Saturday, 11th of March, 2006

I think I've maybe mentioned Chris Roberson in passing in this blog before, as a writer to watch. You may know him as the co-publisher of MonkeyBrain books, who put out Jess Nevins' two volumes of annotations to Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (not to be confused with the abominable film of the same name) and more recently the same author's Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana.

But Roberson is primarily a writer of science fiction, and a very fine one at that. I therefore draw your attention to two stories you can read FOR FREE online (or, hey, paste into a word processor, clean up a bit, print out, and read on the train if you like. Also for free!) Both come from a sequence that will eventually be released as Fire Star: A Novel of the Celestial Empire, based in an alternate world dominated by Imperial China. I think it's Roberson's best work yet, and I'm very much looking forward to the next entry, a novella called The Voyage of Night Shining White to be published by the excellent PS Publishing in the middle of the year.

So go read these two: First off, O One (not the clever binary pun), about computation in ancient China, and a foreigner who comes to the Emperor with a very curious gift.
Then there's Red Hands, Black Hands, a hugely impressive mid-future tale of Imperial China on Mars, with some great riffs on socialism, art and culture. Highly recommended – great to see Infinity Plus putting it online.

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