Shelf Awareness: enlightenment for readers

Waste Tide
by Chen Qiufan
translated by Ken Liu

I first heard about Waste Tide at BookExpo and, weeks later, with my curiosity as piqued as ever, I finally got a copy to read. Chen Qiufan's novel is relentless--a sci-fi blockbuster with mob bosses, robots and a powerful virus. Its twists and thrills kept me gasping, but what's stuck with me long after finishing is its salient depiction of ecological calamity boiling over from a disparaged pocket of the globe. "The issues Chinese science fiction is confronting are issues we're all facing," editor Lindsey Hall told me later, "and Waste Tide feels like an urgent, important read." Those urgent questions of environmental corrosion and dubious financial influences both domestic and foreign make this feel far more than speculative--it's downright prescient. --Dave Wheeler, associate editor, Shelf Awareness

(Tor Books, $26.99 hardcover, 9780765389312, April 30, 2019)