Today, in honor of the 50th post on this website, I’m going to take a break from the barrage of archived blog Goodies to present something remarkable and of great interest to long-time fans of the series. Before there was Son of Heaven, there was The Day the Future Came, the Chung Kuo proto-prequel. This is the first-person story of Jake John Reed and the coming of the Jiang Lei and the Chinese into England. In Mr. Wingrove’s own words:
This was written early in 1992 (yeah, 19 years ago) specifically for a writing workshop, WRITERS BLOC, to which I, Rob Holdstock, Gary Kilworth, Chris Evans, Lisa Tuttle, Dave Garnett and Geoff Ryman attended. I’ll try and dig out comments, but this was a genuine uncorrected first attempt at the subject, and I think it has real archeological value. Not a very good story at all, but interesting for its ideas. I also love seeing just how many wrong choices I make in terms of how to present information. SON OF HEAVEN is so much more elegant, so much better paced and far far more interesting. But here it is. [...] The very fact that I didn’t then write a corrected second draft says a lot about my attitude to this material at the time.
Keep in mind that The Day the Future Came is absolutely non-canon, but is certainly an interesting look into the ideas preceding the new Book 1. Here it is, complete and unedited…
