Chung Kuo
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Chung Kuo is a series of science-fiction novels written by David Wingrove. The novels are set in a future world.
As the story goes, in 2043, the United States President is assassinated, coinciding with a devastating stock market crash which destroys most of the worlds economies except China. Under a dictator named Tsao Chun, the Chinese invade Korea and Japan. Based on experience from this, they will then create a globe-spanning city of hexagonal segments one kilometre across, allowing nothing in that is not Chinese. The servants of the dictator, a group of political scholars called 'the Thousand Eyes' then rewrite history, so that it seems as if China has always been the centre of the world. Then, in 2087, Tsao Chun is killed by his advisors, each of whom takes a continent, and calls himself T'ang, or king.
For a century, peace and prosperity are apparent, and the T'angs are happy. Then, a government Minister is assassinated by the Dispersionists, a faction who want mankind to colonize the stars. Instantly, the T'angs hit back, blowing up their spaceship and imprisoning their leader.
As the plot continues, the villain becomes a man called Howard Devore. A former major in the government's security forces, he uses rebel groups to further his end, the annihilation of the human race.
By the end of the series, Devore has become an immortal deep-space spider creature (an Eddirudimanu), and has died by the hand of a wei chi master named Tuan Ti Fo, also an Eddirudimanu. The entire cast is by now busy colonising a planet orbiting Eridani. Their general outlook for the future is hopeful, and, having learned from the depredations of the series, are trying to construct a world in which people do not fear. On the very last page, they decide to change the calendar, to represent a clean break.
Books
- The Middle Kingdom
- The Broken Wheel
- The White Mountain
- The Stone Within
- Beneath the Tree of Heaven
- White Moon, Red Dragon
- Days of Bitter Strength
- The Marriage of the Living Dark
Chung Kuo is also the title of a 1972 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
Chung-Kuo is the Wade-Giles transliteration of the Chinese word for China.