History Literature / ChungKuo

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chung_kuo_1.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The first entry in the series.]]

* BlackIsBiggerinBed: Catherine and Dogu, though Wingrove tastefully avoids giving us length and circumference.

A science-fiction series of eight novels by Hugo Award-winning author David Wingrove, where Earth in the 22nd century is in the iron grip of a Chinese empire run by the Seven T'ang. This world is called the Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom. Mankind's 36 billion people live in one vast City, which is actually seven cities: City Europe, City West Asia, City East Asia, City Africa, and so on. The lowest city levels, called the Net, are cut off and run by Triad mafia. Famine and poverty loom in the near future, while a group of wealthy Hung Mao (whites) in Europe plan to bring Change back to the world. The result is a back-and-forth war of assassinations that increasingly weakens the City financially and politically. And that is only the beginning.

A science-fiction series of eight novels by David Wingrove, where Earth in the 22nd century is in the iron grip of a Chinese empire run by the Seven T'ang. This world is called the Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom. Mankind's 36 billion people live in one vast City, which is actually seven cities: City Europe, City West Asia, City East Asia, City Africa, and so on. The lowest city levels, called the Net, are cut off and run by Triad mafia. Famine and poverty loom in the near future, while a group of wealthy Hung Mao (whites) in Europe plan to bring Change back to the world. The result is a back-and-forth war of assassinations that increasingly weakens the City financially and politically. And that is only the beginning.

The series is known for being a rich and complex vision of a Byzantine future where no sides are completely good or bad; for having a long list of characters on both sides of the conflict; and for its graphic descriptions of both sex and violence. The complexity (and length) of the series can be attributed to David Wingrove's background. In 1982, having left his career as a bank Associate, he obtained a First Class Honours degree in English and won one of only ten research grants given by the ''UK Department of Education and Science'' that year, which began three years of a doctorate appraising the works of leading British literary names such as William Golding. He would also co-author the heavy-duty study ''Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction'', earning a Hugo Award for best non-fiction work in the SF genre in 1986, among other honors. In short, it is not his habit to compromise when setting pen to paper.

The series was reissued from 2010 to 2014 including two new prequels and a plan for a total of twenty volumes. After ''The White Mountain'' was published as volume 8, however, [[http://www.ofgiftsandstones.com/past-present-and-future/ the publishers stated]] that poor sales were the reason for releasing no more. In 2017 the series was relaunched with a new publisher, Fragile Books (owned by Wingrove and Susan Oudot), and book 9, ''Monsters of the Deep'', was released on 19 October 2017. Wingrove has issued short stories on the website ''[[http://www.ofgiftsandstones.com/ Of Gifts and Stones]]''.

%% * AlternativeCalendar

* BigBad: Howard DeVore is the RebelLeader who manipulates the T'ang and Chung Kuo civilizations into war with each other so he can KillAllHumans and replace them with his perfect race, "The Inheritors".

* BreakTheCutie: Sweet Flute, a young and inexperienced prostitute in a high-end brothel, is sold as a concubine to a man who does not have her best interests at heart

* TheChessmaster: Howard deVore - although he is actually a ''Go master'', explicitly comparing being a leader to placing pieces on the board.

* HorsemenOfTheApocalypse: DeVore's doing, as he invades.

** It's revealed in one of the redone novels that it was due to the collapse of a heavily-digitized world economy TwentyMinutesInTheFuture followed by full-scale war, shattering societies around the globe. [[spoiler:And it's also heavily implied that the Chinese instigated the whole thing to facilitate their eventual takeover. The reader will be further confused by the idea that it was ''all'' DeVore's fault, as stated in ''Marriage of the Living Dark''.]]

* EvilAlbino: Although not ''evil'' as such, Stefan Lehmann is merciless in achieving his goals, and doesn't hesitate to kill innocents when needed. To his underlings he appears to be without emotions.

* DomedHometown

* TheFettered: Marshal Knut Tolonen

* IDidWhatIHadToDo

* KickTheDog

* MadArtist: Ben Shepherd makes excellent drawings but often with disturbing symbolism; this is due to being highly intelligent and also schizophrenic

* PenalColony: The convenient use for the levels in the Net

* RichBitch: Ebert
* RoyalBrat: Also Ebert

* ScienceFiction: On the hard side of the trope

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Yes, Ebert again

* SinisterSurveillance

* SpaceAmish: The Osu

* TheUnfettered: Howard deVore and Stefan Lehmann

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Emily and Mach.

