There's a deliberately unsettling quality to Hao Jingfang's 2016 novel Vagabonds, and I think this derives in part from how the story skillfully balances itself between two contrasting genres of fiction.
First translated into English by Ken Liu in 2020, Vagabonds follows a woman named Luoying Sloan who voyages to Earth from a far-future martian colony several generations after a deadly interplanetary war. Hoping to bridge the gap between two politically and socially isolated societies, Luoying spends five years studying alongside the "terrans" of Earth, eventually learning to navigate the complicated and politically fraught issues that divide both planets.
Normally this would imply that Vagabonds was the story of a protagonist seeking to build unity between two isolated societies, and yet Hao's novel (the English edition prints the author's surname first) is not actually the story of Luoying's experiences on Earth, or the process by which she comes to form a mutual understanding with the terrans whom she meets and befriends there. Rather, the core tension of Vagabonds revolves around the ways in which Luoying's time living on Earth causes her to view martian society in a new light, ultimately leading her to question whether or not the utopian world she thought she was born into on Mars really exists.
This in turn leads Vagabonds into a line of questions that prove to be both compelling and disconcerting, with Luoying ultimately coming to wonder if in their own ways, the two contrasting societies existing on Earth and Mars may share far more in common than any of their citizens like to believe.
Vagabonds (Plot Summary)
Vagabonds opens with a description of an aged and barely functional spacecraft known as the Maearth. In a chapter that quickly fills readers in on the details of the novel's world (how Mars was once settled by colonists from Earth who rebelled against the rest of humanity and founded their own society), Vagabonds sets the stage for the ensuing book's plot and themes. With Earth and Mars having now spent decades on the brink of war after their first conflict ended, the Maearth is introduced as the only vessel regularly allowed to make the dangerous voyage between both worlds.
And yet, despite representing the ideals of cooperation and cultural exchange, it's quickly indicated to the reader that the Maearth's role in maintaining the peace between Earth and Mars has been ambiguous. The bulkheads of the Maearth hide the literal scars of battles that have broken out between diplomats from either planet, while the very history recorded in the photographs hung on the walls of the Maearth's corridors have been heavily edited so as to suit the mutual interests of both planets. One scene in particular notes the way in which the Maearth's labyrinthian passages allow certain aspects of history to be concealed as the need arises, with the text reading:
As one walked along one of these curving corridors, one hand caressing the wall, or climbed up and down the stairs, it was possible to travel through time, to view a montage of sliced-up history. There was no end or beginning to this journey, for the photographs were not arranged chronologically. Postwar photos might directly precede prewar ones, and 2096 might come right after 1905. To ignore sequencing in time was also a way to ignore disagreements. On these walls at least, Mars and Earth coexisted side by side in peace, and by taking a different course through the passageways one could reconstruct a different cycle of history. (p.18)
Soon afterwards, Vagabonds introduces one of its central characters: a filmmaker from Earth named Eko who is traveling to Mars in the hope of creating a documentary about this infamously isolationist society. While Eko outwardly claims that he wants to create a film that is free of the constraints of anti-martian propaganda common in Earth's media, he also secretly has a personal motive in traveling to Mars. Eko's teacher and lifelong mentor, the esteemed filmmaker Arthur Davosky, has recently died of cancer, and in traveling to Mars Eko hopes to solve a decades-old mystery regarding Davosky's fascination with this planet.
Years earlier, Davosky was one of the first individuals to voyage to Mars after the martian rebellion against Earth, and then proceeded to live on this world for nearly a decade before abruptly returning under obscure circumstances. Subsequently, Davosky refused to discuss his experiences on Mars with even his closest friends and family, neither revealing what happened to him on this world, or why he left. Now with Davosky gone, Eko has taken it upon himself to fill in this 8-year gap in his teacher's otherwise prestigious filmmaking career, and to finally understand why it was that Davosky seems to have been so fascinated with a planet that he nevertheless refused to ever speak of.
This same scene also introduces the character who eventually comes to be the novel's main focus. Via a conversation that Eko has with a terran businessman named Theon, he learns that the Maearth is also carrying a group of young martian students who previously had traveled to Earth as part of a prestigious cultural exchange program called the "Mercury Group." Specifically, Theon draws Eko's attention to one member of this group: a dance student named Luoying Sloan, who is in fact none other than the granddaughter of the famous martian political leader and war hero, Hans Sloan. Due to Hans Sloan's infamous reputation on Earth as the "Great Dictator" of Mars, Eko decides to seek out a friendship with Luoying, thinking that perhaps this woman's perspective on the differences between martian and terran society might make a good subject for his documentary.
