Audiobook Review: 'Hold Up the Sky' by Cixin Liu, narr. by Bruno Roubicek

"

 Science Fiction is one of my favourite genres because I grew up entirely on Star Wars. Just as with my Fantasy reading I have been trying to expand what I read and specifically from where I read. Cixin Liu has been on my To-Read list for ages so when I saw an audiobook for Hold Up the Sky I decided to go for it!

Pub. Date: Head of Zeus
Audible Publisher: W.F. Howes Ltd.
Audible Pub. Date: 10/8/2020

In Hold Up the Sky, Cixin Liu takes us across time and space, from a rural mountain community where elementary students must use physics to prevent an alien invasion; to coal mines in northern China where new technology will either save lives or unleash a fire that will burn for centuries; to a time very much like our own, when superstring computers predict our every move; to 10,000 years in the future, when humanity is finally able to begin anew; to the very collapse of the universe itself.

Written between 1999 and 2017 and never before published in English, these stories came into being during decades of major change in China and will take you across time and space through the eyes of one of science fiction's most visionary writers.

Experience the limitless and pure joy of Cixin Liu's writing and imagination in this stunning collection.

Science Fiction is a genre that is often, I believe, difficult to pin down. Is it about the Science or the Fiction part? And what is this science? Is it robot armies, light sabers, or space colonization? Is it about humans or about all the other potential species out there. To return to Ursula K. LeGuin's definition, 'Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.' And this truly couldn't apply any better to Liu's fiction. Almost all the stories in Hold Up the Sky describe current issues, climate change, political conflict, oppression, and poverty, even while dealing with scientific topics. It may take place in space, but Liu's stories are fully human. While I was occasionally lost in the science talk, I never lost the thread of humanity running through each of the stories. It's in the awe with which his characters stare at the sky, the ingenuity that saves, or the love that lives on. 

Hold Up the Sky starts of amazingly. Both 'The Village Teacher' and 'Time Migration' are beautiful. In the former the story of a teacher in a poor village is intertwined with an intergalactic war, all while the story ponders on the beauty of knowledge. The latter sees a group of refugees travel through time looking for a safe space, making you wonder what makes for a good world. Since I absolutely adored these stories some of those that followed didn't hit in quite the same way, such as 'Mirror'. 'Contraction' was a beautiful Other stand-outs for me were 'Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming', an ode to Russian literature and the Russian people. It has one of the most tragic of endings. 'Fire in the Earth' also asks fascinating questions about technical progress and whether the end justifies the means. Two of the latter stories, 'Sea of Dreams' and 'Cloud of Poems', share a similar question, namely the worth of art in the face of ever-advancing technology. These stories  will definitely resonate with any art or poetry lover. 'The Thinker' is a lovely end to the collection, a quiet reminiscence on kinship, love, consciousness, and the stars.

Cixin Liu writes beautifully, offering the readers real moments of human feeling amidst the stars. His human characters are truly human in their desires and hopes, their ways of thinking, and the scientific or more abstract elements of his stories serve those feelings, rather than vice versa. It is not about the flashy modern contraptions, the flying cars, or the super computer. These are there to serve the story and the ideas and themes Liu is trying to advance. How much of the science is "correct" I do not know. I have asked my father, a theoretical physicist with an interest in fiction, to give the stories a go, so perhaps I will hear from him. But how "true" it is does not affect how the stories work. I will most definitely be reading more works by Liu, with The Wandering Earth next on my list. Bruno Roubicek does a great job at the narrating, even though sometimes I could have used a slower pace or more voice modulation in the more involved, scientific moments. The stories are all translated by different writers, so I have chosen to list them all below:

John Chu: '2018-04-01', 'Contraction', 'Sea of Dreams', and 'The Thinker'
Adam Lanphier: 'The Village Teacher'
Joel Martinsen: 'The Time Migration', 'Fire in the Earth', and 'Ode to Joy'
Carmen Yiling Yan: 'Mirror', 'Full-Spectrum Barrage Jamming', and 'Cloud of Poems'

I give this collection...

4 Universes!

Hold Up the Sky is a stunning collection of short stories that are deeply descriptive of the human condition. Who knew that we would find ourselves amongst the stars.