A to Z Review: “Tongtong’s Summer,” by Xia Jia
The letter X provides us with our only duplicate author of the year, with a second story by Xia Jia, which, it should be noted, is the pen name used by Wang Yao. As with last week’s story, “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight,” Xia’s story “Tongtong’s Summer” also appears in Ken Liu’s anthology Invisible Planets. It was originally published in Chinese in 2014 in ZUI Novel and later that year was translated by Ken Liu for the Neil Clarke edited anthology Upgraded.
“Tongtong’s Summer” is a very different story than “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight.” While the other was a ghost tale that draws upon Chinese mythology, “Tongtong’s Summer” is a science fiction story about the impact of technology on individuals, particularly the aging.