The Broken Wheel by David Wingrove. Book review

The Broken Wheel (Chung Kuo Book 7) by David Wingrove. Corvus £14.99

Reviewed by John Howard

David Wingrove’s vast novel Chung Kuo originally appeared in eight volumes between 1989 and 1997. Now Wingrove has ‘recast’ the entire series, spreading out it across twenty volumes, with the addition of completely new material in two prequel volumes and two more planned at the end. The Broken Wheel was part of the original book three, The White Mountain.

In this instalment the action takes place over a short period of time: the summer and autumn of 2207. The continent-spanning multi-levelled world city-state of Chung Kuo is barely holding together. Discontent is still seething in the frequently violent lower levels, and in the higher levels divisions are widening within the ruling Seven. It seems likely that everything, after many close calls, is about to fall apart at last.

In The Broken Wheel – a powerful symbol and one several times referred to and made use of – the old order begins to give way to the new, with the younger members of the ruling establishment and their opponents having the opportunity to start to wield real power, whether behind the scenes or entirely overtly. The old T’ang (ruler) of City Europe dies, and his young son Li Yuan succeeds him, determined to restore stability once and for all, and at any cost. The untried ruler has achieved great – if not almost absolute – power, but will have to exercise it in the context of great responsibility.

One of Li’s first acts is to promote the ambitious Hans Ebert to the trusted position of General, but we know Ebert is playing more than one game. Terrorist attacks continue to plague and destabilise Chung Kuo as the Ping Tao (Levellers) are cleaned up, only to be replaced by another group, the Yu, whose manipulator dreams of nothing less than liberating humanity and restoring its stolen inheritance through the complete physical destruction of Chung Kuo and all it stands for.

Other wild (or perhaps not so wild) cards are played as the webs of intrigue and counter-intrigue are woven and rewoven. As in a dance, remembered names resurface, stay awhile, and fade away again, at least for now. Howard DeVore, arch-enemy of the Seven, remains as implacable as ever, as he survives a major setback. The secret research undertaken by Kim Ward, the boy genius from the Clay – the ruined former surface of the earth now hidden beneath the City in utter darkness – gains new impetus, and for the first time a shadowy organisation calling itself the Sons of Benjamin Franklin makes an appearance. The former New World and the legacy of the vanished American Empire of sixty-nine states seems about to call attention to itself.

With yet more hints of other, larger and potentially catastrophic (depending on the point of view) designs behind the scenes on the part of all sides, David Wingrove’s breathlessly heady mix of scheming and strategy, high politics and low life, beauty and brutality, trust and betrayal that is the world of Chung Kuo leaves the reader wanting more, and waiting with impatience to plunge in all over again the next time. 

An Inch of Ashes (Chung Kuo Book 6) by David Wingrove. Book review.

An Inch of Ashes (Chung Kuo book 6) by David Wingrove. Corvus £14.99

Reviewed by John Howard

David Wingrove’s epic Chung Kuo originally appeared in eight large volumes between 1989 and 1997. Now Wingrove is ‘recasting’ the entire series, spreading it across twenty not so large volumes, adding completely new material in two prequel volumes and two more planned at the end. An Inch of Ashes was originally the second part of the former book two, The Broken Wheel.

It is now the autumn of 2206. Several of the T’ang – the seven men who rule with all-but absolute power over the various parts of the continent-spanning City that is Chung Kuo – are increasingly unsure of their ability to hold on to power and to exercise it in the way they wish. Tensions are growing between them, and the spectre of change remains at large in the conditioned air of the Levels. The terrorist group Ping Tiao (‘levelling’) is still causing trouble, and is just one of many unpredictable human factors threatening the vision of channelled and controlled peace and stability that the rulers have for the planet. The loose opposition headed by Howard DeVore still manages to keep one step ahead of the T’ang despite all the efforts made by the Seven’s security apparatus to track down its members and sympathisers and eliminate them.

One response by the Seven is, despite the misgivings of some of them, to give the go-ahead for research into the possibility of making it impossible for people to even wish for change: a stupendous project masterminded by the enigmatic Ben Shepherd. Those plans are monstrous, both in scope and (to some) impact. At the same time Shepherd finally discovers his true nature, and the secret in his family that has been hidden in open sight since the foundation of Chung Kuo. Shepherd’s status as an official ‘wild card’ is further enhanced, with all the danger and uncertainty for the massed billions inhabiting the City.

