时间：2022-04-26 04:24:25
Because of Three Body, science fiction that has been quiet for many years suddenly becomes lively again. Affected by the knock-on effect, the backbones of Chinese science fiction also receive more attention. They are represented by post-60s and post-70s such as Liu Cixin, Han Song, Pan Haitian, etc. They obviously pull away from the traditional authors and opened a new era for Chinese science fiction. In fact, after science fiction raised an upsurge in China since the 1980s, the creation of Chinese science fiction has felled into a prolonged downturn. There are few famous authors and works in the field of science fiction literature came out in recent 20 years. In contrast, foreign science fiction literature has been raised waves of new upsurges in the book market, many works such as Star Wars, The Matrix and so on have been adapted into popular films and become fashionable for a time in the world. In the 1980s, the creation of Chinese science fiction experienced a “golden period”, then it quickly entered the bottleneck period of the development. Analyzing the causes of this situation, finding out the reason restricting the creation of science fiction and searching a solution to it has become an important issue that whether the creation of science fiction can continue to develop rapidly or not.
Characteristics of Chinese Science Fiction in Each Period
Reviewing the development history of Chinese science fiction, we could clearly see the clear context and distinctive stage. Started from the New Culture Movement which appeared in China since “the May 4th Movement” in modern time, Chinese science fiction has been planted and rooted in this fertile soil of Chinese modern literature. Since Lu Xun translated science fictions From the Earth to the Moon and Journey to the Center of the Earth by French famous science fiction author Jules Verne according to the Japanese version in 1902, China started to have science fiction in a real sense. The period from then to the 1970s is the first historical period of Chinese science fiction. In this period, science fiction took on the task of “popularizing scientific knowledge” to the people.
After the founding of new China, Chinese science fiction begins to toward the masses in the style of children's literature. In this period, the creation of Chinese science fiction was affected by Soviet science fiction. Literary form in this period was closer to children's scientific literature, many of them aimed to popularize scientific knowledge to young readers and build a beautiful image of the socialist country in works. It is because the concept of “using science fiction to popularize science” spread unchecked in that period, the creation of Chinese science fiction in that period was in an era of “Utilitarianism”. Science fiction’s function of popularizing science was inappropriately exaggerated, thus authors’ creation was restricted under the influence of this kind of value orientation and readers’ understanding of science fiction was also misguided.
After having experienced the dormancy in the period of “cultural revolution”, science fiction has entered another period since 1978 when the reform and opening-up began. This period is a golden period for the creation of Chinese science fiction. After the publication of petro-protein by Ye Yonglie, classic works of Chinese science fiction emerged in an endless stream. No matter the well known A Clever Boy’s Travel to the Future, The Death Ray on the Coral Island, or Flying to Sagittarius which is generally recognized by the field of science fiction, were almost created in that period. In that period, almost all the literary publications and science journals were contending for publishing works of science fiction. The Chinese press field quickly formed four major bases represented by Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan and Heilongjiang for the publication of science fiction and made a showcase of the level of Chinese original science fiction. In that period, Chinese science fiction films and television works adapted from science fiction also achieved the zero breakthrough. Several science fiction works and expectant science fiction films such as The Death Ray on the Coral Island, The Vanished Atmosphere, The Wonder Boy were successively published. However, in that period, people’s understanding of science fiction was also restricted in the same definition in the several periods above.
After the 1990s, the external environment of Chinese science fiction had a new change. In 1991, depended on great passion and courage, Sichuan Science Fiction World took risks to hold “The World Science Fiction Conference” in Chengdu. In fact, just 17 participants in total came from countries and regions out of the mainland participated the so called world conference. But this activity gave the works of Chinese science fiction a confidence. Emergence of new authors is the prominent characteristic of the creation of science fiction in that period. Carding along the time, a group of authors who were full of youthful spirit, testability and tried to change the original paradigm of Chinese science fiction appeared on the stage. Han Song, Xing He are the first group of authors appeared in this process.
The Reasons Which Affect the Current Situation of Chinese Science Fiction
There is no denying that under the current situation of development there is an obvious disparity between Chinese science fiction and foreign science fiction. Compared with its peak period in 1980s, Chinese science fiction still has a remarkable disparity in respect of quality and quantity of works and the degree of concern of readers. So what is the reason that leads to the current situation of Chinese science fiction?
