Jen, Gish
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Working name of US author Lillian Jen (1955- ), "Gish" being a reference to the actor Lillian Gish (1893-1993); almost all of her work, much of it related to her complex Chinese-American background, is nonfantastic, much of it being nonfiction. She is of sf interest for The Resisters (2020), set in a Near Future America where Automation has created a two-class society: the Netted, who have jobs; and the Surplus, whose guaranteed yearly income must be spent, as it were, in the company store, for America is now owned by vast corporations under the guidance of an AI. The narrative itself, surprisingly, focuses on a coming-of-age tale involving Baseball, climaxing in an international tournament against the ChinRussians. Jen is clearly a Mainstream Writer of SF, with an abstractly archaic sense of the relationship between automation and a digitized society under electronic control. But the tale is engrossing. [JC]
Lillian Jen
born Long Island, New York: 12 August 1955
works (highly selected)
- The Resisters (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2020) [hb/]
links
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