Vagabonds

By: Hao Jingfang, Ken Liu - translator

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

A century after the Martian war of independence, a group of kids is sent to Earth as delegates from Mars, but when they return home, they are caught between the two worlds, unable to reconcile the beauty and culture of Mars with their experiences on Earth in this "thoughtful debut" (Kirkus Reviews) from Hugo Award-winning author Hao Jingfang.

This genre-bending novel is set on Earth in the wake of a second civil war...not between two factions in one nation, but two factions in one solar system: Mars and Earth. In an attempt to repair increasing tensions, the colonies of Mars send a group of young people to live on Earth to help reconcile humanity. But the group finds itself with no real home, no friends, and fractured allegiances as they struggle to find a sense of community and identity trapped between two worlds.

©2020 Hao Jingfang (P)2020 Simon & Schuster

different

this is a thoughtful somewhat abstract story. think I need to listen to it again to be sure I am understanding what it has to say. maybe 5 or 6 times more!

Interesting but not mature

The first 1/4 is really great. The last 1/8 is incredibly mature writing.

great narrator, dull story

First of all: Emily Woo Zeller is a national treasure and gives another perfect performance.
Despite that, I had problems finishing this book. Everything is resolved with so little attention from the writer, that if you zone out for 5 seconds you risk just missing the resolution.
There are at least 3 or 4 stories in here which all kinda just blends into the next.

There is a lot of east vs west symbolism, and it's very obvious throughout, although the author doesn't really reveal any personal preference until maybe the last third/half of the book.

The production gives very little pause between scene transitions, so a character can be in one place doing one thing one minute, and the next second they're in a completely different place doing something else, with almost no pause in the narration.

spoilers ahead:

This is a story with very little structure. we're early introduced to two characters who meet and form a kind of bond, then one of them just leaves and has nothing to do with the last half of the book.

the early conflict is resolved without any kind of climax, the second conflict as well. It seems like there could be a good special event tv series in here if each of the "mysteries", or whatever you wanna call them, was given time and proper endings, but everything just kinda fades away and then the book is over.

Great reading performance and great story

Fantastic story. Thanks also to the translator.

For a sci-fi book, the characters were even better than the story.

Very slow

There were some tough parts to narrate, to be sure, but she did a great job overall.

The book itself though, woooh. Tough read. I generally am one to force myself to finish what I start and this one was a slogfest. The cadence was very strange, the story quite superficial and the characters very drab. Seemed to have political undertones, without actually outright stating it.

Not recommended. Sorry.

Exceptional thoughts and concepts

In this crisp, but poetically expressed futuristic story, we are able to examine not only the real possibilities of human migration to other planets but also to truly query human motivation, evolution, and all the complexities of utopic and dystopic societies.
The solid science used to describe the Mars habitat allows one to engage fully in the reality of the story and appreciate the beauty and effectiveness of possible technologies, while also following the anxious unfolding of ideological and political struggles in a totally new environment. The listener is gently but inexorably drawn into the debate and encouraged to explore his or her own approach to humanity and society. It is a wonderful listen, as I am sure it is an exceptional read. The narrator captures every nuance, allowing the reader to assimilate the intriguing story while keeping the pace even and compelling.

Poetic SciFi

Pleasantly surprised by the scope and grandeur of this book. Especially gratified by the way Hao handled hope and loss. Well worth the time invested.

Emily Zoo Weller is a very good narrator.

I've seen some negative reviews of Emily Zoo Weller's narration. Usually I just don't comment on baseless negative reviews because it's unlikely that discussion on this topic will change anybody's mind. But this criticism is so baseless it kind of irks me.

I've listened to multiple books narrated by Emily Zoo Weller. I've selected books narrated by Emily Zoo Welder just because I know for sure at least the narration will be good. Her narration is always consistent with the given material. She's expressive but if anything it tends to be closer to understated than overstated.

I enjoyed Vagabonds. For me it was an interesting story drawing some interesting points of view and evolving character arcs.

However, the writing has a lot of rather dry third person narration and kind of dry conversation. Exactly the kind of story that doesn't map at all to the criticism of Emily Zoo Weller's narration.

I just don't see any credibility in criticism at all. None.

Immersive, Thoughtful SF about Society and Self

Vagabonds (2016) by Hao Jingfang begins in the year 2190 on earth, the year 40 on Mars, forty years after Mars won a war of independence from earth, David defeating Goliath (in the present of the novel, Mars has 20 million people to earth’s 20 billion). Ever since, the two countries have been caught in a cold war with mutual suspicion and misunderstanding, earth seeing Mars as a dictatorship where people have no individual freedom and children are exploited for labor, Mars seeing earth as a selfish, corrupt capitalist dystopia where everything and everyone is for sale. As the novel opens, a Martian spaceship called Maearth is bringing a group of Martian youths home after their five-year study stay on earth and a group of Terran diplomats on a mission to work out a trade agreement with Mars.

