Search Worlds Without End

This short story originally appeared in Postscripts, Autumn 2005, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld Magazine, #94 July 2014. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection (2006), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Sidewise Award winning and World Fantasy Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Live Without a Net (2003), edited by Lou Anders. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories (2010), edited by Ian Watson and Ian Whates, and Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded (2010), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer.

Read the full story for free at the author's website.

This short story orignally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2007. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (2008), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Two (2008), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

Read the full story for free at the author's website.

In an alternate history dominated by Imperial China, the forces of the Dragon Throne control most of the Earth, and now turn their attentions to the heavens. In the tradition of its great fifteenth century admiral, Zheng He, the Chinese Empire constructs a massive Treasure Fleet. But unlike the dragon boats which coursed across terrestrial seas, the ships of this new armada are ceramic and steel, fuelled by nuclear reactors and spun against tethered counterweights to provide a semblance of gravity for their crews. Rather than sailing to open new trade routes to foreign shores, this new fleet sails interplanetary gulfs, to the red planet fourth from the sun, in search of mineral wealth and territorial claims.

The least of the ships of the Treasure Fleet is Night Shining White, one of many water tenders. It will be the last to reach the red planet, and the first to return, its hold emptied of precious water and filled with mineral samples and ores to be milled and studied back on Earth. The ship's captain, a eunuch who has sacrificed much in the service of his emperor, has never ventured beyond the bounds of Earth before, much less in command of a ship and her crew.

Before it reaches its destination, Night Shining White's reactor coolant system fails, and the crew is faced with the prospect of a quick death by runaway nuclear meltdown, or a slow painful demise by radiation poisoning. Their only hope of salvation is the captain, but will his inexperience only ensure their demise?

This novella can also be found in the anthology Best Short Novels: 2007, edited by Jonathan Strahan.

A disgraced naval captain and a commando who knows secrets he should never have learned are picked to lead a suicide mission, piloting a salvaged Mexica spacecraft to Xolotl, the asteroid stronghold of their enemies, armed with enough explosives to reduce the Mexica base to dust. But when they arrive to find dozens of Chinese prisoners destined to be used as human sacrifices, their suicide mission suddenly becomes a rescue operation.

Mars is controlled by the Chinese, who call their civilization the Celestial Empire. But for teenagers Gamine and Huang, it is anything but heavenly. Gamine was taken off the street by an aristocrat, schooled as a fine young lady--then abandoned at her patron's whim and forced to make her living as a grifter. Huang's army career is cut short by a bandit ambush. When the two meet, Gamine --"Iron Jaw"--is the leader of a sham religious movement, and Huang, or "Hummingbird," is the bandits' chief tactician. They join forces to bring down the corrupt government that has determined their lives.

Iron Jaw and Hummingbird offers a planet's worth of adventure!

'Three Unbroken' is the next epic novel in the Celestial Empire sequence and details the explosive war between the Chinese and Aztec empires as they battle for control of the red planet, Fire Star.

Challenging assumptions about science fiction's Western origins, Nathaniel Isaacson traces the development of the genre in China, from the late Qing Dynasty through the New Culture Movement. Through careful examination of a wide range of visual and print media--including historical accounts of the institutionalization of science, pictorial representations of technological innovations, and a number of novels and short stories--Isaacson makes a case for understanding Chinese science fiction as a product of colonial modernity. By situating the genre's emergence in the transnational traffic of ideas and material culture engendered by the presence of colonial powers in China's economic and political centers, Celestial Empires explores the relationship between science fiction and Orientalist discourse. In doing so it offers an innovative approach to the study of both vernacular writing in twentieth-century China and science fiction in a global context.