''The Waste Tide'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by the Chinese writer

Chen Qiufan Chen Qiufan (; born 1981), also known as Stanley Chan, is a Chinese science fiction writer, columnist, and scriptwriter. His first novel was '' The Waste Tide'', which "combines realism with allegory to present the hybridity of humans and machine ...

. It is the debut novel by the writer.

Writing background

The story takes place in the imaginary ''Silicon Isle''. The Chinese word ''硅屿'' for Silicon Isle shares a similar pronunciation with Guiyu (Chinese: 贵屿) in

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

. In the real world,

Guiyu Guiyu may refer to: *''Guiyu oneiros'' (鬼鱼), extinct bony fish *Guiyu (town) Guiyu () is a Towns of China, town created from an agglomerate of four adjoined villages totalling 150,000 people in the Chaoyang District, Shantou, Chaoyang distric ...

is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

in the

Shantou Shantou, alternately romanized as Swatow and sometimes known as Santow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong, China, with a total population of 5,502,031 as of the 2020 census (5,391,028 in 2010) and an administrative ...

prefecture A prefecture (from the Latin ''Praefectura'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain international ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

province in China. And it is

where

was born and grew up before he entered

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

. Situated on the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

coast,

got famous in the global

environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

community for its reception of E-waste. The town held the record for being the largest E-waste site up to 2013. Though some residents got rich by electronic recycling, pollution became serious in the town. Talking about the background of writing the novel, Chen said: ''Choosing my hometown as background to write the story, is related to my thinking of China. To depict the pain of changing China, is just because I desire for she getting better gradually.''

Setting

''The Waste Tide'' depicts a

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

n China in the post-2020 era. In the Guiyu island, the large electronic recycle industries are in full control of local lineage associations. The laborers who undertake dangerous work for the profit of the Chinese and foreign businessmen who employ them are depicted not as humans, but cyborgs whose bodies and minds have been altered permanently through

bio-engineering Biological engineering or bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically-viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number o ...

Plot

Mimi is a 'waste girl', a member of the lowest caste on Silicon Isle. Located off China's southeastern coast, Silicon Isle is the global capital for

electronic waste recycling Computer recycling, electronic recycling or e-waste recycling is the disassembly and separation of components and raw materials of waste electronics. Although the procedures of re-use, donation and repair are not strictly recycling, these are oth ...

, where thousands of people like Mimi toil day and night, hoping that one day they too will get to enjoy the wealth they've created for their employers, the three scrap families who have ruled the isle for generations. It all changes when a ship bearing a dangerous cargo arrives at Silicon Isle. What looks like normal e-waste, is actually infected by a virus born out of one of the darkest episodes of WWII, Project Waste Tide. In a fateful accident, Mimi is infected by the virus and becomes the host for an omniscient consciousness, hell-bent on righting all the wrongs that have been done to her people. A class war ignites, one that draws in environmental extremists and waste workers, and involves family feuds and darker conspiracies.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Waste Tide 2013 Chinese novels 2013 science fiction novels Chinese science fiction novels Cyberpunk literature Dystopian novels Novels set on islands Novels set in the future Novels set in China 2013 debut novels