[fatman13gg]

--Spoiler alert---

After reading the first chapter and beginning of the second chapter, to me, it seems not a good piece at all. They had the technology of building a folding city for god sake, yet the protagonist is doing some heavy labor dealing with the city's trash. You would imagine such work would long have been automated. Actually, this always has been a problem when I read sci-fi story, some setting are just fabricated to make the plot more emotional but never really fit the common sense of, at least to me, the development of technology.

I certainly hope this whole Chinese writer winning an award wasn't some political move to attract attention.

[ZeroGravitas]

Oh the irony, you really should have finished reading before commenting, as this is very explicitly addressed in the story. It could be argued that this is exactly what makes it realistic or at least provides verisimilitude.

[fatman13gg]

Okay. I just finished reading the whole thing. Still a lot of the things don't add up. A lot of the things don't feel right. I can't put it into exact word. But in the link provided by rabboRubble (https://read.douban.com/reader/ebook/20769128/), it seems that most reasonable Chinese sci-fi readers think the story is lame if you read the top review. And that's about how I feel.

--Spoiler Alert--

The whole story actually doesn't seem to have anything to do with sci-fi at all. The plot is evolving around a man delivering letter? What? Is it in Victorian or is it in the future? All sci-fi elements are just stuffed in there and has no actual meat. I think for a good sci-fi, the author should first think through what technology exists in that world and then develop story that is confined to the setting. Not like this story which sci-fi only served as some convenient facts for author to exploit reader's emotion.

Edit.

And wow... thanks for all the down votes, guys. Hope all you've down voted read the whole folding BJ already.

[rossitter]

> thanks for all the down votes, guys

This may be why:

First you described a defect in the story. But you claim such defects have "always been a problem" in science fiction. So this story is unsatisfying to you in company with a slew of other works, many of which will have been award winners.

Then you speculated that this particular story might have won an award only because it was Chinese, as if the other finalists are likely to have been better. Yet you've made it clear that you wouldn't expect them to be. So your initial criticism, that the story falls short as so much of science fiction does, gives way to a criticism of this peculiar story--but you have only singled it out for being written by a Chinese author. So, it is ordinarily bad, yes; but it is particularly bad for being Chinese.

I do not think you meant it like that, but that is certainly how you wrote it.

As for the premise of this and similar stories: It is commonly held that technological advancement disproportionately benefits the ruling classes, while the workers are made to grind away as usual, life having been little altered. This line of thought may vary in intensity and nuance with place and regime. "Folding Beijing" and many stories like it draw up a simplified world--all fictive worlds are simplified--in which this tenet rings particularly true. Probably the author intends to play with a view on our world as it is, or that part of it which she is most concerned with. Certainly she wants to lay hold of a reader's emotion, to keep them reading (we do not all share your desires in speculative fiction): who does not care about what their own lot may become, or the lots of their neighbors? We may even feel this way when our lots are presented figuratively, as in a world that looks a little too close to our own for being so different--or a little too different for being so clearly our own. Many of us are weak for this sort of thing. But I think it's disingenuous to claim that such a story only does this. It may not serve the function you want it to; but then, if you're used to that in science fiction, you should be expecting it any time you see the label.

(If you want to know, I personally thought this one dull, but I feel that way about a lot of science fiction, too.)

[fatman13gg]

> But you claim such defects have "always been a problem" in science fiction.

I wasn't referring to sci-fi in general. I was talking about my personal experience. I specifically had "when I read sci-fi story" in the original comment.

> So, it is ordinarily bad, yes; but it is particularly bad for being Chinese.

Yes, all politics behind this particular piece winning the award is my speculation, but I wasn't saying that "it is particularly bad for being Chinese". It would be hard for someone who doesn't familiar with Chinese netizen culture to comprehend such speculation. Go through comment section of the link provided by rabboRubble (https://read.douban.com/reader/ebook/20769128/). Like PR measures described in "Century of the self", <Folding BJ> is covered a lot in the news and planting fabricated idea among certain groups. Most reasonable Chinese sci-fi readers come to the same speculation as me (top review/most voted) while other lesser minds fail to see it, thus the chaos in comment section mentioned in the above link.

[blacksmith_tb]

Given that F/SF is often considered to be about the present (a la Disch, Gibson, etc.), I would say that the device of delivering a letter is just a foil for the social commentary of the story, which clearly is not a prediction about the future of Beijing but a commentary on social stratification today.

[pyrale]

> They had the technology of building a folding city for god sake, yet the protagonist is doing some heavy labor dealing with the city's trash.

Yeah, not very realistic. Much like "They had the food to feed everyone, but they left people starve". Or "They had enough wealth to provide free health care, but they left people untreated". They have to stop making stories about ridiculous ideology taking over when, litterally, people never fall for such things.