Growing up Chinese-American, I had few options when it came to reading books about myself and my culture. Most of the works I could find that featured Chinese characters were by authors without Chinese heritage, which meant you got awful, cringe-worthy scenes detailing almond eyes, lotus-bud lips, qipao slits riding over dainty hips, and nainais speaking in stereotypically broken English.
But in the past decade, mainstream publishing has inched closer towards better representation, even if we’re still not quite there. Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings proved that an epic based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms could be just as popular as Game of Thrones; JY Yang’s Tensorate Series novellas have been racking up the awards nominations this year; and the anthology A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, a collection of reimagined Asian folklore and myths that has already garnered critical acclaim, comes out this year in June.
So here are five more recently published books about East Asian culture and history, by East Asian (diaspora) authors, that I wish I’d been able to find on shelves when I was younger. I’ve tried to pick books across genres and age groups (adult and YA) so that there’s something here that might appeal to everyone. Enjoy!
Jade City by Fonda Lee
This book was just nominated for a Nebula Award so Fonda doesn’t even need my hype, but I’m going to rant about how much I loved Jade City anyways. It’s a secondary world fantasy based on Hong Kong circa the mid-20th century where jade grants superhuman martial ability. Those without jade crave it; Western powers demand it. Green Bone warriors from the rival Mountain Clan and No Peak Clan embark on adventures of gangster warfare, treachery, family drama, and all the good stuff that made up the Hong Kong action films of my childhood. For many Chinese diaspora readers, Jade City is nostalgia. Reading Jade City felt just like stepping foot in the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. I resonated so hard with the scene when prodigal daughter Kaul Shae returns to Kekon via the Janloon International Airport after years spent in the West. There’s something in the air—as Shae puts it, “Kekon had a special smell, a certain indescribable, spicy, sweaty fragrance.” It smells like coming home.
The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F.C. Yee
I have a confession. I had a huge crush on Sun Wukong the Monkey King when I was little—yes, the monkey version from that goddamn cartoon that every Chinese household in the Dallas area had the entire DVD box set of. He was just so suave, so mischievous, so confident. (Don’t judge me; everyone was totally into the fox version of Robin Hood.) So imagine my sexual confusion at F.C. Yee’s take on the Sun Wukong myth in which the monkey king is a hot transfer student named Quentin sent to guide protagonist Genie Lo through high school, college admissions, and being an ultra-powerful celestial deity. This book is also delightful for taking on the balance between battling demons and performing under Asian parent pressures to get into an Ivy League school. It’s everything I needed when I was a teenager.
An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King
I study modern China, so I was really fascinated by Maggie Shen King’s dystopia about Chinese Communist social engineering in a world where there are far too few eligible women as a result of the One Child Policy. In short: since China’s cultural preference for male heirs have resulted in about forty million unmarriageable men, women often take on two or three husbands, and the matchmaking industry has ballooned into something wildly profitable and truly terrifying. I was really impressed by the author’s grasp of the reach of Party surveillance and censorship, as well as her deft imitation of Party double-speak and twisted Orwellian logic of Communist ideals, which applies now to Xi Jinping’s China better than ever before.
Want by Cindy Pon
Cindy Pon’s (Andre Norton award nominated!!) Want takes place in a corrupt, near-future Taiwan struggling under pressing pollution problems that force people to purchase expensive suits made by the wealthy Jin Corp, or die in the disease-ridden streets. Street kid Jason Zhou sets out on a mission to infiltrate Jin Corp and expose its murderous, underhanded dealings by posing as a rich American playboy romancing Jin’s daughter. But Jin Daiyu turns out to be more than Jason bargained for—she’s whip-smart, badass, and nothing like her father. Like An Excess Male, the fast-paced and thrilling Want takes on complicated issues—climate change, air pollution lack of accessible healthcare, and government corruption—that are all too pressing in China/Taiwan today.
Rebel Seoul by Axie Oh
This is the only book on this list that I haven’t already read, but it’s on my TBR, won the New Visions Award, and looks so cool that I couldn’t not include it! Axie Oh’s debut was marketed as “Pacific Rim meets Korean action dramas,” both of which I’m deeply obsessed with, so yes. Rebel Seoul takes place in a futuristic, war-torn Neo-Seoul meant to mirror the politics of Korea under Japanese colonialism in the 1930s. Ex-gang member and pilot Lee Jaewon is recruited into a weapons development division, but quickly starts to question his loyalty. Will he stand by the regime, or with the people’s incipient rebellion? PS: The author just signed a deal for a second book in this world, so it’s a good time to get started.