Meanwhile, Luoying herself is introduced in the middle of something of a personal crisis. While studying on Earth, she came to suspect that the difficult placement exam she took when applying to be a member of the Mercury Group five years earlier was a test that she could not possibly have passed. Humbly believing herself to be no-where near as intelligent or talented as any of her peers, Luoying is now haunted by the possibility that her identity as the granddaughter of Mars's famed political leader might have earned her special treatment at the expense of someone else. Given that Luoying (as a martian) grew up being taught that Mars was an egalitarian utopia in which all citizens were afforded equal opportunities based on their personal merits and skills, she finds the possibility that she was granted a place on the Mercury Group only because she was Hans Sloan's granddaughter morally abhorrent.
As a result of all of this, while the Maearth moves into orbit around Mars and its passengers prepare to disembark, Luoying finds herself wondering if her grandfather really may be the "Great Dictator" whom the terrans claim. If Mars is a world in which the egalitarian ideals of its society can be quietly usurped for the benefit of Hans Sloan's granddaughter, then could it also be that this world actually truly is the authoritarian realm so many of the people of Earth think?
For its first half, the plot of Vagabonds alternates between the perspectives of Luoying and Eko, with the book detailing the subtle but also vast differences that quickly emerge in the world-views of either of these characters. As Eko discovers a sort of technological utopia existing on Mars, he soon realizes that the authoritarian realm portrayed in terran media does not reflect the reality of this planet. Despite having been taught that Mars was a world filled with labor camps and factories employing child workers, Eko instead finds the martian colony to be a futuristic glass city where manual labor has been rendered obsolete by automation, and whose citizens have their basic living expenses provided for them while they seek whatever creative or scientific pursuits they desire.
Meanwhile, in contrast to Eko, Luoying finds herself growing disillusioned with the world that she had previously considered home. While Eko finds himself enthralled with the martian utopia, Luoying sets to work investigating the circumstances surrounding her application to the Mercury Group five years earlier. This research in turn soon leads her to study her Grandfather's lifelong career as Mars's leader, and ultimately to uncover a mystery revolving around a tragic "mining accident" that ended with the deaths of her parents when she was still an infant. Through this research, Luoying slowly comes to realize a simple truth about martian society that illuminates the ideals of this world to be very different from the ones she was taught to value.
Main Review
In many ways, Vagabonds might best be described as a "soft dystopia." That is, the book begins by establishing two contrasting societies in the forms of Earth and Mars, and then examines the politics of how two citizens from each of these opposing societies view one another's homes. While Mars is quickly established to be an outwardly egalitarian post-scarcity paradise, Earth in contrast is set up as a kind of consumerist dystopia whose citizens must spend their lives in service to the obscure whims of the global corporations who now rule over their planet.
This contrast could easily have become reductive and didactic, and yet rather than being a side-by-side comparison of the two extremes embodied in martian and terran society, Hao's story instead concerns itself with a much more intriguing question regarding how a utopian society of any sort should be defined. Eventually, the novel explores how Eko's and Luoying's contrasting experiences of their own homes impacts how they view one another's worlds, and how their alternate perspectives on Mars illuminate their personal biases.
