Back to Charon

Back to Charon is the second half of Hao Jingfang's "Mars Story," which together with The Wandering Marius forms a complete novel (in 2016 the two books were combined and published as The Wandering Sky by Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House; this volume is its latter half). The story takes place more than a century later: humanity has colonized Mars and fought a war of independence against Earth; thereafter Mars and Earth cut off all contact, forming two divergent worlds—Mars, where resources are highly shared and rules strictly enforced, resembles a solemn, magnificent city under a glass dome, where everything given and received is an obligation; Earth, by contrast, is fully marketized, scattered and chaotic, and life itself is the whole meaning. A group of youngsters born on Mars, sent to study on Earth at thirteen and returning to Mars at eighteen, are shaped in turn by both worlds, their fates caught between two mutually distrustful sides. The protagonist, Luo Ying, is the daughter of the Mars governor Hans; after returning home with companions Ludi, Rui Ni, Ji'er, Solin, Hans, and others, she begins to ask what home means: how this nation came into being from nothing, by what mechanism it operates, why it developed into today's monolithic system, and what its past revolution and future path might be. Through refusal and confrontation they inch toward the truth of history, make choices driven by their inner selves, and witness the collapse of the glass world and the arrival of a new era. The whole book is about how a young person's lifelong questioning begins.