R. F. Kuang is a graduate of the 2016 Odyssey Writing Workshop. She studies Chinese history at Georgetown University. The Poppy War is her debut novel.
I went over to look at Epic Crush and saw on the cover, “A demon invasion is no excuse for bad grades.”
Well, I’m sure as heck sold.
Wow Jade City sounds right up my alley! I had earlier tried Lee’s Zeroboxer and wasn’t impressed (in large part because the made up sport just didn’t make sense to me), but I am really digging the summary of Jade City.
Some other books (that have appeared often on Tor.com) are Yoon Ha Lee’s Ninefox Gambit (and followups) and JY Lee’s Tensorate pair of novellas. I enjoyed Ninefox Gambit and The Raven Stratagem far more of these, but all are diverting. Speaking of the Tensorate novellas though, the art of the covers reads Japanese to me, but the actual books have a strong Singaporean/Malay feel. That was quite a jarring failure of expectation for me personally.
Also, I wanted to give a shout out to Legend of the Galactic Heroes, although they are translated so I’m not sure they qualify for this blog post.
”A demon invasion is no excuse for bad grades” is totally something my parents would tell me.
”We don’t care if it’s the apocalypse! No saving the world until you get that math grade up!”
Oh, “An Excess Male” was fucking excellent! Also seconding Yoon Ha Lee’s books.
And there’s Ken Liu’s “Dandelion Dynasty” series, though I personally found them to be a bit of a letdown compared to his incredible short stories. Depending on how much you find character backgrounds ripped straight from historical/mythological figures charming versus tiresome YMMV though.
“She crawled between the sailor’s legs…” “Oh look, it’s Han Xi!”
(But speaking of Ken Liu, do read “All The Flavors”, because it’s wonderful.)
Oh! And how could I forget that the first volume of Jin Yong’s “Legend of the Condor Heroes” has finally been translated into English! “A Hero Born” is the book name. It’s pretty damned good, though the cover blurb saying it’s “as imaginative as Tolkien” is overselling it a bit…
Oh, and it’s more historical/mythological literature, but it is actually worth reading the book “Journey to the West”. Look for the unabridged Anthony C. Yu translation in four volumes, not the execrable Waley version.
@5 Crane the thing about Journey to the West though, is that although individual stories out of the whole can be entertaining, it is nothing close to modern novel in form so it can be tough going for many people, especially the beginning and ending. There is also a fair amount of poetic verse and that is tough for translators to deal with IMO.
@5 Crane
Thanks so much for letting me know about Jin Yong’s book. I’ve a couple comic book versions of Legend of the Condor Heroes and I’ve been waiting forever for it to be translated in book form.
Also The Epic Crush sounds fun, though I only have a small knowledge of The Monkey King.
Just one thing: Grace of Kings is not based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms – rather, it is based on the Chu-Han Contention, which is several hundred years earlier than the Three Kingdoms era.
@Prune
fair enough! that’s what you get when you write a blog post too fast and don’t double-check your work! XD
These look amazing! The question for me isn’t which I’ll read, but which I’ll read first.
I find myself wondering if there are any East Asian sff novels by non-East Asian authors that you thought were pretty good? As you say, those used to be all we had in English, so I read what I could. I liked Guy Gavriel Kay’s recent duology, and Barry Hughart’s mysteries though I’ve not revisited the Hughart books in years so I have no idea how those hold up.
@7 tdkoenig
You don’t need to know anything about the Monkey King to enjoy The Epic Crush of Genie Lo – Genie doesn’t either, so we get the backstory along with her. I got the book for my daughter, but the whole family enjoyed it.
I read Jade City recently and it is so good – really looking forward to the next book.
Dr Kuang, maybe you are not aware that Taiwan and communist China are different and separate nations. You lumped them together as some science fictional country called China/Taiwan. Enough of your Orwellian nonsense, Dr Kuang! Please face reality.
I just finished reading The Epic Crush of Genie Lo and quite enjoyed it. Genie’s pressure to perform and desire to escape through attending a “good” college felt very real to me.
One thing I wonder about is the decision to infodump/recap some of Journey to the West in the middle of the story. To me that felt like wasted pages. Surely the backstory and Quentin/Wukong’s characterisation could have been woven into the book in a more seamless way? I would have dedicated some of that space to the actual fighting instead.