Much of science fiction currently comes from the United States, but the genre exists all over the world. Discover Chinese science fiction with La terre vagabonde, Delcourt's comic book adaptation of a short story by Liu Cixin.
Future views from China
Delcourt Editions begins with La Terre vagabonde an ambitious collection of fifteen titles: Les Futures de Liu Cixin adapt the short stories of China's most popular science fiction writer. He has won nine awards in his country and was the first Chinese to receive the Hugo Award in 2015 in France. We can think that these adaptations in comics will make this author more widely known. Each track will be made by different artists. Christophe Bec is the first screenwriter for La terre vagabonde. This French author became known for the post-apocalyptic science fiction series Carthago. He is therefore a connoisseur of this kind. He is associated once again with the Italian cartoonist Stefano Raffaele who impresses with several landscape scenes extending over three or four pages. The opening of The Wandering Earth is striking: the narrator was born the day the Earth stopped spinning. This end is certainly sad but humanity is prepared. Powerful engines were built to move the Earth to the constellation Centauri and find a new star. However, the journey will be long, nearly 2500 years, and complex.
How to travel with a planet?
The Wandering Earth is not an action story but describes the beginning of Earth's journey and the ecological and social effects of this adventure. The reader realizes that, even without sunlight, there is light thanks to the twelve thousand reactors placed in the northern hemisphere. Their location is geologically justified but their presence leads to meteorological upheavals. These torches of god are higher than the mountains. The North is so hot that you can't go out without a wetsuit and permanent storms obstruct the sky. Liu Cixin's prose alternates between poetry and realism. All this information is explained because Liu Cixin began his professional life as an engineer. But it goes further than technique: philosophy has also changed because the sun has become synonymous with evil. Indeed, it no longer brings life but death. Society is divided between those who have experienced the solar age and keep rehashing their lost paradise and the youngest who dream of a happier future. In the meantime, everyone is trying to survive. The farther the earth moves away from the sun, the more society freezes and feelings disappear.
A story with a message?
However, one can see in The Wandering Land a disturbing geopolitical dimension. Is the end of the sun and this new world the marker of the end of Western domination and the emergence of China? The technical and collective aspect of the story would then be explained by the Chinese development in the face of the United States. Indeed, the world of The Wandering Earth is hard but the State resists and adapts. He has the solution and the other proposals seem disqualified. Only the teachers have names, unlike the totally anonymous main character. Everyone submits to the common project and the individual disappears. This blind submission can shock just like classroom lessons close to a stuffing of a skull. Literary subjects and religions are disqualified. The first title of Liu Cixin's Futures, The Wandering Land is a fascinating story by its originality but whose subject seems reactionary or very pessimistic? The narrative tells of the programmed formation of a generation of survivors and the transition to another world to save the Earth, but this promised new society is soulless. On a quest for space exploration? Discover the chronicles on Amen and Colonization.
