噬梦人The Dream Devourer

by 伊格言Yi Geyan

"许多年后，来到了这样的时代：人的梦境可被粹取，储存于水瓢虫体内。豢养水瓢虫，是为了保鲜梦境；而若令水瓢虫分裂生殖，梦境便可随之无限复制。许多年后，来到了这样的时代：生化人匿藏于人类之中，难以被有效区隔辨识。人类研发“梦境分析”筛检法，希望借由对梦境的叙事学分析，准确标识出那些伪扮为人类的生化人，将之全数歼灭。
身为国家情报总署技术标准局局长，生化人K的身世却是个弥天大谎。他不记得自己的出厂编号，也没有关于身份的任何记忆。尽管他编撰身世，伪扮为人匿藏于人类群体之中，却始终不确知自己真正的来处……
"
Many years later, human beings were in the era that: human dreams could be extracted and stored in ladybugs which were kept to make the dreams fresh; if the ladybugs split and multiplied, the dreams could be copied indefinitely. Many years later, human beings were in the era that: bioroids hid among humans and could not be identified effectively. Human beings developed the "dream analysis" screening method and hoped to accurately identify those bioroids disguised as human beings through the narrative analysis of dreams and annihilate them completely. As the director of Technical Standard Bureau of the National Intelligence Agency, the bioroid K had a fake identity. He didn't remember his factory number and had no memory of his identity. Though he made up his identity and disguised as a human being, he never really knew where he came from...

459 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2010

Reviews

[Brady Turpin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot going on, and it will probably take a few reads to unpack. From the Japanese cyberpunk-vibes to the Freudian allusions to the concept of Shiva and Vishnu impacting dreamscapes in the future, I honestly had no idea what to expect next. That being said, it was hard to follow at times (but that makes sense with the hallucinations and dreamscapes).

I do think Egoyan Zheng is the new vanguard sci-fi writer in Taiwan and I look forward to enjoying his other works.

[Hailong Hao · Rating 5 out of 5]

就对未来的构建而言可以给五颗星，故事情节我只能给三颗星，但是前者过于强大，总体平均可以得四星半，考虑到认识作者，给五颗星。🖖

[Craig]

English translation of Chapters 7-9 by Cara Healey in The Reincarnated Giant: Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction (marked there as Chapters 5-7); going by numbering in my copy.

English translation of Chapter 10 by Conor Stuart is online.