* WrongSideOfTheTracks: Those born in the Net

* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: Especially true for the ''Ping Tiao'' and ''Yu'' rebels, for whom the morality of their actions becomes a big issue both within and without the group

* UsefulNotes/WhyMaoChangedHisName: Chung Kuo is the obsolescent Wade-Giles romanization of 中国. Modern pinyin would be Zhōngguó. Wingrove does at least usually get his Wade-Giles right, including the all-important (and not at all [[DecorativeApostrophe decorative) apostrophe]].

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: And DeVore is a special kind of rapist.

The series was reissued from 2010 to 2014 including two new prequels and a plan for a total of twenty volumes. After ''TheWhiteMountain'' was published as volume 8, however, the publishers stated that poor sales were the reason for releasing no more.[[http://www.ofgiftsandstones.com/past-present-and-future/]] As of 2015 there is no further news of reissued Chung Kuo books.
[[http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2Q06G7L6A0RKZ/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp]]
Wingrove has issued short stories on the website ''Of Gifts and Stones''.[[http://www.ofgiftsandstones.com/]]

* AlternativeCalendar

* CulturalPosturing: ''"Three thousand years of unbroken civilisation - that was the heritage of the Han. Against that these large-nosed foreigners could claim what? Six centuries of chaos and ill-discipline."''

** Also the norm for all members of the High and Low Families
* ArtificialHuman: Servants created by the Gen Syn Corporation
* ATasteOfTheLash: Being a maid to a sadistic prince has its disadvantages, as Little Bee discovers
* AttemptedRape: Really not the right trope to try on Jelka

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Both the Council of Seven and the European rebels have their good and bad sides

* YouFailBiologyForever: GenSyn's "ox-men" have huge penes and love sex. In fact, oxen are castrated bulls.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: A ColonyDrop occurs and exterminates hundreds of millions in City North America, but we're shown almost none of it. The question of how anyone on the planet survived a catastrophe of this magnitude is ignored. Later, ''ninety percent'' of the people of City Europe die, and the city falls, and it's brushed off in one or two lines, and we're back to Li Yuan's court intrigue.

** It's revealed in one of the redone novels that it was due to the collapse of a heavily-digitized world economy TwentyMinutesInTheFuture followed by full-scale war, shattering societies around the globe. [[spoiler:And it's also heavily implied that the Chinese instigated the whole thing to facilitate their eventual takeover.]]

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil

* BuryYourGays: Edmund Wyatt is bisexual and taken to a brothel where he sires Kim; he has male lovers and is later killed. Likewise, An Sheng is gay and is a traitor who is later killed. The joke that Haaviko or Hans Ebert are gay is taken as insulting. More than once, threats of buggery are used as torture, and I Ye, an evil creep, rapes men and boys routinely as sadistic torture. Chu Po, another of Pei Kung's creeps, is an evil bisexual. In fact, ancient Chinese society was quite relaxed on the point of bisexuality.

The series was reissued from 2010 to 2014 including two new prequels and a plan for a total of twenty volumes. After ''TheWhiteMountain'' was published as volume 8, however, the publishers stated that poor sales were the reason for releasing no more. As of 2015 there is no further news of reissued Chung Kuo books.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: A ColonyDrop occurs and exterminates hundreds of millions in City North America, but we're shown almost none of it. The question of how anyone on the planet survived a catastrophe of this magnitude is ignored.

The series was reissued from 2010 to 2014 including two new prequels and a plan for a total of twenty volumes. After ''TheWhiteMountain'' was published as volume 8, however, the publishers stated that poor sales were the reason for releasing no more. As of February 2015 there is no further news of reissued Chung Kuo books.

* BuryYourGays: Edmund Wyatt is bisexual and taken to a brothel where he sires Kim; he has male lovers and is later killed. Likewise, An Sheng is gay and is a traitor who is later killed. The joke that Haaviko or Hans Ebert are gay is taken as insulting. In fact, ancient Chinese society was quite relaxed on the point of bisexuality.

* BilingualBonus: Though you have to be able to read Mandarin in Wade-Giles romanization to benefit. This borders on the obnoxious: tea is always referred to as ''cha'', and when a character is called "lao jen", when means simply "old man", why not use English?

* UnfortunateImplications: Many, many cases. Just one is the existence of "half-men" called "hei" ("blacks") used as soldiers to quell riots. In a world where black and brown ''people'' are "extinct".