Waste Tide

By Chen Qiufan, 

Translated by Ken Liu

(2012, translated 2019)

Tor Books

Science Fiction

Waste Tide is an ecologically-themed science fiction novel set in the near future on Silicon Isle, which appears to be located somewhere near Guangzhou and Hong Kong.  According to the novel’s lore, the island has been an agricultural area for centuries. In the 1980s it flourished briefly during modernization, but in the end, a vicious exploitation of the land and the people led to an economic collapse. Those who survived the crash reinvented the island as a large-scale waste processing plant. Several clans rule over the toxic landscape, manipulating trade, fighting amongst themselves, and hounding the impoverished migrants who live amid towering piles of electronic waste. The poorest of the poor process the toxic refuse of first and second-world countries using their bare hands, releasing rare earth metals from junk using a nightmarish collection of acids and cancer-causing chemicals. The most dangerous and profitable objects to recycle are the electronic prostheses favored by the Western elites, who are forever in pursuit of the next new variety of body modification: electronic eyes, ears, noses, arms, and legs, etc. Drug use is rampant across all social classes, and the latest is killing scores of people who are trying to experience its hallucinogenic properties. The island’s order is compromised when a shipment of prostheses modified by arms manufacturers winds up on Silicon Isle. Spies from competing governments and corporations are inserted into the island, challenging and disrupting alliances between local warlords. A cult-like leader emerges with a plan to unite the island’s workers, and a young girl becomes the obsession of many men. The novel is a mash-up of several genres. It is a techno-thriller with next-level hacking and mob-like Distributed Denial of Service attacks. Organized crime and government agents hover trade shots across the open sewer of the island. There are also moments where Chen speaks beautifully of the indigenous practices of divination, which might be drowned out by the invention or birth of the device that brings order to this world–a cross-breeding of a weapon and a human soul.

“The greatest hope cherished by the people of Silicon Isle is to see their children leave this place, the farther the better. We’re old and can’t shift from our familiar nests, but the young are different. They’re blank sheets of paper, full of potential for new pictures. This island has no hope. The air, the water, the soil, and the people have been immersed in trash for too long. Sometimes you can no longer even tell what’s trash and what’s not in our lives. We rely on waste to feed our families, to grow rich. But the more money we make, the worse the environment becomes. It’s like we are holding on to a rope looped around our necks. The harder we pull, the less we can breathe. But if we let go, we’ll fall into the bottomless pit below and drown.”