It's 2035. The US and China are at war. America is a proto-fascist state. Taiwan is divided into two. As conflict escalates between nuclear powers, three idealistic youths who first met in Hong Kong develop diverging beliefs about how best to navigate this techno-authoritarian landscape. Andy, Maggie, and Olivia travel different paths toward transformative change, each confronting to what extent they will fight for freedom, and who they will become in doing so.The war itself is very much not the focus. Rather, it's primarily on Andy, a Chinese-American veterinarian who moved to Hong Kong in 2021. It's at his first protest that he meets Maggie and Olivia. The wind up attended several protests together, but Maggie gets increasingly agitated and eventually starts resorting to using car bombs on police vehicles. She's eventually caught and imprisoned for life. It's at that point when Olivia disappears and Andy drops out of any protesting at all.
Andy continues on with his vet work but almost incidentally starts helping out by providing some medical care off the record for some activists. He's slowly pulled back into the fold, and starts to see some of the more active elements of the resistance groups. He himself is drawn deeper and deeper, and becomes more and more active. He seemingly randomly bumps into Olivia again; she apologizes for disappearing years earlier, blaming it on fear, but Andy invites her in to help. And then... well, I've leave the ending open to avoid spoilers.
The story takes place over a period of a little over a decade. But, as I said, the war itself isn't so much the focus as three characters and their positions about both war in general and this war in particular. None of them end up in the same place they start, all of them shaped by their individual experiences. Both from before and during the story. All of it tracks and all of it makes sense. Everybody's decisions here, even when they contradict each, have solid rationales behind them. And the people whose decisions are based on belief? Even when those decisions change and even their whole belief system changes, they continue to make choices that reflect who they are.
Towards the end, Maggie says, "Nothing we do happens independently. Everyone and everything is connected." The actions she took that put her in prison affected Andy and Olivia. And their actions at the end of the book -- again, over a decade after the start -- are the result, albeit indirectly, of Maggie blowing up a police vehicle. But there's no real judgement by or from any of the characters. Their actions are their actions, and they all seem to take responsibilty for them. But there's no commentary on who is right or wrong, who is more or less justified.
Badiucao and Melissa Chan put together an excellent story here. It's uncomfortable given the insanely petty and authoritarian whims of the asshole in the White House right now, but it offers a lot to think about and worth the read. The book came out earlier this month from Street Noise Books and retails for $23.99 US; it should be available from your favorite book seller.
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