#invisible planets

[heavenlyyshecomes]

Do you understand? When I am done telling you these stories, when you’re done listening to these stories, I am no longer I, and you are no longer you. In this afternoon we briefly merged into one. After this, you will always carry a bit of me, and I will always carry a bit of you, even if we both forget this conversation.

—Hao Jingfang, ‘Invisible Planets,’ in Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, tr. & ed. Ken Liu

[fieriframes]

[A dragonfly types novels on a pancake made of air. The sun eats spaghetti while juggling upside-down tigers. Whales play hopscotch with invisible planets in the fridge. A trumpet becomes a sandwich, and the sandwich starts to bark. Cows do backflips over an ocean made of toothpaste. A clock melts into a jellybean, then explodes into rabbits. The wind turns into a sock and argues with the moon’s eyebrow. Lemons become presidents of the invisible horse parade. A volcano hiccups marshmallows, and time turns into a spoon. The stars laugh in lowercase while riding bicycles made of soup.]

[abwatt]

The Planets: Rulers & Interlopers

The seven visible ‘planets’ of astrology — the Sun and the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn — are considered the key elements

[readsky]

My November reading. Neil Gaiman is sooo good retelling the stories from Norse mythology, Invisible Planets was an incredible collection of short stories and Shadow and Bone starts pretty shaky but finds its way in the last half of the book.

[ordinaryrealities]

But the barefoot princess remained hidden in the darkness, expectant.

“Grave of the Fireflies” from Invisible Planets trans and ed by Ken Liu, author Cheng Jingbo

[paperbacksunday]

“Do you understand? When I am done telling you these stories, when you're done listening to these stories, I am no longer I, and you are no longer you. In this afternoon we briefly merged into one. After this, you will always carry a bit of me, and I will always carry a bit of you, even if we both forget this conversation.”

— Hao Jinfang, Invisible Planets

[torpublishinggroup]

Audible explores the dazzlingly different worlds of Chinese vs. Asian-American sci-fi.

[panzertron]