Massive rerelease of David Wingrove's CHUNG KUO series

[Werthead]

Between 1989 and 1999, David Wingrove released eight volumes in his critically-acclaimed Chung Kuo series. This sequence is set two centuries in the future and depicts a world of 35 billion people ruled by the Chinese, who have come to dominate the world and built vast, continent-spanning cities consisting of hundreds of levels. Real history has been erased, particularly the achievements of the West, and a stratified, rigidly hierarchal society has come into being, enforced by the police and military. The books chronicle the fractures appearing in this society, eventually leading to war.

The series was originally envisaged as a nine-book series, but the publishers dropped the final book, forcing Wingrove to hurriedly to rewrite the eighth book to conclude the series in a manner that did not satisfy himself or his fans. The publishers did minimal publicity for the final book and it quickly disappeared from view, followed by the rest of the series.

However, the Chung Kuo series has now arisen, phoenix-like, from the dead. Corvus-Atlantic have picked up the series and will be reissuing it starting in September 2010. The series has been comprehensively re-edited and re-structured by the author, with five new novels' worth of material added to the saga. These take the form of a completely new prequel novel depicting the rise of China, named Son of Heaven, and a hugely expanded and revised concluding section, restoring the author's original intentions for the series. Over half a million words of new material was written for the new editions. In addition, the existing large books have been broken down into smaller, more economical volumes so that the entire series now spans a mind-boggling nineteen books of around 120,000-200,000 words apiece, somewhere well north of 2 million words and maybe closer to 3 (to put this another way, the 11 Jordan-authored Wheel of Time books come to about 3 million words).

Corvus plan to release all nineteen books over a 44-month period starting on 1 September 2010 and concluding on 1 May 2014. Cover art for the first book:

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Cover blurb:

Britain 2085: two decades after the great economic collapse that destroyed Western civilization, life continues only in scattered communities. In rural Dorset Jake Reed lives with his 14-year-old son and memories of the Fall. Back in ’63, Jake was a dynamic young futures broker, immersed in the datascape of the world’s financial markets. He saw what was coming – and who was behind it. Forewarned, he was one of the few to escape. For 22 years he has lived in fear of the future, and finally it is coming – quite literally – across the plain towards him. Chinese airships are in the skies and a strange, glacial structure looms on the horizon. Jake finds himself forcibly incorporated into the ever-expanding ‘World of Levels’: a global city of some 34 billion souls, where social status is reflected by how far above the ground you live. Here, under the rule of the mighty Tsao Ch’un, a resurgent China is seeking to abolish the past and bring about world peace through rigidly enforced order. But civil war looms, and Jake will find himself at the heart of the struggle for the future.

Titles for the books:

Son of Heaven, The Middle Kingdom, Ice and Fire, The Art of War, An Inch of Ashes, The Broken Wheel, The White Mountain, Monsters of the Deep, The Stone Within, Upon a Wheel of Fire, Beneath the Tree of Heaven, Song of the Bronze Statue, White Moon Red Dragon, China on the Rhine, Days of Bitter Strength, The Father of Lies, Blood and Iron, King of Infinite Space, The Marriage of the Living Dark.

This is, quite possibly, the single most ambitious release schedule for a series of books from a single author I have ever seen. I suspect the breaking of the series into smaller books will be slightly controversial, although given the rising cost of paper and also Corvus' status as a smaller publisher (although it's hardly a small press) I can also see an argument for it.

However, given that the series' original release is somewhat obscure to modern genre readers, this re-release is akin to Robert Jordan having completed the entire Wheel of Time saga before publication and then had the whole thing rushed out very quickly, something that hasn't been seen before (as far as I know) in the history of the genre. It's an ambitious scheme, and it'll be interesting to see how it goes. If Book 1 doesn't do well, it could be dead in the water before it starts, but given that the original series remains highly critically acclaimed, hopefully it will be a success.

 

[chopper]

interesting, wert. i remember this series and there were parts i liked, although as it went on (and on) i kinda lost my way.

 

[Talysia]

Wow - this takes me back. I read most of the Chung Kuo series a while ago and I remember it being enjoyable, but I lost interest for some reason and didn't finish the series. This might be a chance to actually finish it this time (although nineteen books compared to the previous eight might be a bit of a challenge).

Thanks for the info, Werthead.

 

[JagLover]

I read three books or so of the original series. I'm not sure what it needed was more words being added since I remember it being good but long winded.

 

[Connavar]

I have never heard of these books before but they do sound different enough setting,idea,storywise.

Looks like an interesting and ambitious SF.

 

[GOLLUM]

I read the first few at the time they first came out. I found them to be quite intriguing and because they had a certain originality and freshness to them also appealing to my sensibilities but overall I didn't feel the writing style nor plotting by Wingrove was overly impressive and subsequently abandoned this series. Still that was a looong time ago, so perhaps a revisit is worth considering in the light of what Wingrove and the publishers are intending here. Certainly sounds like a massive undertaking.

