Character notes for
Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang

Well narrated by Emily Woo Zeller; translated by Ken Liu

Random House Audio, 2020

"Sometimes the fight over the treasure is more important than the treasure itself."
– Message for Hans from Garcia, Maearths's captain.

It was the year 2190 on Earth, the year 40 on Mars.

Martian Republic – "The entire Martian Republic consisted of a single city, a habitat enclosed in glass. Here the land was literally a thing of the people, managed for the commonweal. There was no private ownership in real estate, no smuggling, no buying on credit, no banking. No one knew how children who had grown up in such a place would react to the grand bazaar that was Earth, where commerce was the only rule, and advertisements would bombard the children day and night."

• Luoying Sloan, student in the Mercury Group who went to Earth for five years
• Hans Sloan, Luoying's grandfather, the current consul of Mars ("the great dictator"), head of the Boule Chamber
• Rudy Sloan, Luoying's brother
• "Uncle" Juan, Archon of the Flight System, Hans Sloan's good friend
• "Uncle" Roowak, Archon of the Water System, an engineer turned military commander
• "Uncle" Laak, Registrar of Files, master linguist
• "Uncle" Lanrang, Archon of the Land System, math genius
• Adele, Luoying's mon
• Toutou, friend of Luoying
• "Grandpa" Ronen, friend of Hans, honorary grandpa to Luoying
• Maearth, the ship that travels back and forth between Mars and Earth
• Garcia, Maearths's captain
• Ellie, Maearths's co-captain
• "Once an old man had roared here like a golden-maned lion, and another old man with silvery hair and beard had uncovered a deceitful scheme. Their names were Galiman and Ronen, and they were the other two men in the photograph on the captain's desk."
• Galiman, lifelong friend of Hans Sloan
• Pierre, Galiman's son
• Gielle, childhood friend of Luoying, designer of Luoying's costume and performance partner
• Brenda, childhood friend of Luoying
• Archons, members of the Boule Chamber
• Arsen, the great Martian educator
• Atelier, work studio
• Janet Brook, Tarkovsky Film Archive
• The Mercury Group:
  
  • Leon
  • Kingsley
  • Anka, Luoying's close friend
  • Sorin
  • Chania
  • Mira
• Terran delegation:
  
  • Mr. Peter Beverley, head of the Terran delegation
  • Ruao Beverly, Peter's son
  • Thomas Theon – The middle-aged man was Thomas Theon, CEO of the Thales Media Group and heir to the vast Thales fortune.
  • Eko Lu – The younger man was Eko Lu, a filmmaker and one of the Thales Group's featured artists, there to document the delegation's visit to Mars. It wasn't a secret that [Eko] had studied filmmaking with Arthur Davosky.
  • Vera, virtual concierge doll
  • Antonov, Russian delegate
  • Wang, Chinese delegate
  • Professor Jacques, American delegate
  • Colonel Hopman, German delegate

"We have only a few decades, and no matter how we strive to extend it, a lifetime is but a brief flash in the eyes of the gods and eternal cosmos. But that is precisely where the beauty and power of life lies. All of our vitality, our beliefs, our struggles and resistance, our despair—they are endowed with splendor because of our rapid decay. Think about it: a human being flashes like a bolt of lightning, leaving no trace in the darkness. But in that brief window, they can crystalize something out of their simple soul, something that will last far beyond their death, that will reach for eternity. What a fantastical fate! Even to strike a few poses during that brief flash is among the most magnificent phenomena in the universe."

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