One example of this comes in the way that Eko initially describes not Mars, but Earth. Shortly after arriving on Mars and finding the planet to be an artistic and scientific paradise, there is a scene in which Eko relates to the reader the nature of the hyper-competitive society on Earth that has dictated the course of his own career as a terran filmmaker. While describing the way in which Earth has shifted to an economy driven not by material goods, but information, Eko laments how terrans like himself have neglected what he sees as true works of art in favor of that which is most easy to sell. Specifically, Eko says of Earth's information-based economy:
In this revolution, every thought, every sketch, every smiling face was part of the world's GDP. Everyone sold, bought, hid their own creations, and then enticed others with revelation of these secrets for money. Any idea could generate income over the web, but without the web there was no income. The web was the locus of incessant sparks. Capital overpowered nation-states. Three giant media conglomerates vied for dominance of the world, grew into empires, lobbed propaganda back and forth, and encouraged and discouraged opinions as they sought increased profits. The description from two centuries earlier remained applicable: Investment in media has everything to do with profit and nothing to do with value. (p.71)
Critically here is that as compelling as Eko's characterization of Earth's dystopia is, his view of the failures of Earth's society hinge ultimately on the lack of value he feels that this society is producing. His critique of Earth is one based entirely on a belief that this society's failure is rooted not in the experiences of its citizens, but in its inability to create true works of art. This is a point that he drives home with the quote: "investment in media has everything to do with profit and nothing to do with value." The result is that this passage demonstrates how for Eko, the question of whether or not Mars is a utopian or dystopian society is as simple as whether or not Mars produces works which he personally deems artistically compelling.
These views of martian society stand in contrast to Luoying's, which are far more dependent on how this society is experienced by the people who actually live there. Initially striving merely to learn if she had in fact received special treatment when applying to be on the Mercury Group, Luoying eventually finds herself researching her grandfather's lifelong career as Mars's political leader. All of this occurs as Luoying and the other alumni of the Mercury Group near the date at which martian custom dictates they declare an "atelier"--a kind of artistic and/or scientific cooperative which will provide them with the resources needed to practice their chosen occupations as martian adults. Yet as Luoying begins to doubt the viability of the martian utopia, she finds herself wondering if (in contrast to Eko) the institutions of the ateliers themselves represent something just as sinister as the media conglomerates that now rule over Earth.
In one particularly significant sequence, Luoying discovers that her own parents seem to have abandoned their atelier's two years prior to their deaths (an act which is almost unheard of on Mars). Yet mysteriously, these facts were never recorded in the official documents. So complete is the gap in the record of the lives that Luoying's parents lead that she is initially lead to believe that her mother and father must have died on the exact date at which they both left their ateliers. Later on, she comes to even contemplate the possibility that her parents may have been executed as a punishment for defying the martian social customs in some way. This suspicion is only strengthened when Luoying finds evidence that her mother and father did indeed commit a crime of some sort just prior to their deaths, but that the nature of this crime (and even its punishment) were never recorded in the public archives. When Luoying eventually gathers the courage to question a colleague of her grandfather's about this gap (a kind elderly man whom she refers to as Uncle Laak), the answer she receives demonstrates a simple yet chilling flaw in the institutions of the ateliers, and Mars on the whole. The exchange with Laak reads:
"I tried to look for information on my mother, but all the public records stopped two years before her death, when she left her atelier. I don't know what happened to her after that. It's as though those two years never existed."
Laak looked sympathetic, but his voice remained neutral. "I'm sorry."
"But why?"
"The public records are drawn from her work at the atelier. Once she was no longer registered, there would be no more records."
"In other words, to the system, a person without an atelier is no different from a dead body."
"You can put it that way."
Sunlight slanted through the window, dispassionately slicing the wall with geometric precision. The grid of filing rectangles in the shadow resembled a bottomless sea. She knew that Uncle Laak was correct; everything he said was correct--so correct that it drove her to despair. (p.128)
Luoying's realization here (that the reason everyone on Mars chooses to work for an atelier is in part because failing to do so means being ignored by even the most basic institutions of their society) is a point that soon comes into direct conflict with Eko's perceptions of this same world. While Eko is convinced Mars is a utopia based only on the fact that people here produce works of art that he feels are superior to those found on Earth, Luoying is much more concerned with the context in which martian society exists, and what its underlying values truly mean for the people who live there.
This disagreement is starkly demonstrated when Eko and Luoying confront one another directly. Fearing the consequences of a stalled trade negotiation actively unfolding between the martian and terran governments, midway through the book Luoying takes it upon herself to arrange a meeting between a friend of her's and Theon (the terran Businessman who had voyaged to Mars along with herself and Eko). Luoying's hope here is that if Theon asks the Martian government to grant him the intellectual rights to a new brand of martian clothing that her friend has designed, then this will give Mars on the whole leverage against Earth's demands that the planet turn over schematics for advanced space-based weaponry.