 

[Hypnos164]

I read the whole series at the time it was published, can't say it left me hungry for another 5 novels worth of material.

It is certainly epic and ambitious; but also very, very ponderous as I recall.

 

[alternicity]

This could be amazing. Wonder if I'll finish the series this time. My partner read ahead of me and warned me not to bother with the conclusion of the original set.
This would be good adapted into anime imo.

 

[Clansman]

I too, read almost all the way, but I think I stopped around volume 7. The story really got depressing, and did nothing to make me feel good about humanity at all, but it was very compelling for the first several novels, and I found the writing excellent. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Having books come out relatively quickly (looks like about 3 times a year) would answer a major criticism of epic series.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I read the third one - it caused a massive controversy in the BSFA at the time; allegations of pornography.

 

[Werthead]

Apparently there's been some changes to the set-up, with the decision made to reduce the size of the first novel and use that material as the basis of a second prequel, Daylight on Iron Mountain, that will become the new second novel in the sequence, making for 20 books overall.

Publication dates are also now up in the air, and there may be a delay until Spring 2011. Apparently international sales rights to the books are being discussed but were delayed by the Icelandic ash cloud of doom preventing a foreign rights sales meeting from being held, so that's being rescheduled.

Apparently Corvus are quite keen to get the series publicised and SF bloggers on board, so review copies for those of the blogging disposition may be available ahead of time.

 

[Werthead]

Update.

The current plan for the series is to release the first book, Son of Heaven, as a limited edition hardcover and an ebook at the start of February 2011. The second book, Daylight on Iron Mountain, will be issued in a similar format in the autumn of 2011.

Starting in early 2012, the remaining eighteen books in the series will be released. Corvus's plan is to issue about six books a year, publishing the final volume in June 2015.

There's a new website and author blog for the series here.

 

[argon0]

YAY! or to put it another way... WTF?

Having read and loved the original series (OK the final volume was a bit of a let down) I came across a mention of Ice and Fire on Amazon, and thought "that doesn't ring a bell as book 4" so looked into it....

Now I'm confused... OK I get the prequel bit - will be buying those two definitely but.... Which of the other books do I need to get? Presumably the last few books but which of the intervening books will I need to get the full story?

I certainly don't want to buy 20 new books the majority of which I already own (and fondly remember) from the original series....

 

[Werthead]

YAY! or to put it another way... WTF?

Having read and loved the original series (OK the final volume was a bit of a let down) I came across a mention of Ice and Fire on Amazon, and thought "that doesn't ring a bell as book 4" so looked into it....

Now I'm confused... OK I get the prequel bit - will be buying those two definitely but.... Which of the other books do I need to get? Presumably the last few books but which of the intervening books will I need to get the full story?

I certainly don't want to buy 20 new books the majority of which I already own (and fondly remember) from the original series....

Books 3-14, which basically consist of the 'original' Books 1-6 or thereabouts, are apparently still the same storyline featuring the same characters and much of the same prose. However, Wingrove has re-edited everything, tightened things up, dropped in a few new bits here and there. It's not radically different, but it isn't simply a reprinting of the original material.

Books 15-16 are similar, but there is a substantial new subplot with some new characters introduced which makes them fairly different to the original Book 7.

Books 17-20 will bear only a passing resemblance to the original Book 8, which has basically been burned down to the waterline and rewritten (almost from scratch, by the sound of it) with the 'original' (and never-written) Book 9 restored and all the rushed material cut out.

Short answer: read all of the new books to make sure you don't miss out, but if you have the original volumes it's only essential to read the new Books 1-2 and 15-20.

 

[argon0]

Thanks, that answers my question neatly!

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I found my original comment in Vector to Caty Cary when the opening books originally came out: "Dull, dull, dull."

Sorry David.

There was also iirc an interesting piece or letter by Brian Aldiss defending DW against all the allegations (of pornography, not dullness).

 

[Werthead]

Damnation. Chung Kuo has under-performed for Corvus with the last few books - the ones that you couldn't find on any bookshelf in the UK, it appears - and Corvus are going to pause it after Book 8, The White Mountain, comes out in March 2014. According to Wingrove, if Corvus decides to drop the series altogether he can still self-publish the rest of it (it's all written, edited up to Book 16 and fully copy-edited up to Book 10), so the ending will get out there one way or another. However, Hollywood has apparently gotten interested: if they decide to option the series and proceed with a TV or film adaptation, I think we'll see Corvus change their minds pretty quickly.

Simultaneously, Wingrove's Roads to Moscow time travel trilogy has been picked up by Random House with the first volume, The Empire of Time, out in April. The second and third books should follow at six-month intervals.

 

[Vince W]

Too bad. Now that I have a Kindle I was thinking of going back to these. I read the first three and then I couldn't find the rest. I enjoyed the ones I read. I hope he does release them as ebooks.