Firstly, the degree of concern of society and readers is decreasing and market demand is shrinking. Since the reform and opening-up in the 1980s, social culture has shown a trend of diversified development. As the application and popularization of the computer and internet, the channel for people to get information becomes more convenient and quicker. Moreover, the powerful visual impact brought by science fiction films and television works from abroad made the group of readers who belonged to Chinese science fiction quickly disperse. At the same time, Chinese science fiction had thirty or forty kinds of readings in the 1980s, but nowadays just Science Fiction World is surviving and operating difficultly. This directly leads to the shrink of readership of science fiction, and lets science fiction works lose the foundation it depends on for existence and development in the macro environment of market economy. According to statistics, nowadays the team that is engaged in the creation of science fiction in China has no more than one hundred authors, among them there are just about ten authors could enjoy the reputation.
Secondly, creating science fiction not only needs excellent literary attainments, but also needs to know scientific knowledge. However, nowadays our educational mode is the division of arts and science. This directly leads to the situation that the people who know literary creation are lacking in the knowledge of science and technology while the people who get the knowledge of science and technology are not capable of going in for literary creation. Mr. Jin Tao, the science fiction author of the older generation has ever said that it is quite difficult for authors to write science fiction works; authors not only need excellent literary skills, but also need to know the science and would better stand at the forefront and know the latest developing trends of science and technology. However, nowadays, the educational mode especially the division of arts and science has led to a consequence that authors who want to write science fiction but failed because they don’t know the science, and great majority of authors who know the science but couldn’t write a good fiction. And this has limited the emergence of science fiction authors. Author Su Tong considered that the difficulty of science fiction is that authors must not only have the foundation of science, but also have a rich imagination. However, nowadays, it is completely impossible for the common authors to set foot in science fiction. Seeing from several authors who are in high popularity in domestic science fiction field we can also find out that. For instance, Liu Cixin, the author of Three Body series, is a computer engineer; Pan Haitian, the author of The Legend of Yan Shi, is an architect; Han Song, the author of The Tombstone in the Cosmos, is working in the Xinhua News Agency. Traveling around the world is good for broadening his horizon. These authors that can be recognized in domestic science fiction book market which is far from being prosperous are all without exception have the unique writing condition for science fiction. Similarly, science fiction authors who are regarded as the classic, like Arthur Clark, Vernor Vinge, Asimov and so on are all have the background of engineering. Thus it can be seen that the effect on science fiction authors by education is very great, and it is not so easy to cultivate a science fiction author as people think.
Thirdly, the work of science popularization is not good enough. This makes the overall scientific literacy of Chinese people not high and directly influences the prosperity of science fiction. Generally, science fiction can involve many professional knowledge and definitions. If readers’ scientific literacy can’t keep up with the thought of the author and the expression content of the work, then the awkward situation of “can not understand” will appear. In this context, there is a great distinction between Chinese science fiction and foreign science fiction in so called “being soft or hard”. Chinese science fiction may prefer “being soft” more, because if readers who represent the market don’t have an excellent background of scientific knowledge, then the authors of Chinese science fiction could hardly have a meticulous imagination of the future at the level science and technology, but have more great fantasies and more imaginations of the future society instead. No matter how much the authors love the creation of science fiction, if readers could not accept the hard science fiction, then the authors can only try to adapt to the market.
How to Understand the Differences between Chinese and Western Science Fiction
I. When talking about science fiction, we cannot help mentioning the United States. Compared with China’s science fiction, America’s science fiction has the strength of advanced operation mechanism. The science fiction is not the native literary style in America. When Gernsback from America founded the Amazing Stories which is the first science fiction publication in the world, he can only reproduce the Wales’s and Verne’s (“foreign writers”) science fictions. However, Americans established a complete advanced operation mechanism for science fiction literature by their usual understanding ability and organizing skills, for example, Campbell’s training mechanism for the authors and science fiction education mechanism for colleges and high schools, etc. Continuously publish works, become writers, have markets and come to maturity depending on these mechanisms. America’s science fiction has many advantages, not only compared with China’s science fiction, but also compared with worldwide countries’ science fiction literatures. You can see brilliances of inspiration flashing of Beliaiev from Soviet Union, Sakyo Komatsu from Japan, Liem from Poland, Borges from Argentina and other Science fiction writers, but you cannot view the Soviet, Japanese, Polish and Argentina science fictions as developed as America’s science fiction.
