An East Asian SFF Smorgasbord

The fictional Chinese city of Yong’an is occupied by both humans and an astounding array of cryptids who live alongside them, mostly hidden. An amateur cryptozoologist sets out to document each one of these beasts, and along that journey is drawn into a deeper mystery that asks her to question her very self.

An anthology of contemporary Chinese science fiction short stories in translation, translated by the inimitable Ken Liu. It’s got three essays within as well, examining the state of Chinese sci-fi and the fandom that’s grown up around it.

I have seen Jin Yong called “the Brandon Sanderson of China” which I think honestly downplays his reach a little bit. This is the first volume of an excellent and very famous wuxia series — one that involves Genghis-freaking-Khan — and to the best of my knowledge, a completely excellent translation.

A collection of SFF short stories by Xia Jia, launched using a Kickstarter by Clarkesworld, which has featured some of her stories before. You can read five of her stories over at Clarkesworld for free, actually, to get a taste for why this is a must-have collection.

A science fiction collection from Kim Bo-Young, but it’s not quite the typical set of separate stories. Rather, it’s four stories in one volume — two pairs of linked stories. One set is about an engaged couple trying to coordinate their relationship and wedding through space and time. The other is about godlike alien beings for whom humans are mere extensions of their will — and a rebellion against that order is coming.

This is actually the first of a new omnibus that contains the first three of the Vampire Hunter D novels. (And there are a lot of these novels.) It’s a bonkers post-apocalyptic far future with vampire lords and a gothic sensibility, where D is an incredibly hot guy who hunts vampires and solves mysteries. I love this whole series.

When Yuriko’s brother gets in a fight with bullies, that’s bad enough. But then he disappears, and she finds a magical book in his room in his place — The Book of Heroes, which has possessed him. She must unravel the mystery of the book in order to save her brother and defeat the evil King in Yellow.

The way-better-than-its-tepid-title-suggests film Edge of Tomorrow was based on this book, which is an excellent time loop action story about an alien invasion that the humans are fighting a losing battle against. And one of the new recruits, Keiji Kriya, gets sent back to the dawn of his final day alive every time he’s killed.