You’ve Never Heard of China’s Greatest Sci-Fi Novel | WIRED
archive.today webpage capture Saved from history←priornext→ 20 Jan 2026 11:18:16 UTC All snapshots from host www.wired.com WebpageScreenshot sharedownload .zipreport bug or abuseBuy me a coffee Skip to main content NEWSLETTERS AFRA WANG THE BIG STORY JAN 20, 2026 6:00 AM You’ve Never Heard of China’s Greatest Sci-Fi Novel Millions of words. Thousands of authors. The Morning Star of Lingao is barely known outside China—but it contains the secret to the country’s modernization and malaise. PHOTOGRAPH: WU MEICHI Listen • 16 minutes MA QIANZHU WAS unsatisfied with Chinese progress. An engineer at a large state-owned enterprise, he belonged to a generation that grew up believing engineering is destiny, that China’s future would be built, bolt by bolt, by people like him. Then Ma discovered something extraordinary: a wormhole to the late Ming Dynasty. With more than 500 peers, he commandeered a ship and traveled back in time 400 years, to a preindustrial China wracked by foreign invasio
archive.today webpage capture Saved from history←priornext→ 20 Jan 2026 11:18:16 UTC All snapshots from host www.wired.com WebpageScreenshot sharedownload .zipreport bug or abuseBuy me a coffee Skip to main content NEWSLETTERS AFRA WANG THE BIG STORY JAN 20, 2026 6:00 AM You’ve Never Heard of China’s Greatest Sci-Fi Novel Millions of words. Thousands of authors. The Morning Star of Lingao is barely known outside China—but it contains the secret to the country’s modernization and malaise. PHOTOGRAPH: WU MEICHI Listen • 16 minutes MA QIANZHU WAS unsatisfied with Chinese progress. An enginee
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