bobquasit | Burn This Book

I love books. But for the third time in my life I've come across a book that I have been seriously tempted to burn.

The book is Chung Kuo by David Wingrove. The blurb on the cover compares him to Frank Herbert, and some fan reviews on Amazon say the same thing. But the truth is he's not fit to kiss the ass of Brian Herbert - and if you've read my review of one of Brian Herbert's books, you'll know that I couldn't say anything worse about any so-called "writer". Or human being, for that matter.

I won't go into details. Suffice it to say that this is book by yet another sick fuck of a "writer" who apparently likes sex-torture a LOT, and inflicts it on his readers. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to rate this piece of shit as a "1" on Amazon.

Update: I couldn't resist writing a review, although I'll doubtless be attacked on Amazon for it.

Absolutely Vile - AVOID!!!

After I read this book I wanted to scrub out my brain.

Why? Because of the many thousands of books that I've read in my life, Chung Kuo was the sickest and most vile. I'm open-minded, but Mr. Wingrove's joy in sex-torture is truly sociopathic. Words fail me.

This was the worst book I've ever read in my life. I can only assume that those who compare Wingrove to Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert (as the blurb on the back suggests) have never READ Asimov or Frank Herbert. Either that, or they are seriously, seriously confused. And I'm being charitable in my choice of words.

Wingrove is a mediocre stylist, his characters are all unappealing and flat, and the plot is awkward at best. But all of that is secondary. This is simply a vile book, and I hope that anyone considering it will move on to something better - such as the Foundation or Dune series (with the caveat that the Dune series should NOT be considered to include anything written by Frank Herbert's talentless son Brian). Or, if you really want to read Chinese- or Asian-themed fiction, why not read the wonderful science fiction of Cordwainer Smith? I'd also recommend the ancient China fantasies of Barry Hughart. James Clavell's Shogun is also far superior to the execrable Chung Kuo.

Life is far too short to read a twisted piece of garbage like this.

I wonder if Amazon will even post this review? I'll have to wait for a week or so and check.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Are you online?

I was out at a birthday party; just got home. But I have a splitting headache, so I'll probably be going to sleep soon.

Gee, according to Wikipedia it's a series of books, actually. I gather you won't be reading any of the others? :)

The article implies a "Chinese based culture Bad, Western based culture Good" theme which could be lame, but says nothing about sexual stuff. Now, near as I can tell, and perhaps a bit oddly (considering my background), I see to actually be more tolerant of this stuff that you; as I recall you didn't manage to finish The Postman because of something in the book that I didn't really much notice. I wonder a bit what the offensive aspect here was.

Yes, it's a series, and no, I won't be reading any more of it - nor anything else by that author, ever.

I wonder a bit what the offensive aspect here was.

I'll tell you. But I'll throw it behind an LJ-cut to protect those who will be offended by it. I'll also throw in a lot of blank lines ahead of it, because I'm afraid that it might be emailed to

aurora_lamour since she commented on this thread.

WARNING: Behind this cut I am going to explain exactly why Chung Kuo offended me. The details of sex-torture are EXTREMELY offensive. Don't read this if you're likely to be upset by it. I was.

aurora_lamour, if you're getting this by email, I urge you to STOP READING NOW. This isn't kinky. It's sick, sick, sick.

In the book, a poor man and his wife steal food in order to give it to some starving peasants. The overseer (a major character in the book) gets evidence of their theft on tape. The penalty for theft is death.

The overseer tells the man to send him his wife to spend the night with him - if she pleases him, he might give her the tape.

She goes to him. He rapes her anally - which she apparently enjoys, because her husband is sexually inadequate - and then spends the rest of the night cutting new holes in her body to fuck. When she comes back to her husband the next day with the tape, she has been sliced open from her navel to the base of her backbone, and then crudely stitched up again after.

From the text it seemed clear that something else terrible was about to happen - probably a murder-suicide, lovingly described by that sick fuck of an author - but that's where I stopped reading it (forever), and the book is now sitting on my garbage can. I'm torn between recycling it and burning it.

There. Was that an adequate reason to hate that fucking book?

Okay, this is a bit odd; I'm pretty sure I've actually read about that in a review in one of the mags although I don't recall much else about the review or specifically that it was this book. And yes, that's disgusting and way beyond what I expected.

Hmm, there are circumstances when pretty gross stuff is legitimate in a story. However, the big issue is whether the grossness is in for titillation or for legitimate plot reasons. There has been of late a lot of "torture porn" in certain movies of late, and it is surely there for the gross-out and for people who get off on that kind of thing. A writer really has to consider just why they're putting stuff like that in, and not do it unless it is really needed and appropriate for the storyline.

I looked for reviews online for the book and noticed one that mentioned torture and rape in the storyline, but mainly seemed to have problems with the writing and that it was kind of "Yellow Peril SF."

To my surprise someone commented on my review - positively. I expected some hate mail, and to have my review marked as "not useful" by many users, but I didn't expect a positive comment by someone else who reviewed it immediately after I did and had the exact same reaction to it. In fact, s/he threw the book out!

Here's my comment back to him/her:

By an odd coincidence my copy is sitting on top of my trash can right now. I've never damaged or thrown away a book in my life, even the few that I've disliked intensely, but in this case I'll make an exception.

My wife suggested recycling it, but my first reaction was that someone, particularly some kid, might pick it out of the bin - and I couldn't allow that.

It's a sad commentary on modern publishing that Mr. Wingrove has had eleven books published, while truly talented, wonderful writers like Barry Hughart have been forced out of the field by abusive publishers.

I think that Chung Kuo is best described as torture-porn with a flavoring of poorly-written science fiction and pretensions of chinoiserie. The only writer I can think of who comes close to matching Wingrove's vileness is Jack Chalker, although I recall one or two books in the Wild Cards series which showed a similar delight in torture/murder porn.

The ironic thing is that I've spent my life decrying censorship. I'm proud to own (and frequently read) books which have been banned across the world. But the difference is that those books - books like Catch-22, The Catcher In The Rye, Huckleberry Finn, A Confederacy of Dunces, and the Dangerous Visions anthology - are actually good (or great) literature. Whereas Chung Kuo is just crap, on every level.

Burn This Book

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