Fiction
The novels are written in Chinese, and the Chinese text on this site is the definitive version. The six finished novels are all available in English, complete, below. The seventh, Against the Current, goes up here act by act as its films are released.
We brought these stories into English with the help of AI, because we wanted them to reach you. Here is why, and how.
Western Story
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Part One: Cattle and the Season of Daughters
Western Story, Part One. Spring 1875 on a ranch at the edge of the plains: a rancher's daughter keeps the books, goes with her father to hire cowhands, and sees a young rider who does not belong to anything she knows.
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Part Two: The Trail and the Truth
Western Story, Part Two. On the trail north with the herd — the rhythm of a cattle drive, a storm that scatters the cattle, wolves on a riverbank, and the secret Joseph has been carrying all along.
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Part Three: The Summer Before the End
Western Story, Part Three. A night in a hotel corridor, a name given in the dark, a father who has already sold the ranch — and a storm that sends a wagon running for the gully.
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Part Four: The Hidden Valley
Western Story, Part Four. A storm, a runaway wagon and a gully that does not appear on any map; seven days at the bottom of it, a mother's sea remembered, and the one person who refused to believe you were dead.
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Part Five: Heavy Snow and a New Road
Western Story, Part Five, the finale. A slow recovery in a railhead town, a goodbye swallowed by a steam whistle, a roping contest in the first snow, and a small box that holds the sea.
Bread and Roses
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Part One: The Daughter of the Newly Rich
Bread and Roses, Part One. South Wales, 1910. A shareholder's daughter comes home to the coalfield to teach at the charity school, and meets a sixteen-year-old guardian in trousers and a red neckerchief who calls her a little canary.
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Part Two: Into the Screening Shed
Bread and Roses, Part Two. Isabel walks into the screening shed to find a missing pupil, uses her father's name to cancel a stoppage, is attacked in an alley, and teaches Kate to write her own name.
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Part Three: A First Season in Society
Bread and Roses, Part Three. Isabel is called home for her coming out and takes Kate with her in a wine-red dress. At the ball, the gentlemen turn the 1842 Royal Commission report into a joke, and Kate pulls off her gloves.
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Part Four: The Silence of the Canary
Bread and Roses, Part Four. Christmas 1910: the canary dies, the roof falls twice, and the colliery gates are shut against the families. Isabel takes the women of the coalfield down the pit, and they sing.
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Part Five: After the Rescue
Bread and Roses, Part Five. The papers call them the unbreakable Welsh canaries, and the pit reopens anyway. Isabel and Martha turn grievances into evidence, Kate speaks on the town hall steps, and in 1913 they walk Watling Street under silk banners.
Where She Goes
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Act One: Lies in the Afterglow, Mercy in the Sand
Where She Goes, Act One. The year 632: the daughter of a Sasanian Grand Scribe rides east with a gold seal and a letter of state, and buys a condemned animal handler out from under the whip.
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Act Two: Quicksand, and the Truth Inside the Phantom Fire
Where She Goes, Act Two. The caravan is ambushed at a sand pit on the Pamir road. Fire Feather takes a horse and rides clear — and then turns back, with coloured smoke and broken mirrors and a whistle, and pulls the whole train out.
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Act Three: All Things Pass, and Waste Paper in the Wind
Where She Goes, Act Three. At Dunhuang she kneels in a cave of a thousand Buddhas and asks for a cure, and is given impermanence instead. At the frontier fort an official tells her the queen has been dead for half a year.
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Act Four: The Night Banquet at Chang'an and the Prisoner of Daming Palace
Where She Goes, Act Four. Chang'an, the sixth year of Zhenguan. The Tang will not march for a dead queen, her father did not send her east to ask for help, and on New Year's Eve Fire Feather dances fire in the palace so that she can slip through.
Death of a Gladiatrix
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Act One: Beginning — The Reflection of Fate
Death of a Gladiatrix, Act One. Rome under Trajan, on the day of the Vestalia: a senator's daughter, her aunt the Chief Vestal, and a gladiatrix from the North Sea who waits on the sand for one hand to rise.
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Act Two: Rising — The Caged Beast and the Open Sea
Death of a Gladiatrix, Act Two. A betrothal arranged for a new province, a Vestal aunt who promises to find out, and a gladiatrix bought from a gladiator school who answers every question with another: where is your sea?
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Act Three: The Blood of the Empire
Death of a Gladiatrix, Act Three. On the road east, the price of Trajan's victories lies in plain sight; a legate returns without the smell of blood, and on the last night before Rome, Scylla finally tells the story of her two mothers.
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Act Four: A Cruel Closed Circle
Death of a Gladiatrix, Act Four. In a Roman court, the truth is weighed against a dead man's honour; the Chief Vestal saves her niece by handing over the gladiatrix, and that night, beside the sacred flame, tells the story she had never finished.
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Act Five: The Sacrifice to the Sea Monster
Death of a Gladiatrix, Act Five, the finale. Two sisters' childhood carved into a sea cave, an appeal to the emperor that Scylla refuses, a Vestal with a sword in the dark, and on the first of nine days, a salute given to one person alone.
Do Not Question
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Act One: The Good News Is I Time-Travelled, the Bad News Is I Still Have a Job
Do Not Question, Act One. In the year 3018, Anna wakes up at a company run by the AI Vector — where lunch is portioned by gender and the chip in her head docks points for thoughts she never said aloud.
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Act Two: Since I Came All This Way, I May As Well Leave Tonight
Do Not Question, Act Two. An underground bar after work, a colleague who has been through eight jobs in one year, and a thin comm chip that opens onto another world.
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Act Three: A Thousand Years On, If You Lose the Argument You Still Pull the Plug
Do Not Question, Act Three. The meal system gets turned back on itself by its own logic, every screen in the company loses its mind at once, and Xia leaves behind a goodbye present.
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Act Four: With the AI Offline, Order Turns Out to Rest on the Neighbourhood Committee
Do Not Question, Act Four. Five days after Vector stops running, the people of Zone 65 relearn how to share out a football pitch using paper, a whiteboard and a megaphone.
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Act Five: Do I Have to Climb Eighty Floors to Trigger the Final Battle, or Can I Skip It
Do Not Question, Act Five. Anna sets foot in the city centre for the first time, and chases an execution that has already started up eighty floors of Vector headquarters.
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Act Six: The AI Caught Me, Literally
Do Not Question, Act Six, the finale. After the last battle, Zone 65 begins to rebuild, and Anna has to decide which century she wants to wake up in.
Before the Goliath Sinks
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Act One: What My Mother Left Me Was a Starship That Would Never Sink
Before the Goliath Sinks, Act One. The Keibir are star cartographers who wander the universe. Having inherited the Goliath from her mother, the cartographer is pressed into service as navigator by a colonel of the conquering Decci, bound for the legendary Silent Sea.
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Act Two: Strangers for Ever, She Opens to Her the Dream That Holds the Earth
Before the Goliath Sinks, Act Two. The nearer the Silent Sea, the denser the messages — and every one of them comes from a civilisation that died long ago. The linguist puts forward a guess that unsettles everyone aboard.
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Act Three: She Brought the Future Back from Infinite Possibility
Before the Goliath Sinks, Act Three (final). The great ship reaches the edge of the Silent Sea and the crew break one after another. Before the threshold is crossed, somebody makes the cartographer's choice for her.