In An Inch of Ashes the reader is immersed once more in a complex world-wide political and dynastic drama in which threads of friendship, alliance and betrayal are continually woven, get frayed, sometimes break, and are knitted again into new and often previously unthinkable patterns. The pace never lets up; the contrast between the beauty and elegance of much of the Seven’s culture and the high moral language of their aims, and the utter ruthlessness and violence of how they execute (pun intended) them in reality is maintained, strengthening the impression that nowhere is potentially as alien as the Earth itself, and no-one and nothing is as alien as humanity and what it could become – or be forced into becoming.

Chung Kuo volumes 4 & 5 by David Wingrove. Book review

Ice and Fire (Chung Kuo Book 4) and The Art of War (Chung Kuo Book 5) by David Wingrove. Corvus £14.99

Reviewed by John Howard

David Wingrove’s Chung Kuo originally appeared in eight large volumes between 1989 and 1997. Now Wingrove has started to ‘recast’ the entire series, spreading it across an epic twenty not so large volumes, adding completely new material in two prequel volumes and two more at the end. Ice and Fire originally formed the second part of the original first volume (The Middle Kingdom); The Art of War was the first part of the former book two, The Broken Wheel.

The vast majority of the Earth’s population of forty billion has come to live in the City: pre-fabricated stacked hives a mile or so high, linked to one another across entire continents. A privileged few are able to maintain estates outside the all-encompassing City. By the time Ice and Fire begins in 2201, the seven T’ang – the Han rulers of Chung Kuo (which to all effects and purposes is the entire planet Earth and a few dependencies off-world) – have allowed the creation of a House of Representatives at Weimar, and granted it a measure of devolved government. But the House and the Council of Seven maintain an uneasy relationship due to the natural desire of parliamentarians to increase the power of the elected body – which could only be done at the expense of the ruling Seven.

Many are resentful of the Edict of Technological Control – the law enacted by the Seven to prohibit change – and so the resulting stagnation due to free enquiry and scientific research virtually ceasing. The Dispersionists pin their hopes on The New Hope, a starship whose development and construction has been barely tolerated by the Seven. And to complicate matters some of the Dispersionists have formed an alliance with a group of former insiders who wish to overthrow the ruling order.

Stopping change, stopping the ‘wheel of history’ from turning, is the Seven’s whole raison d’etre; anything or anyone that challenges the Seven’s hold on Chung Kuo is liable to be crushed without mercy. Now, in Ice and Fire, the latest threat to their rule comes from outside the City, when an apparently insignificant incident close to one of the great Seals in the outer wall begins to reveal the extent of the discontent and the illicit experimentation taking place in breach of the Edict. War seems imminent – and a war not only for control of the Earth and the development of space travel, but also for human history itself.

The Art of War opens some three years after the end of Ice and Fire. The Seven have apparently won the War of Two Directions and reasserted their control. They have exacted a savage revenge, with the luckiest of the survivors from the losing side being thrust down to lower levels within the City. A few still survive in hidden fortresses secretly built in mountainous regions that the City has never covered. But the ‘winner takes all’ attitude among many of the ruling elite cannot hide the fact that discontent wasn’t eradicated, and is still growing. An out-and-out terrorist group, the Ping Tiao (‘levelling’) has been formed, and riots have become more frequent. For some among the Seven and their supporters the only answer is to make it impossible for people to wish for change, to wish to unbalance the utopia of peace and stability that their rulers wish to bestow on humanity – on their own terms.

As with the previous books in the series, Ice and Fire and The Art of War move along at an exhilarating pace. From the outset the reader is enmeshed in a complex world-wide political and dynastic drama in which threads of friendship, alliance and betrayal are continually being woven, severed, and woven again into new patterns. For Chung Kuo – the world – the possibilities are the enforced survival of its ‘utopia’ or its bloody downfall and replacement with – what? These are the highest possible stakes – and there are still fifteen more books to go!

The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove: book review

The Middle Kingdom (Chung Kuo Book 3) by David Wingrove. Corvus £18.99

Reviewed by John Howard

David Wingrove’s Chung Kuo originally appeared in eight large volumes between 1989 and 1997. A decade or so later Wingrove embarked on the large scale project of ‘recasting’ the entire series, revising and enlarging it across an epic twenty not quite so large volumes. The first two books, Son of Heaven and Daylight on Iron Mountain, appeared in 2011 and contained all new material and formed an extended prologue to the main sequence. They set the scene and got us from here to there: from some thirty years hence to 2098, by which time the foundations for the Han Chinese-dominated new world order of Chung Kuo have been well and truly made, literally driven into the soil of the Earth.

