Sino Sci-fi

On August 29， 2015， day four of the Beijing International Book Fair， fair-goers snatched up every single available copy of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem， all 1，570. Liu himself was on hand to greet fans. He spent two hours signing over 1，000 of their books， leaving his fingers stiff and sore.

The 51-year-old sported black-framed glasses and a trim haircut， with a small pin attached to？the lapel of his denim？shirt. It is a gift solely for writers who are nominated for science fiction’s greatest prize C the Hugo Award. Liu’s The Three-Body Problem was not only nominated， it won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel on August 22 at the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention held in Washington State. Liu is the first author from Asia to earn the honor.

Just two hours after receiving the prize， his most popular sci-fi trilogy C Remem-brance of Earth’s Past， of which The ThreeBody Problem is the first installment Cclimbed to？the？top？of？the bestseller？list？on Amazon China. What readers typically refer to as the “Three-Body trilogy” has sold more than 1.5 million copies in Chinese.

Liu’s trilogy begins in a Cultural Revolution-era China in which a military group established contact with a group of extraterrestrials who later decide to invade Earth， leaving the rest of humanity to make the choice between joining the superior species or attempting to fight them off. It began as a serial in the Chinese magazine Science Fiction World in 2006 and turned into a three-volume series that was published from 2008 to 2010. The trilogy accrued a number of accolades in China long before winning the Hugo， including the country’s most prestigious science fiction honor， the Galaxy Award， which it won in 2006 and 2010. Some critics have hailed it as China’s best sci-fi trilogy. But it was not until the books won the internationally prestigious Hugo Award that science fiction as a genre began to enter the country’s mainstream culture.

“It has been such a bumpy road for science fiction in China after [the genre] underwent the dramatic twists of the turmoil of war， political movements and official criticism，” 67-year-old sci-fi novelist Wang Jinkang told our reporter. In his opinion， science fiction in China has “gone through the wilderness” and， after years of accumulative work， Liu’s creation turned out to be the much-needed final push that brought the genre into the public eye.

A big screen adaptation of The ThreeBody Problem？is in post-production， with an expected release date of July 2016. The film adaptation has garnered increasing attention recently， with fans doubting whether its relatively unknown producer will do the story justice. Before Liu started signing fair-goers’ books， he was peppered with questions regarding the choice in producer， with most people wondering why such a popular trilogy was not picked up by a Hollywood studio or why a famous director wasn’t heading the project.

Liu answered them with a question of his own. “Where were all of you five years ago？ At that time， no producers cared about the trilogy， and after it was serialized only this movie studio approached me. So the reason lies in history.”

Rise and Fall

Liu has been passionate about science fiction since the early 1980s. To date， he has written nearly 20 books， several of which have been translated into English. For most of his writing career， Liu also worked as a software engineer at a power plant in Niangziguan， Shanxi Province.

When Liu first read Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001：？A？Space？Odyssey back in the winter of 1981， he was tingling with excitement. Years later， Liu wrote in his blog that after finishing the book， when he stepped out of his room and stared into the night sky， “he suddenly felt that his surroundings disappeared and he was alone under the splendid starry night， blanketed in the mysteries beyond human wisdom.”

In those days， Liu could easily access domestic sci-fi novels in journals like Science Fiction World， which remains China’s most popular publication for sci-fi and fantasy to this day. He could even read sci-fi in some mainstream literary journals.

Some Chinese academics have called the early 1980s， just after China entered its period of Reform and Opening-up， the country’s science fiction “golden age.” China’s first exposure to the genre dates back to the early 1900s， when Western sci-fi novels were first introduced to Chinese readers， but because of 20th century wars and the Cultural Revolution （1966-76）， the development of the genre was frequently interrupted.

Ye Yonglie， one of the earliest and most renowned sci-fi writers in China， wrote a thin volume in 1961 entitled Little Knowit-All Roams the Future， which described enticing visions of a futuristic world through the eyes of a child， but his story was not published until its initial print of three million copies in 1978.

