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.

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