Born in Sanming, China, Ling grew up in Utah, Nebraska, and Kansas. She holds an MFA from Cornell University, where she also taught. Currently, she serve as an assistant professor at her alma mater, University of Chicago.
发表于2025-01-22
Severance 2025 pdf epub mobi 电子书
图书标签: 小说 美国 科幻 英文原版 末日 华裔作家 女性 移民
Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend.
So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.
Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?
A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.
故事很奇特。只能用奇特来描述。书中的中国元素多多少少感觉有点雷同,有些情节有点牵强。但是不失为一个好故事。
评分在跳跃的时间线里,这是一个末日故事、移民者经历、和对现代消费主义和办公室文化的嘲讽。末日来临人类也似乎摆脱不掉的官僚主义;Ma 并不刻意或夸张地描述随处可见的物质生活和消费行为几乎定义了城市、和城市生活;重新审视朝九晚五的办公生活;而更多的移民者如何迁移、到达、挣扎在这些面目相似的城市里。Ma的文风带着一种冷幽默,把这三个看似并不相关的主题完美地融合在一起。读起来有点类似Station Eleven 的节奏, 但我个人觉得这个慢悠悠,絮絮叨叨的末日故事要恐怖多了。也许不仅是她描绘的末日场景,更多的是作者在这本书里似乎有着这样的suggestion: 患病的这些“僵尸”,和都市里生活的麻木、重复的人们,区别也没有那么大。
评分【藏书阁打卡】隔绝!一个亚裔女子的处女作决定了整部小说以一个亚裔女孩的视角展开。书中的情景让我想起当年的SARS,连Shen Fever这个来自深圳的致命流感,和当初广东的果子狸同出一源,也算是SARS留给作者的灵感吧。抛开写中国移民的那一段(政治眼镜,相当无味),大疫之下的纽约,在作者的笔下一点点地失去生机,最终只剩下残留者,而他们的使命竟然是挨家逐户去结束那些流感残喘者的生命!虽然和同为末世文学的Station Eleven相比要逊色一些,但是作为处女作已经相当不错了。而小说在浩劫之后的复生之中带给人们的依然是希望。
评分Eerie reading in 2020. Compelling narrative structure weaving pre- and post-apocalypse timelines, figuring out what happened at the End, plus an escape story. A nuanced critique of capitalism & consumerism from a second-gen persepctive (mom's yearning for work v millennial ennui), a parallel story of severance from the homeland and need to belong
评分风趣幽默,节奏也蛮舒服;对末世的想象力实际上还蛮匮乏的,但是也是这样才让人惊醒,我们在日常生活里消费主义主导下的种种麻木表现,和末日丧尸比起来又高明在哪里
Severance 2025 pdf epub mobi 电子书