested in the possibilities of travel to other planets would be entertained by this collection.

A solid collection of stories, with a nice variety of approaches, scifi genres, and talent. This is a something-for-everyone collection.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

Adventures in Space sounds like a Groff Conklin title from the Golden Age of SF but it is in fact a modern multi-author anthology from Flaming Tree Press, very much in the spirit of the current golden age of pluralistic and multi-cultural speculative fiction. In this case, half the stories are translated Chinese SF and half English language. The stories share a general space theme, as the title suggests and range from Near-horror like Alan Stroud’s “The First” to more metaphorical, like “The Darkness of the Mirror Planet” by Zhao Haihong..” In some ways the book is appealing as it offers something for everyone but I found no standout story. I would describe it as solid, readable, and worth a look.

Adventures in Space

I was given a copy of this book for review purposes. The book is a collection of short stories, written by English and Chinese authors. Chinese authors tend to write Hard Science Fiction, which makes for great stories. This is to date one of the best sci-fi books I have read and a must-read.