More recent info can be found at Michael Cobley's site:

http://rockitboy.wordpress.com/

David is soon to have his own website and blog, and at that time, this site will be discontinued in favor of David's (an obvious thing to do!).

The following news is now dated; see the site above for the latest.

Just in from David

David emailed us today (10/10/2008) to give us still more exciting news:

"WHEN CHINA COMES, the prequel to the Chung Kuo sequence was delivered to Quercus Publishing yesterday (9th October). It's a 250,000 word five-parter, covering 2047 to 2098, complete with stock market crashes... It'll be in the shops next May... in the Uk, anyway. Rights available at Frankfurt in a week's time.

Have begun DAWN IN STONE CITY, a new kind of Chung Kuo novel, based on a single character Ma Ji (Maggie) and set in 2210.

More later."

Fantastic Chung Kuo News!

The Chung Kuo series is to be completely republished. An independent British publishing house, Quercus, has bought the rights to the series, and here's the scoop quoted directly (with permission) from their website.


CHINA IN YOUR HANDS

Quercus has bought world rights (excluding France) in David Wingrove's monumental Chung Kuo future history from Diana Tyler at MBA.

Nicolas Cheetham, Editorial Director of Quercus, said ‘Chung Kuo is a two-million-word, nineteen-book epic that brilliantly fuses Shogun and Blade Runner to rival the scope of Frank Herbert's Dune or Isaac Asimov's Foundation. In a genre of big ideas and even bigger books, this is the biggest and most ambitious of them all.’

Set 200 years in the future, the Chung Kuo sequence introduces a world dominated by China. History has been rewritten and the West forgotten. There is no official record of Shakespeare, Mozart or Einstein and any reminders of the past are literally buried under mile-high, continent-spanning cities. An ornate, hierarchical society of 34 billion souls is maintained only by unremitting repression. Revolution seems inevitable but in such an overpopulated world any change could spell the end of humanity.

Chung Kuo has been over twenty years in the making. Eight books were published between 1988 and 1998, with rights sold in fourteen different territories. In 1988, the idea of a world dominated by China seemed outlandish, but two decades later, Chung Kuo's vision of the future seems all too plausible. The series has been recast in nineteen volumes, including a new prequel and a new final volume. After a series launch in May 2009, Quercus will embark on an ambitious publishing programme that will see all nineteen volumes available by the end of 2012.

David Wingrove is the Hugo-Award winning co-author (with Brian Aldiss) of Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction. He lives in North London.

We're also informed that David will be doing an across-the-board re-edit of the full series.

In additional news, we've learned that the Tranceport album of Chung Kuo music is still available (May 2008) and further info can be had here.

A little while back, David sent us a short article, Fallow Years, detailing his work since the completion of Chung Kuo.

This is a collection of material mostly supplied by David Wingrove about the landmark eight volume ChungKuo series of novels. The page is not often updated any longer, but is surely of interest to fans. It includes an updated forum (with all the posts from the old site restored) for questions and comments.

These pages contain some original material kindly provided by David himself. I have not yet posted all of it and still hope to do so.

The ChungKuo series was completed with the publication of Book 8, Marriage of the Living Dark, in a July 1997 British edition. US publication was much delayed, and a trade paperback finally appeared in July 1999. The US edition did not stay in print for very long, and is no longer easily available. This is most unfortunate. I get numerous questions about book availability. I can only recommend that you try http://www.bookfinder.com or a British source such as the one listed below.

David has also written several excellent books in the Myst series, and I recommend these highly.

For news about David's efforts subsequent to ChungKuo, please read David's recent (August 2006) article, Fallow Years.

Click for information about the Edinburgh Band Tranceport and their music for Chung Kuo; I don't know if this CD is still available. I understand it was bundled with some of the US trade copies of Book 8. It's a good CD and well worth having.

Check out the Chung Kuo Online WikiWiki Forum! This is once again in working order and contains all the posts from my older websites. Please add your comments about this series.

The Chung Kuo series, which is now complete, consists of eight novels about a future in which the Chinese have dominated the world, rewritten history, and built enormous indoor continent-spanning cities three hundred levels in height. The novels in the series are:

The Middle Kingdom, 1989. Released in the US as a Delacorte Press hardover in 1990.

The Broken Wheel, 1990. Released in the US as a Delacorte Press hardcover; later mass-market paperback.

The White Mountain, 1991. Released in the US as a Delacorte Press hardcover; later mass-market paperback.

The Stone Within, 1992. Released in the US as a Delacorte Press hardcover(?), trade paperback, and mass-market paperback.

Beneath the Tree of Heaven, 1994. Released in the US by Delacorte as a trade paperback in 1995(?). Delacorte gave up on the hardcover editions, instead opting for an initial trade paperback, followed in 1996(?) with a mass market paperback. If you're in the States and you want hardcovers from here on, you'll have to buy the British editions, if you can find them.

White Moon, Red Dragon, 1995. Released in the US from Dell, trade paperback only, July 1996. The War of the Two Directions comes to an end with the return of DeVore and the final days of the Cities.

Days of Bitter Strength (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1995. US publication July, 1997. The series takes a new turn as Li Yuan builds his "China on the Rhine." The book begins with a very useful, and at this point necessary summary of the story as told in the first six books.

The Marriage of the Living Dark (Published July 1997 in hardcover, from Hodder and Stoughton, London. Published as a trade paperback in July 1999 in the US and now unfortunately out of print.)

With Brian Aldiss, David Wingrove is also co-author of the award-winning The Trillion-Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (1986). He also coauthored, with Rand and Robyn Miller, a series of books based on the popular computer game Myst beginning with Myst: The Book of Atrus (1996). With Brian Griffin, David Wingrove is co-author of Apertures: A Study of the Writings of Brian Aldiss, 1984.

David John Wingrove was born in 1954 in the UK, and currently lives in north London with his wife Susan, and daughters Jessica, Amy, Georgia, and Francesca.

Additional info:

Three Questions is the text of a 1989 talk by David just after the launching of the series.

Second Thoughts is an article by David reflecting back about mid-way in the series.

A Profile of David Wingrove is actually David's thoughts on the origins of the series idea.

David's 1993 trip to China is described in his lengthy diary entries.

Researching Chung Kuo is covered in David's lengthy notes which use the Tower of Babel as metaphor.

A Great Wheel Turning captures some of David's early thoughts on the series.

Why China? is David's explanation of his choice of a China-dominated world for Chung Kuo.

Broad Paths and Narrow Ways is David's reflections after the first seven volumes.

Coming someday, maybe: dictionary of Mandarin terms, cast of characters, and much more.

American Netsurfers: you might be able to order US editions of David's books on-line from Amazon Books.

Interested in the British editions? Contact The Internet Bookshop for further information. I have had numerous reports of excellent service and quick shipment to the US from the Internet Bookshop. I have dealt with them myself and was very satisfied. Current title availability is subject to change.

Questions? Comments? Bad links? Write chungkuo@bobnewell.net.