Fang Xiang

This is both a work of science fiction and an exploration of the meaning of life, love, literature and art. Brainpower is no longer the main ingredient for being human in this far distant future world.  Spirituality, physical balance, and diligence all come together as integrity for Chen Mu, the Card Apprentice.  The cards which Chen Mu masters in his own scrappy way, distill all the powers of the cosmos –  human and nonhuman –  into something that is not a book, not technology, and neither art nor magic, but is these and more.  Learn about these strange cards, which can embody everything you might imagine for the future of technology, but also a future beyond technology which promotes the best, and sometimes the worst, from mankind’s past.

The Card Apprentice

"Starting today, you will all need to change your method of perceptual training." Chen Mu spoke calmly. As he saw it, it was a small matter. It was nothing more than an ordinary way to train perception. He didn't think he had designed a method with anything special about it.

He was nothing more than a nameless pawn himself—not some grand master. Compared to making cards, he had pitifully little understanding of perception. To be able to pound out something that seemed pretty good satisfied him. If perceptual training methods weren't so hard to get, he wouldn't have done it himself.

If he hadn't used the extreme training method from the mysterious card as the basis for his own patchwork, he wouldn't have had any confidence in what he had made. Fortunately, it had undergone proving with Jiang Liang; its final results seemed good.

The Orders