Beneath the Clouds by Shane Goetze
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A fiction from China comprising of a story of some mysterious flying men who inhabited Southern China many thousand years ago, but now face extinction by the Communist Government of China, who see them as a threat due to their democratic style of living.

Bill Jacks, a journalist in Hong Kong one day receives a SOS email from one of the flying woman of the mysterious flying men called the HU, seeking help to save their species by reporting their story to the world. At the same time, surprisingly, the historic relics of the chief of HU, comprising of his bones, gets stolen from the local museum. Bill Jacks along with the Hong Kong police officer Allen sets off to mainland China to investigate the case and meet the woman who sent the email, with the help of the museum in-charge Chun and a ruthless Russian businessman Petrov. In China, Bill and Allen get duped by Chun only to be saved by Yin Ying, the flying woman of the HU. Petrov actually signs a deal with Chun to sell the HU bones in international market for a huge price, so that the DNA of the same can be used to develop similar flying men across the world and used for any kind of combat including terrorism. Later he discovers that Chun and Petrov used Bill and Allen to trace out the long hidden sanctuary of the HU species somewhere in the cold mountains of Northern China, which remained as a secret till date, in order for them to wipe out the remaining HU species from the face of the earth. Bill somehow with the help of Yin Ying and her remaining HU army will be able to save themselves and remaining flying men from Chun and his bad communist counterparts only to regain their lost glory with the remaining HU army get incorporated as the Flying Guard of Hong Kong Police as special secret forces.

Pros: A good mediocre science fiction that takes into account the unheard flying ability of some men of China. A sincere attempt to elicit the wish of many Chinese provinces, to democratize their country or atleast grant independent self government out of the Communist purview of this great country. The ill affects of the rapid industrialization of China and the kind of huge destruction the country is heading towards is well brought out. The book also portrays the inefficiency of the Chinese Government to contain the internal unrests in many of its provinces spread across its huge mainland.

Cons: The author seemed to have undermined the military and intelligence power of Chinese Army in this book. China is said to have one of the toughest border controls in the world, and hence the ease with which Bill and Allen enter Chinese mainland from Hong Kong cannot be as easy as it was written. It seemed very unreal as very little is known about the HU in world media. The book was quite boring at times.

My favourite quote in the book:
“ China may be better positioned economically than the Soviet Union before its collapse. But it is no less fragile as a country, socially speaking “

My rating is 2 out of 5


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