Special Offer

Download for Free with
Audible.co.uk 30-day free trial

Listen anytime, anywhere with our FREE Audible apps for Android, iPhone
and Windows Phone.

See larger image

Share your own customer images

The Fat Years (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

by Chan Koonchung (Author), David Tse (Narrator)

3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)

List Price:	�31.43
Price:	�16.57, or Free with Audible.co.uk 30-day free trial membership
You Save:	�14.86 (47%)

At Audible.co.uk, you can choose to download any of 60,000 audiobooks and more, and listen on your Kindle�, iPhone^�, iPod^�, Android� or 500+ MP3 players.
Your exclusive Audible.co.uk 30-day free trial membership includes:

This audiobook free, or any other Audible audiobook of your choice
Save up to 80% off the price of the CD equivalent
Members-only sales and promotions

Learn more about your trial membership at Audible.co.uk

Formats	Amazon Price		New from	Used from
Kindle Edition	�5.22		--	--
Paperback	�8.96		--	--
Audio Download, Unabridged	�16.57	or Free with Audible.co.uk 30-day free trial

Product details

Audio Download
Listening Length: 9 hours and 59 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Random House AudioBooks
Audible.co.uk Release Date: 15 Aug 2011
Language: English
ASIN: B005HITXD0

Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)

Would you like to give feedback on images?

Product Description

TRUTH IS NOT AN OPTION.... Beijing, sometime in the near future: a month has gone missing from official records. No one has any memory of it, and no one can care less. Except for a small circle of friends, who will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the sinister cheerfulness and amnesia that has possessed the Chinese nation.

When they kidnap a high-ranking official and force him to reveal all, what they learn - not only about their leaders, but also about their own people - stuns them to the core. It is a message that will rock the world.... Terrifying methods of cunning, deception, and terror are unveiled by the truth-seekers in this thriller-expose of the Communist Party's stranglehold on China today.

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items.

Customer Reviews

3.3 out of 5 stars

3.3 out of 5 stars

Write a customer review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "Truth is not an option!" - That is the tag line. 10 Jun 2011

By Tommy D TOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

So if truth is not an option what is left? Well the easy answer is lies or fiction and the latter is what this claims to be. As it is set in the near future it could possibly claim to be science fiction, but it really is not. It is based on real events past and current, that have shaped modern China and presents us with a sort of dystopian land somewhere between `Brave New World' and `The Stepford Wives'.

The plot is that all of China is or appears to be `happy', their ranking in the world `happiness index' has gone from languishing at the bottom of the table to being number one. But all is not well as one man realises everyone seems to have forgotten things like the regular violent and brutal `crackdowns'. There is also another phenomenon in that a whole month, or at least 28 days have gone `missing'. There is no official record of what actually took place and no collective memory either. Further the world economic downturn seems to coincide exactly with the rise of this harmonios golden prosperity for China.

Fang Coadi wants to know what happened and why no-one can remember. He runs into an old friend `Old Chen', who is also happy but cant work out why and one by one we are introduced to new characters and how they are all inter linked. They have some great names both of people and places; my favourites are`Miaomiao' and `Happiness Village Number Two'.

The story contains quite a few monologues which give polar opposite views of the current state of China, these can go on a bit but come across as being well informed though not necessarily enlightening. There is also a bit of a love interest, but all of the sub plots are not really explored thoroughly and a lot of the questions that are posed are not fully answered. This I feel was intentional.

Having said all of that, this was still a really good read, which was compelling in places and is one that you will remember. Chan Koonchung has made a good start to what I hope is a fruitful career and I hope it does get published in China, where I am sure it will have an eager audience.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Times 23 May 2011

By Penny Waugh VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Since the US dollar collapsed in 2011 China has become the leading world power in 2013. All seems well in that vast country; from being near bottom of the 'World Happiness' list China has become No 1 there as well, the people are happy, unaggressive, apparently unworried by the government clamp down on the internet and newspapers, and totally unaware that somehow a month, February 2011, has been entirely wiped from their memories.
This book is presented as fiction, and there is a story there, sometimes quite moving, but the main body of the work is presented as a series of lectures, on China as it is, as it might be, as it possibly should be. The story concerns several people who do remember the missing month; a friend (the narrator) who does not but comes around to their way of thinking, and a high government official they kidnap and who expounds at length on the Government's views and methods and insists there could be no other way to govern China. There is little in this story about the outside world and there is a whiff of claustrophia about it.
Somehow this works, for me anyway. I was never tempted to give up on it, though it was hard going at times. I came away from the book with, I hope, more understanding of China and Chinese thinking than I had previously.
The question is: Is it better to live in a good (actual) hell or in a fake paradise? A question not answered here, maybe, but how could it be?
A strange book, but certainly very interesting and I'm glad I've read it.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Just a bit flat 19 July 2011

By Richard Kelly TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

On the surface The Fat Years sounds like an excellent thrilling novel. The world enters a hugh economic downturn and the value of the dollar is slashed, cue western governments turning east. China takes the horns of this downturn and turns into a truely vast global powerhouse. All this happens on the same day...

However some people don't remember it like this, they remember the entire worlds economy colapsing, a month of massive crackdowns in China and then the Chinese goverment announcing a new age with China at the forefront. This novel is the story of the people who remember and what they find. To be honest the characters are a bit odd, they are Chinese so I expect cultural differences but the people who remember are characterised as unhappy, whilst everyone else is in a mild state of euphoria. We also have lots of references to state sponsored (and pirate) Christianity as a calming influence on the masses (Karl Marx and his "Opium for the masses" quote seems quite appropriate). All in all the new China looks like an idylic communist state where people feel that they are free enough. Obviously things are not what they seem...

As the quest to find the lost month continues we have lots of details on how the Chinese communist party has done what they have (to stay in power) and as the story continues less and less happens and the closing interogation just ends up as a lecture. What starts off as a reasonably entertaining story ends up as a lecture on world economics, how the communist party has implemented change on the people to keep them happy and how China has managed to keep the whole world on its side.

I found the look at Chinese culture more entertaining that the main thrust of the story unfortunately.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

› See all 38 customer reviews (newest first) on Amazon.co.uk

Write a customer review

Would you like to see more reviews about this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 6 reviews 4.0 out of 5 stars

Were these reviews helpful? Let us know

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fat Years

A terrifying, and all too feasible, portrait of China. It may be set in a slightly different world, but the stark reflection of actual life in China is masterful. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Catriona Reid