The Middle Kingdom is a revised and expanded version of the first half of the original first volume (also called The Middle Kingdom) of Wingrove’s first excursion into Chung Kuo. Nearly one hundred years after the prologue volumes, as the twenty-second century is about to dawn, the world’s Han rulers – the Seven T’ang – maintain the same purpose as they ever did: a unified world, a utopia of peace and stability for all. On their terms, of course.

The vast majority of the world’s population of forty billion lives in the Cities: pre-fabricated stacked hives nearly a mile high that span continents. Most of Asia is a farm. The Cities’ inhabitants rise – and fall – through the hundreds of levels depending on their position in the new society and their attitude to it. Hard work and obedience can be rewarded; mistakes and disobedience can lead to banishment: removal to levels below. Towards the bottom of the teeming Cities are the Lowers: the Net, the first few levels above the floor, where life is hard and precarious enough. But below that, sealed away from the Above, out of sight and mostly out of mind, lies the Clay: the devastated surface of the planet, left in ruins and almost total darkness. Yet people still live in the Clay: feral tribes, the descendants of those excluded from the Cities and who survived and turned into a true underclass and in effect became a separate race. (Any analogy with Wells’ Morlocks would not be at all accurate.) There are also a few who prefer the anarchy and constant danger of a life, of sorts, under the floor.

The rulers of the world intend to ensure that permanent peace and stability is achieved through the virtual elimination of change, the systematic obliteration of all traces of the past – including the rewriting of history – and by strengthening further their iron controlling grip on all aspects of everyone’s life – all those in the Cities, that is. The Edict of Technological Control was promulgated in order to monitor and regulate all technological development, and to stamp on anything that threatened the new order planned for the next ten millennia (at least). But of course change can’t be entirely stopped and crushed by the force of an edict, no matter how all-powerful the rulers and their enforcers are. When the Minister in charge of the Edict is assassinated, suspicion falls on a number of high and well-connected people. Their loyalty and commitment to the system of New Confucianism comes under scrutiny, with conspiracy and counter-conspiracy blossoming as members of the ruling families fight to maintain continuity – and their rights of succession – and prevent their grip on the world from loosening. They will do anything to stop the dreaded spectre of change – chaos, to them – being let loose again.

Wingrove’s approach continues to be necessarily widescreen, with a cast of characters ranging from the most privileged to those scrabbling in the darkness of the Clay, from mere talking heads and execution-fodder to those with lives and motivations explored in some depth. From now on in it seems clear that the end of each volume will provide a sort of pause for breath rather than a conclusion, and many of the characters to be introduced in each volume will appear and re-appear, allowing the story to unwind and spread over the great space allotted to it, pushing out against its bounds as the inhabitants of the sprawling Cities press on each other and against the walls, floors, and ceilings that keep them in place. The main cast now seems to be assembled for the struggle ahead, although there will no doubt be unexpected deaths and betrayals, new developments and the intrusion of the unplanned to disturb the rulers’ dream of ten thousand years of their version of peace. A civil war of planetary dimensions seems in the offing, with those who resent the suffocation of their current situation lined up against the Han ‘establishment’. It might seem that nothing can withstand the weight of the new order, but…

As with the previous books, The Middle Kingdom moves along at an exhilarating pace. By turns portraying a world alien and mundane, brutal and sentimental, the scale continues to range from the tremendous and remote to the intimate and deeply personal. It’s still too early to tell how David Wingrove’s new version of the Chung Kuo future history will turn out – surely there are new developments in this recasting, surprises in store – but it seems set to be a roller-coaster ride that it will be impossible to leave until the author is done with it. 

The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove

The Middle Kingdom is volume three in David Wingrove’s Chung Kuo series, out in October in a smart new edition from Corvus at £14.99. The Middle Kingdom was first published in 1989 – so here is a great opportunity to catch up on the saga.

It’s 2196: “The great Empire of Ice, Chung Kuo, has finally been shaken after, more than a century of peace. The Minister of the Edict has been assassinated. The seven ruling T’ang struggle to maintain Stasis, even as their mile-high, continent-spanning cities descend into chaos.

Amid the chaos, the rebels responsible for the assassination seize the opportunity to effect Change. But the assassination was orchestrated by those far closer to the ruling power, and this betrayal will lead them all into the world-shattering War of Two Directions.”

