Yan Ge

What at first seems a weird and fantastic compendium of various beasts from the fictional city of Yang’an, China quickly morphs into a tale that asks of its readers one of literature’s favorite queries, “What defines humanity?” Echoes abound from Shelley’s Frankenstein to Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go as the characters edge along the cosmic loneliness of merely existing, but Yan Ge crafts a wholly original novel that is self-aware without being gimmicky, and touching without being show more precious about it.

It will appeal to those looking for a wild ride into the strange, anyone interested in an off-kilter mystery, as well as those who like a multilayered story to contemplate long after reading. show less

In one Chinese city, a young woman who is an amateur cryptozoologist, is asked by a former professor if she would document and uncover the stories of the cities famed 'beasts" who have lived among humans. The beasts are very human-like (although they have green skin); female beasts can breed with human males, but male beasts cannot breed with any but their own kind. Our documenter, who describes each kind of beast in detail, begins with the "Sorrowful" beasts. Others are "Joyous". show more "Sacrificial", "Impasse" and "Thousand League" and so on.

[Strange Beasts of China] is a wonderful, intriguing and clever combination of fantasy and mystery. Like our intrepid amateur, we the readers are drawn deeper into the story and the mystery of these beasts. Are they some vestige from a human past? A mutation? Are we really one kind? There is something being suggested here and it made the story irresistible.

I thought the story muddied a bit near the end but it doesn’t take much away from the enjoyment of this fresh imaginative novel. show less

Such an odd collection of related stories: each chapter a tale told by a newspaper columnist about one sort of unusual quasi-human beast found in the industrial Chinese city of Yong’an. The beasts have evocative names like “heartsick beasts” and “returning beasts.” I suppose that, strictly speaking, this is fantasy, but I can’t help but feel that it’s more allegory than fantasy. No doubt due to my ignorance of Chinese culture, I found it fairly opaque in places, and I also show more found the first-person narrator’s sudden shifts in emotion and attitude rather alien and abrupt, which kept me from fully engaging with this intriguing book. I suspect it would improve with a second reading. show less

This is an odd book, though neat. I wonder how much of the oddity is due to the translation. I've heard that (among other things) the original work puts the intro & outro sections of each chapter (which has the parts about the beasts) in classical Chinese, while the main part of the narrative is in standard Chinese, giving a different tone to those sections. The only real difference in the English translation is to switch from third person to first person. It's a small difference, though, show more and I don't know how obvious it is to most readers. (I noticed it gradually over the first few chapters.)

There are a lot of graphic scenes in this book. I don't think they were meant for shock value, though, and I think some of the wording reflects cultural differences. For instance, at some points when the narrator is mad at someone, she will describe various actions she felt like doing, when I'm more used to "I wanted to slap / strangle him" being about the most intense we'd get in an English novel. It threw me at first, but I do think that is more of a cultural idiom choice than anything. There were plenty of other upsetting or gross scenes though, so if you're nervous about those be careful. CW: pregnancy, genocide, death, body horror, vomit, stalking

I did enjoy this novel a lot, though, and I'm glad I picked up the audiobook. (I always love Emily Woo Zeller's narration.) I think this is the first full SFF novel I've read that was translated from Chinese, and it's really interesting to see how fantastical creatures are used here—both as myths and as commentary on modern society. show less