Review: Answerless Journey
Story title: Answerless Journey (没有答案的航程)
Author: Han Song (韩松)
Link to story (Chinese only): https://www.99csw.com/article/9260.htm
(Spoiler-free)
So a bit of context, this story was originally in Chinese. But since no one in the Hugo Award jury can read a single line of Chinese, they have to throw in a translator to do the work for them. I cannot seem to find the translated version anywhere online without having to sacrifice my hard-earned money, so oh well, I only get to read the original Chinese text.
Long story short, this story was the physical embodiment of the phrase "all fart but no shit". What this story achieved was that it constructed more questions than it provided answers, but instead of those good philosophical questions that make you sit back, ponder and question your existence, the reader only has the energy to ask, "huh? That's it?" Reading this felt more like a chore than a pleasurable activity, and the plot was advancing about as fast as a dead horse. Everything that happened could be summed up in five sentences. That is not necessarily a bad thing: some writers can spin an entire adventure from a short premise, but what Han Song did was to say the same damn idea twenty times, each time using a slightly different synonym.
Occasionally, Song bewilders the audience by describing certain objects with various abstract words, "the Living Creature", "the Third Party". I understand the intended effect of stripping away all connotations of the characters down to the barest bone and to paint an uncanny, unnatural atmosphere in the barren spaceship, but Song did nothing to flesh out these concepts, so they just ring hollow in the reader's mind chamber. If anything, this story screams like the work of an inexperienced 15-year-old student, whose best ability is to throw seemingly deep concepts at their reader at first glance, but at a second read, one could only categorize the whole story as cringey, stupid, or honestly, a waste of time.
Another thing that reveals the author's inexperience in writing is the repetitive use of certain analogies. It is not a sin to describe time as inevitable as the flow of water, but to use it at least three times in one story is pushing it to far, and is lazy writing at best. The phrase "there is no day nor night in the capsule" is slammed onto the text multiple times which makes one question whether ChatGPT has been consulted in the writing.
And do not get me started on the ending. I did promise no spoiling but I will squeeze in just a few words about it. It is not that the conclusion was unsatisfying. It is not that it is lazy. It is just that, there is no conclusion. It is challenging to hate on something if that something is nothing. The only query my mind could conjure up is why this was even hugo-award-nomination-worthy in the first place.
I would really appreciate it if I could get a refund on the time wasted on spending energy comprehending this work of atrocity. But unfortunately, one cannot turn back time, just as one cannot pump a fart back up one's ass.