You are listening to a Clarksrolled magazine podcast with your host and narrator, Kate Baker.

Greetings Clarksville citizens, I hope this podcast finds you extraordinarily well.

Welcome to our fifth story for the month of December 2022 issue 195.

I hope that your December is going extraordinarily well, you're not too stressed out, and that

you're warm, happy, and safe.

Thank you for taking the time to spend with us here at another podcast.

And thank you for your ongoing support.

If you'd like to donate a dollar a month or more, you can go over to patreon.com for

slash ClarksWorld every bit helps.

So our story is titled Upstart and is by Lou Bonn, translated by Blake Stone Banks.

Lou Bonn built a following in China with his 2020 debut novel Futuritis, currently under

development by Wrong Juan Films.

In 2021, he published Upstart and won the 2021 China SF Galaxy Award for Best New Writer.

His work explores relationships between technology and systems of control.

Translator, Blake Stone Banks.

He's a translator of Chinese speculative fiction.

He speculates his own fiction too, born in Kentucky and domesticated in Beijing.

He thrives on bluegrass and revolutionary model operas.

So my dear listener, I hope you can sit back, relax, and let me tell you a story.

Your name, sir, just call me Kay.

Apologies, sir.

This process is meticulously controlled.

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