Meanwhile Eko (having already arranged to document various aspects of Luoying's life in preparation for his film) attends these impromptu negotiations as a silent observer. However, during the meeting, Eko mistakenly interprets the exchange between Luoying and Theon as evidence that Luoying is being taken advantage of by this terran businessman, and as a result decides to sabotage the meeting and (in his mind) save Mars from the corruptive influence of Earth's for-profit economy.
Afterward, finding that Luoying has grown angry with him for his actions, Eko seeks to justify himself to her, and in the process reveals many of his own underlying biases regarding the differences he sees between Earth and Mars. Specifically, while attempting to make the case to Luoying that martians live lives that are intrinsically more valuable than the lives of the people on Earth, Eko says:
"Look at the girls here, your friends: you discuss creation, prize what you can invent or compose or design. The girls on Earth, the ones you know, on the other hand, pursue nothing except the chance to buy the next outfit. Don't you consider this a great difference?" (pp.174-175)
There is a heavy layer of sexism woven into Eko's rhetoric in this scene, since what he is saying here is in essence that the hyper-commercialist society on Earth has lead to a moral corruption in the women who live there (he singles out women in particular). In Eko's mind, the pursuit of any sort of creative endeavor is far superior to the desire to purchase a "new outfit," and moreover he seems to be concerned specifically with the possibility that martian women might come to adopt the same shallow lifestyle that he believes the women on Earth now follow. As a result, he sees Luoying's efforts to negotiate a trade deal between Earth and Mars as abhorrent, even despite Luoying's broader motives.
Eko's biases here are ones that Hao is careful as author to illuminate via Luoying's reply. When responding to Eko's claim that women on Earth live only for material gain and vanity, Luoying articulates a worldview that eventually comes to embody her entire philosophy toward life and art, and which calls into question the very dichotomy between Earth and Mars that Eko has drawn. Specifically, she says to Eko:
"Do you know why my friends on Earth buy clothes? To express themselves. Even though they were shaped by their surroundings, they want to be unique. Whether designing clothes or buying clothes, the fundamental impulse is the same. They can't choose the world they live in, or how that world operates, but they want to live their own lives, to find out who they are. That is all." (p.175)
The implication of these words is that while Eko views martian society as an institution whose value must be measured by the quality of its cultural products (whether those products be articles of clothing, or items of advanced technology), Luoying in contrast views martian and terran society as institutions whose value is based in the experiences of their individual citizens. As a result, while Eko is almost instantly convinced of the viability of the martian utopia, Luoying is far more concerned with the political ideology hidden below the surface of martian and terran society.
Conclusion
Ultimately this debate between Luoying and Eko becomes the subject of Vagabonds final half, with a mid-story plot development revealing to Luoying that the reductive philosophy toward life and art which Eko espouses is just as common on Mars as it is on Earth. As a result, Luoying is introduced to a hidden side of her former home, and becomes acquainted with a group of characters whose lives have been permanently scarred by a political and social philosophy so vast that they themselves often seem unaware of its existence.
Through these moments, Luoying begins to realize that even Mars's outwardly egalitarian society is a realm which, like Earth, is one that is driven first and foremost by the need for the continued production of goods no matter the cost. Moreover, as she begins diving into the complicated and tragic history of her grandfather's life and career (first as a soldier in the war against Earth, and then a politician), she learns the true extent to which the martian utopia may not only fall short of its ideals, but negate them entirely. The novel's ending in particular (which is both cataclysmically abrupt, and also bleakly compelling) is perhaps one of the story's strongest moments--a scene in which historical crimes are suddenly reflected back on the protagonists in unexpected ways, and in which a previously stoic figure breaks his silence to speak directly to the reader in an almost Shakespearian soliloquy about his life's failures, all in the exact moment when he has realized that those failures cannot be undone.
By its end, Vagabonds has established itself as a distopian novel which steers clear of many of the more familiar tropes of the genre. With this story, Hao creates a portrait of two contrasting societies whose faults are not rooted so much in authoritarian police forces, or surveillance states criminalizing dissent, or even necessarily in corrupt dictators willing to do anything to maintain power. Instead, Vagabonds provides its readers with a depiction of two opposing societies that teeter constantly on the brink of war, and yet as the plot advances, it becomes increasingly clear that it's not the differences between Earth and Mars that are truly at issue.
In the end, Vagabonds's story makes the case that whatever their differences, it's the similarities between Earth and Mars that are far more dangerous.