The Dragon's Nine Sons: A Novel of the Celestial Empire

His knowledge and grasp of Qing dynasty Chinese and Meso-american history is apparent in the way he is able to take known 18th century Chinese and 16th century Aztec/Mayan institutions and attitudes and extend it into the future, something many authors who attempt this usually fail to do convincingly. He manages to stay away from rehashing stereotypical views of imperial China and therefore manages to do an impressively convincing job of putting together a world where a completely different set of rules, values, institutions and societal norms comes to fore, allowing the reader to envision a completely different historical timeline. This alternate history he opens up shows the reader a world far more diverse and interesting if these other world cultures had not been stymied and been allowed to develop into the modern world. He takes the reader into the unknown by opening up the reader's mind and not only shows the possibilities of how other traditional civilizations could have progressed and modernized but that it is possible for them to progress and modernize. We will DEFINITELY be watching this author. Leong Kit Meng (author of "Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity" ISBN 981-05-5380-3)

I love alternate history. One of my favorite sub-genres within the lands of Fantasy and Science Fiction, I've alternate history from Lest Darkness Fall and Guns of the South, and through newer authors like Charles Stross, Naomi Novik and S.M. Stirling. Another favored sub-genre of mine is space opera and adventure. From Planet of Adventure and Vance's novels in the Gaean Reach, through Vorkosigan's adventures, Alistair Reynolds, and others. Chris Roberson (whose Paragaea was one of my favorite reads last year) has married these two genres in a novel set in his Celestial Empire alternate history, The Dragons Nine Sons. (TDNS). I also, thanks to his kind graces, had an opportunity to first read a prequel story, "The Line of Dichotomy" It's the dirty dozen in space...in an alternate history space war between the Chinese and the Aztecs. That's the flippant way to describe the novel. Set in an Alternate History where the 21st century is a conflict between a world-spanning Chinese Empire and their only significant rival, the Mexica (Aztecs), TDNS is a story of several disgraced Chinese soldiers and officers, brought together for a one-way suicide mission on a stolen Mexica ship. The conflict between these two powers has heated up around Mars, and the Chinese have discovered that the Mexica have a secret asteroid base. Take out that base, and the Mexica's space efforts would be severely crippled. However, such a mission is not likely to result in any survivors. Thus, we meet Captain Zhuan Jie and Bannerman Yao, the two disgraced head officers picked for the mission. While the former's reason for being included is made clearly early, we only later learn the full depth of Yao's story (and this is gone in more detail in the story I read along with it). We also meet the rest of the crew, and at various points during the trip, get the classic device of them telling their tale of how they came to be on the mission. After training and preparation and the long trip to the asteroid, the real mission begins. A twist, shamefully spoiled on the back blurb, changes the mission parameters dramatically, and the crew has an additional objective to simply destroying the asteroid base... The weakest part of the novel, in my opinion, is the execution of the mission itself. I felt that the Mexica were a bit too faceless, as personalities and antagonists. Oh, we get very lovely detail on the surface about their strange technology and culture and how it compares to the Chinese. Particularly gruesome was the use of blood sacrifice as a sensor to activating controls on the ship (and presumably elsewhere). And the city within the asteroid base is well detailed. However, the Mexica don't work as individual opponents. While the Line of Dichotomy does portray one of the Jaguar knights as an individual, in TDNS, they are relatively faceless enemies, adversaries to be killed and nothing more. I was a bit disappointed in this. My favorite WWII action movi

The Dragon's Nine Sons is the latest in Chris Roberson's Celestial Empire series, set in an alternate history in which China rose to world-dominance n the 15th Century. Roberson has penned tales across the whole of this period, though D9S takes place in 2052, at a point in which a space-faring Chinese Empire wars with an Aztec civilization for control of Mars. The story here is a well-plotted and clever reworking of the Dirty Dozen, which combines brilliant alternate history with military SF. Readers are encouraged to seek out all of the Celestial Empire stories, and here's a handy list: Stories (listed in internal chronological order) "Fire in the Lake" - Subterranean Magazine, Fall 2007 "Thy Saffron Wings" - Postscripts (forthcoming) "The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small" - Asimov's Science Fiction (July, 2007) "O One" - Live Without a Net (Roc, June 2003) "Metal Dragon Year" - Interzone #213 "Gold Mountain" - Poscripts #5 (and in Dozois's 2006 YBSF) "The Voyage of Night Shining White" - Novella from PS Publishing (and in Best Short Novels: 2007) "Line of Dichotomy" - The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume 2 (forthcoming from Solaris, 2008; also available as chapbook) "Red Hands, Black Hands" - Asimov's Science Fiction (December, 2004) "All Under Heaven" - Firebirds Soaring (forthcoming from Firebird, 2008) "Dragon King of the Eastern Sea" - We Think, Therefore We Are (forthcoming from DAW, 2008) Novels The Dragon's Nine Sons (Solaris, 2008) Three Unbroken (Solaris, 2009; serialized online 2007-2008) Iron Jaw and Hummingbird (Viking, 2008)