After 1980s, Americans built the leading operation mechanism in science-fiction movies and brought a new windspout. The art work is like decoration layout of a ship surface for the world to observe and appreciate; however, the operation mechanism of the arts seems to be a boiler and propeller of a ship which is arranged where outsiders cannot see, but they are the real power of the ship. There is no doubt that the most valuable advantages for learning are the mature operation mechanisms.
Pioneering and enterprising spirit are another strengths of America’s science fiction which is the weakness of domestic science fiction field. The United States integrates fantasts and gold diggers from various countries worldwide; and the pioneering and enterprising spirit penetrates into all aspects of American society and science fiction is not an exception. Ideological theme on development and improvement is showed in sci-fi masterpieces of all times.
However, the newness of China’s science fiction generally stays on the shallow level; there is large-scale space-time backgrounds in China’s science fictions, but you will find that they are the new stages set by the writers when reading them carefully; and the stories are still familiar with us: love triangle, maneuver for position and others. Our stories often show a convergent thinking, i.e. convert the new things to the familiar things with us as much as possible. While the American science fictions show newness, strangeness and mystery and create new space in the works as much as possible to make readers experience pioneering and enterprising spirit.
II. Compared with American science fiction, although China’s science fiction is like a bud, objectively speaking, it has some advantages as well, i.e. its rigorous tradition of respect for science.
China’s science fiction adheres to rigorous style of Soviet science fiction; furthermore, it is diverted by the science writers and it maintains the respect to science for a long time. This tendency is more obvious than American science fiction transformed from light literature. This feature was deemed as conservative by critics and even China’s science-fiction writers and the writers improved the “fiction” elements as much as possible; and even now, they believe that the writers’ imagination is the gist of science fiction literature. However, Americans finally find that science is the root of science fiction through a circle (from golden time to a new wave to “cyberpunk” and from hard to soft to hard); if remove this root, the science fiction will be the same as the absurd and fantasy novels and lose its features.
Readers will not hope that there is a large amount of “diabolic tricks and wicked craft, magic-miracle things” in China’s science fiction. The science-fiction writers shall understand that the reasonable and detailed fantasy is an advantage of science fiction.
III. There is no distinction between good and bad science fiction. After all, China and United States have different nations, cultures and art appreciation views; for the same science fiction, Americans will love it, but Chinese readers may not like it or cannot understand it after reading.
For example, the works with cyborg (man-made) subjects or clone subject are involved in western theological concepts: God has a right to create life; therefore the works can shock westerners’ minds. However, these stories have a little meaning to Chinese readers who have no religious traditions; at best, they are just some fantasy stories.
There was no strong response when the Star Wars was released in mainland China and Taiwan; Chinese people thought that its magic is worse than Journey to the West and the Legend of Deification. Americans love and understand the works with western religions or historical subjects, such as Look at This Man, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and similar works, but Chinese readers have difficulties to understand the details without explanatory notes. America is the leader in the world in Independence Day and Chinese reader will not like this. But we cannot say Americans are very egotistical or they have some propaganda conspiracy, it is only made by different national prides; Chinese readers feel proud and elated in 11/11/11 S (11/11/11 S is a work named Door Leading to the Last Day in Chinese) and similar works, do not they?
We take such motto that “make good for deficiency” as the supreme state of learning and reference. It is important to figure out the strength and weakness of other people’s works. Now, facing the American science fiction (extend to foreign science fictions), many China’s science writers cannot help being attracted, like the magnet in front of the iron filings; therefore, some writers propose the inexplicable issue that “God makes man” in works. Some writers say that Chinese readers are not interested in “alienation” and other writers do not know how to write the novel if they give no foreign names in their works; which are dangerous to China’s science fiction for needing to establish its own features.
How to Get Out the Bottleneck in Development