Two of the most important point of view characters are Luoying Sloan and Eko Lu. Luoying is the dance student granddaughter of the Consul of Mars, Hans Sloan. She experiences reverse culture shock upon her return to Mars, seeing her culture through the lens of her five years on earth, making it difficult to fit back into Mars or to view either world’s system as idyllic or dystopic. She begins asking questions like why her parents were punished when she was a little girl, leading to their deaths in a mining accident; whether her grandfather is, as the Terrans say, a dictator; why she was chosen to join the group of students sent to Earth; and how she can live on Mars while chafing at limitations she didn’t notice before.

Eko is a Terran film maker visiting Mars for the first time. He realizes that he is seeing Mars through the critical lens of Terran culture when he thinks that the transparent glass walls of his hotel room reveal the comprehensive surveillance of the compliant Martian citizenry but then learns that glass is the main building material on Mars and that he can make his walls opaque with the turn of a switch. Eko starts asking questions like why did his recently deceased teacher Arthur Davosky’s short visit to Mars turn into a stay of years, why did he return to earth after staying on Mars for so long, why did his teacher’s friend (who is also Eko’s patron), the influential businessman Thomas Theon, recommend that Eko talk to Luoying about his documentary on Mars, what kind of film can he make about Mars that will tell the truth while satisfying both cultures, and what kind of films did his teacher make on Mars.

The first part of the novel features chapters alternating between Luoying and Eko with titles for settings on Mars (e.g., The Hotel, Home, The Film Archive). The second part of the novel is made of Luoying point of view chapters with titles for things on Mars (e.g., Membrane, Sand, Rock). The third part features chapters alternating between the points of view of multiple characters of interest with titles for their names, Luoying, her young friends (including those who stayed on Mars and those who went with her to earth), her ambitious brother Rudy, her solitary and philosophical mentor Dr. Reini, and her grandfather.

One of the impressive things in this book is how Hao Jingfeng eschews easy sentimentality and typical scenes and situations involving romance and familial relationships, handling them with restraint, so that it’s moving rather than corny.

Although Hao Jingfeng runs the threat of renewed war throughout her novel, she is not writing military fiction, so any bombs, battles, strategies, and casualties are only memories mentioned in passing. Readers who need plenty of violent action may be bored. That said, the trade negotiations between Mars and Earth are intense, because hawks on both sides are eager to find excuses to go to war, while political maneuverings between Martians who want to stay in their domed city or abandon it to live in an open-air crater assume great importance. And there are some suspenseful action scenes involving young Martians adventuring outside their city without permission or participating in a demonstration in Capital Square--will it turn into another Tiananmen Square event?

The novel engages with world culture, referencing Camus, Dostoyevsky, Tarkovsky, St. Exupery, etc. And there is plenty of wonder-inducing sf technology, though not as much as in the writing of, say, Iain Banks. The English translation by Ken Liu reads well. It has vivid, evocative descriptions, like “The western sun shown on the stern of the ship, casting a long shadow ahead of the hull on the yellow sand like a long black sword probing over the ground.”

The audiobook reader Emily Woo Zeller has a nice manner, voice, and pace, though perhaps her male voices are a bit too dramatically male.

Vagabonds is a bit like The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress if Heinlein’s novel took place forty years after the war of independence from earth, but it is more reminiscent of Le Guin’s sf like The Dispossessed and “Paradises Lost” in being thoughtful, imaginative, political, character-driven, and full of convincing extrapolation about human nature and society from a set of science fictional givens. Like the best sf, the novel effervesces with ideas: on cities, freedom, creativity, art, travel, cultural exchange, commerce, communication, language, history, dance, flight, fashion, memory, fate, love, relationships, social systems, etc. If it’s possible to see Martian society mirroring that of contemporary China, Terran that of America, Hao Jingfeng doesn’t choose which is “better.” Instead, she leaves it up to the reader to decide while suggesting that all societies have good and bad points because they’re made by people, and that after all the best thing we can do is to remain individuals while helping other individuals—and to remain perpetual vagabonds without any fixed address, ever visiting different cultures.

Someone please give Ms. Woo Zeller some feeback!

This is the third, and last, attempt at listening to this narrator. I really like this book, but the narrator ruined the audible version, thank the universe for Kindle.

If Ms. Woo Zeller just moderated her voice and stopped being so way over the top, I would actually like her voice. However, her renditions of most male characters makes me cringe, jump, or take the earbuds out all together, so, so, SO bad. And, she way exaggerates the drama with the female characters, almost crying with some, hyper whining with others. For me, absolutely impossible listen to, which sucks, she is chosen for some really good books and then ruins them for the listening.