Cixin Liu's Yuanyuan's Bubbles

An international collaboration involving 26 writers and illustrators from 14 different countries have transformed 15 of Cixin Liu's – 'China's answer to Arthur C. Clarke' (New Yorker) – award-winning stories into graphic novels.Yuanyuan was five months old when she saw bubbles for the first time. In that moment, her eyes lit up with a radiance that outshone the sun and stars, and she felt she truly saw the world for the first time. From that day on, her life's one dream was to blow the biggest bubbles possible.Yuanyuan's father doesn't approve of her dream. He fears his daughter's obsession is childish and too fleeting for his daughter, and longs for her to turn her intelligence to a calling that might help people. Their city is dying, but Yuanyuan focuses solely on blowing bigger and bigger bubbles.But when Yuanyuan learns to create a bubble the size of a city – greater even – it may be that her obsession isn't so unhelpful after all.Praise for Cixin Liu:'Your next favourite sci-fi novel' Wired'Immense' Barack Obama'Unique' George R.R. Martin'SF in the grand style' Guardian'Mind-altering and immersive' Daily Mail'A milestone in Chinese science-fiction' New York Times'China's answer to Arthur C. Clarke' New YorkerWinner of the Hugo and Galaxy Awards for Best Novel

Steven Dupre’s illustrations are bright and clear and do a fabulous job of portraying the iridescent bubbles that YuanYuan produces throughout the story, getting bigger and bigger as they progress... Another thoroughly enjoyable graphic novel adaptation of Cixin Liu's work and quite possibly my favourite so far. Such a touching story, maybe because I hadn't read it before so I was even more caught up in the tale and the fabulous illustrations than with the previous volumes. I can see that I will be addicted to obtaining the rest of the titles as they are published', The whole project offers a fascinating insight to a 'new' author, with the graphic novels serving as a gateway drug to a traditionally inaccessible voice in the realm of SFF, TV comedy shows like Fresh Off The Boat or dramatic movies like The Farewell have brought focus to the challenges younger Asians can face as they try to engage with western societal values while still honouring and respecting their heritage and elders. In the graphic novel adaptation of Cixin Liu's Yuanyuan's Bubbles, we see a new take on these conflicted family dynamics and the battle between tradition and the future... At its heart, this is a story about fathers, daughters and absent mothers. How the balance of respect and compassion shifts when dynamics change... The writing and artwork work to sell the promise of wistful escapism while not shying away from harsh realities', A unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, politics and history, conspiracy theory and cosmology, Wildly imaginative, really interesting... The scope of it was immense'

Valérie Mangin is a French writer of more than sixty books and comic books. Her writings draw on her studies of history, politics and culture at the prestigious École Nationale des Chartes in Paris, playing with tropes of popular literature and historical events to provide original points of view and force readers to reconsider the past.Steven Dupré is a Belgian cartoon artist. He began his career in the 1980s with his series 'Wolf' which he contributed to the Flemish daily newspaper Het Volk. Since then, he has written and illustrated comics in Flemish, French and Dutch, and his works are also available in Indonesian, English, Serbo-Croat and Finnish.Cixin Liu is China's #1 SF writer and author of The Three-Body Problem – the first ever translated novel to win a Hugo Award. Prior to becoming a writer, Liu worked as an engineer in a power plant in Yangquan.