A Far-Away Summer

“Distant Summer” is an exceptional collection of science-fiction stories from China whose style is reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s works in their early years.

In these stories, the author Xia Jia harmoniously combines a technological future with elements of folklore, myths, and nostalgia for a past that is disappearing.

An android takes care of an elderly man while being watched by his curious granddaughter. Modern technologies are woven organically into traditional Chinese holidays. Lovers, cursed by different rhythms of time, try to synchronize their internal clocks. A mail carrier dreams of returning to the flooded homeland, while a student controls the weather to pass an exam successfully—and maybe even win the heart of a classmate.

Xia Jia is one of the leading representatives of the new generation of Chinese science fiction; she has been awarded the “Milky Way” and “Nebula” prizes. She manages to convey the layered reality of China through the lens of intellectual science fiction.