Alif the Unseen by G Willow Wilson

“‘I will tell you a story, but it comes with a warning; when you hear it, you will become someone else.’

He calls himself Alif - few people know his real name - a young man born in a Middle Eastern city that straddles the ancient and modern worlds. When Alif meets the aristocratic Intisar, he believes he has found love. But their relationship has no future - Intisar is promised to another man and her family's honour must be satisfied. As a remembrance, Intisar sends the heartbroken Alif a mysterious book. Entitled The Thousand and One Days, Alif discovers that this parting gift is a door to another world - a world from a very different time, when old magic was in the ascendant and the djinn walked amongst us.

With the book in his hands, Alif finds himself drawing attention - far too much attention - from both men and djinn. Thus begins an adventure that takes him through the crumbling streets of a once-beautiful city, to uncover the long-forgotten mysteries of the Unseen. Alif is about to become a fugitive in both the corporeal and incorporeal worlds. And he is about to unleash a destructive power that will change everything and everyone - starting with Alif himself.”

Alif the Unseen by G Willow Wilson promises to be a treat. It’s published this month by Corvus (12.99). Wilson is also the writer of the acclaimed graphic novel Cairo.

Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers

Excellent news for fans of Tim Powers. His new novel, Hide Me Among the Graves is published by Corvus in September (£14.99). And if you’ve not yet read Powers’ The Stress of Her Regard you are in for a double treat (also out in September from Corvus £8.99).

Hide Me Among the Graves: “London, winter of 1862, Adelaide McKee, a former prostitute, arrives on the doorstep of veterinarian John Crawford, a man she met once seven years earlier. Their brief meeting produced a child who, until now, had been presumed dead. McKee has learned that the girl lives – but that her life and soul are in mortal peril from a vampiric ghost. But this is no ordinary spirit; the bloodthirsty wraith is none other than John Polidori, the onetime physician to the mad, bad, and dangerous Romantic poet Lord Byron. Both McKee and Crawford have mysterious histories with creatures like Polidori, and their child is a prize the malevolent spirit covets dearly.

Polidori is also the late uncle and supernatural muse to the poet Christina Rossetti and her brother, the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. When she was just fourteen years old, Christina unwittingly brought Polidori's curse upon her family. But the curse bestowed unexpected blessings as well, inspiring Christina's poetry and Gabriel's paintings. But when Polidori resurrects Dante's dead wife – turning her into a horrifying vampire – and threatens other family members, Christina and Dante agree that they must destroy their monstrous uncle and break the spell, even if it means the end of their creative powers.

Sweeping from the mansions of London's high society to its grimy slums, the elegant salons of the West End to the pre-Roman catacombs beneath St. Paul's Cathedral, Hide Me Among the Graves blends the historical and the supernatural in a dazzling, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride – a modern horror story with a Victorian twist.”

The Stress of Her Regard: “The secret history of the Romantic poets – Lake Geneva, 1816: As Byron and Shelley row on the peaceful waters of Lake Geneva, a sudden squall threatens to capsize them. But this is no natural event - something has risen from the lake itself to attack them.

Kent, 1816: Michael Crawford's wife is brutally murdered on their wedding night as he sleeps peacefully beside her - and a vengeful ghost claims Crawford as her own husband. Crawford's quest to escape his supernatural wife will force him to travel the Continent in the company of the most creative, most doomed poets of his age. Byron, Keats and Shelley all have a part to play in his fate, and the fate of Europe.”

The Weird!

A companion volume to Zombies is also available from Corvus. The Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, is a “compendium of strange and dark stories”. To prove the point, here are 1100 pages stuffed with over a hundred stories selected from a century or more – plus a foreword by Michael Moorcock and an afterword by China Miéville.

Looking through the contents, I am reminded of reading some of these in previous years, and being engrossed by their mix of horror and the strange. And in my book, that’s about the best mix! I’m pleased to see Michel Bernanos’ “The Other Side of the Mountain”, this time translated into English by Gio Clairval, which I read as a short novel in the 1970s in an edition translated by Elaine P Halperin. I note that there are some minor differences in the translations…

Other modern favourites include “Sandkings” by George RR Martin, “In the Hills, the Cities” by Clive Barker, and “Smoke Ghost” by Fritz Leiber. Also included are tales by Algernon Blackwood, MR James, HP Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Joanna Russ, Harlan Ellison, Lisa Tuttle… You get the idea: the list goes on and on.

The Weird is published by Corvus at £25.00