The Strange Sea

The Strange Sea is a science fiction novel by the writer She Congge (real name Xu Yufeng) and won the Silver Award for Best Novel at the 4th Global Chinese Science Fiction Nebula Awards. The story is set in the 1980s: a soldier decorated in the Sino-Vietnamese War receives a secret state assignment and, under the alias Cao Cang, joins a Sino-American physics experiment whose goal is to enter another space—the "Strange Sea." As the joint Chinese-American scientific expedition operates in the eerie space of the Strange Sea, bizarre and perilous situations occur one after another. The Soviet Union also sends a nuclear submarine trailing them into the Strange Sea, and the scientific personnel of the three countries, facing an unknown environment, must cooperate while each harbors private calculations, secretly seeking the greatest advantage for their own nation. The author fuses historical mysteries and folk legends—the Tanka people's Water Route Register, the Bermuda Triangle, the disappearance of Western Han gold, the Lop Nur experiments, the Philadelphia Experiment, the Star Wars program, the Dawn of Doomsday plan—and links them with speculative scientific concepts such as "bubble theory," gradually revealing the true purpose behind the joint experiment. Just as the personnel of the various nations begin to build friendships and prepare to complete the experiment together, they are shocked to discover that someone has already gone ahead. Characters and events include the daughter of a retired pilot, the legendary transparent ship, an unexpected companion named Ni Ximei, the death of Old Yang, the paleontologist Carlin, the October Revolution and the ghost ship; the latter half also includes time dislocation, purple fog, and mountains of ice. The novel intertwines Cold War confrontation, national allegiance, and the ethical dilemma of humanity's civilizational survival, with strong tension and suspense throughout.