story notes

《爱的算法》, a collection of thirteen of my short stories in Chinese, is out from SFW Publishing.

I love the cover design and the interior art, and I think the translators all did a fine job. I’m very grateful for the editors and translators for their hard work in making this happen.

(And my friend Chen Qiufan carried a few copies of the book thousands of miles so that I could get them at Chicon. If you’ve ever traveled overseas, when every ounce/cubic centimeter of luggage matters, you’ll realize that only a very good friend would agree to do this as a favor. I’m deeply thankful.)

A few notes for my Chinese readers:

Some of my favorite stories could not be published in this collection, and others had to be edited by the translators for political reasons. I think we all know what these reasons are, and there’s no need for me to go into them here.

I do not know all of the changes/omissions that have been made. Where I was made aware of them, some of the changes were surprising to me, and I wish they did not have to be made. But I was told that without these changes, the stories would be unpublishable.

Would I rather have readers see a story that is edited or have readers not see the story at all? That is not an easy question to answer.

In the end, I decided that I preferred to have readers see my (altered) stories, even if they were now more like those renaissance paintings that had fig leafs painted over them. I think it’s better to have such a painting and ask viewers to exercise their imagination, than to have them stare at a blank wall.

I understand the difficulties of the translators and editors and publisher. I can only hope that someday they and I will not be put in this position where we have to balance the desire to reach readers against the distasteful act of having to perform such alterations. I can only hope that things will change.

Any Chinese reader who wishes to see the original English can email me. I will either point you to the online English edition or email you the relevant section where I know changes have been made.

Story notes for “Mono no aware,” published in The Future is Japanese, and reprinted at Lightspeed.

Spoilers below. You’re hereby warned.

[Read more…] about “Mono no aware” in The Future is Japanese

Aliette de Bodard does this really cool thing where she posts story notes on her blog as new stories are published.

I’m going to steal the idea from her and do something similar from now on.

“Arc” is out in the current (Sep/Oct) issue of F&SF.

Spoilers below, you’re hereby warned

[Read more…] about Arc in F&SF