Over the years， Liu has become curious about a strange phenomenon： In a Communist country， one would think there would be a multitude of sci-fi novels illustrating future communist utopias. But that never happened. The only Chinese sci-fi novel related to communism Liu can think of is Zheng Wenguang’s Capriccio for？Communism， which was published in 1958. It envisages the scientific achievements of 1979， in which artificial suns could melt glaciers and transform deserts into rich farmland.

When Liu was a college student in the early 1980s， he could not afford to buy his own copies of sci-fi magazines and there were few sci-fi novels in the school library. At that time， when a classmate managed to get their hands on a sci-fi magazine， the whole class took turns reading it. “I had to wait eagerly for my classmates to finish reading it，” Liu said. “After several handovers， the book would be all dog-eared.”

In his mind， science fiction then was largely used to “promote science and technology amongst young people，” with works that gained a lot of popularity in Liu’s college. Liu tried writing some sci-fi stories with themes like alien invasions， environmental protection and military conflicts. He still has these manuscripts to this day， including two novels， Inferno？and With Her Eyes，？which he revised and published more than 10 years later.

“It is embarrassing to present most of my work from that time，” Liu told our reporter. “At that age and with so little life experience， I hadn’t accumulated enough knowledge.”

In those years he was eager to write， but his zeal was dampened after 1984， when critics were debating whether or not sci-fi novels should stick to scientific fact only. Some critics thought that science fiction should be part of popular science and should only disseminate real science. They labeled the imaginary aspects as unrealistic and useless， belonging to the category of“mental contamination.”

Subsequently， an editorial criticizing science fiction as a genre was published on the front page of Party newspapers and “as a result， the publication of sci-fi novels stopped overnight， and by the next day they’d disappeared，” Liu said. The nascent sci-fi scene came to an abrupt end， and， robbed of an audience， Liu stopped writing， too.

In a 2002 article， Liu wrote pessimistically that “the new generation of sci-fi writers has little reason to reminisce about the past， because we don’t really have a past to remember.”

Between the Lines

It was in 2010 that Liu finished Death’s End， the last installment of his Three-Body trilogy. While the books were not an instant mainstream hit， they quickly became popular among those in China’s IT industry. Many IT company CEOs used the saga’s second installment， The Dark Forest， to describe the competition between domestic IT enterprises in their public speeches， even turning some quotes from the novel into soundbites.

From there， the Three-Body trilogy gradually entered more mainstream scientific and literary circles. Theoretical physicist Li Miao wrote a book called Three-Body Physics that explained the physics principles in the novels. The China Academy of Space Technology invited Liu to deliver a speech about his series. For mainstream literary academia， which had marginalized the scifi genre for a long time， “The Three-Body trilogy was like a strange monster who suddenly appeared； critics didn’t know what to do about it， but they had to face it，” Liu said.

He told our reporter that the Three-Body books explore whether human beings’ sense of values and morality are still tenable in extreme circumstances. Liu is not the only sci-fi writer to dive into bleak themes； many other Chinese writers’ post-2000 works depicted the darkness of the cosmos and the end of the world， expressing doubts and apprehension over the role of science and technology and the future of mankind.

In Escape from Mother Universe， for example， author Wang Jinkang depicts a post-apocalyptic， polygamous society that， under an extreme dictatorship， has developed a catastrophic moral system. In his new book， Soloist， Han Song portrays a horrifying and absurd nation in which young people sing in the dark of night only to die and leave behind unidentifiable bodies， women get lost in giant airports and elderly people spend their whole lives demanding remunerations.

What is interesting to Liu is that in the 20th century， many Chinese sci-fi novels were brimming with scientific optimism.“In those days， the government had been promoting science and technology and that spirit was imprinted in that era’s sci-fi story lines，” Liu told NewsChina. “Technological advancement’s negative side effects were not as obvious then as they are today. For example， environmental pollution was not such an urgent issue.”

Liu said sci-fi authors’ pre-2000 market awareness was not as strong as it is today； now， in order to write an interesting， marketable book， authors tend to set their stories in a bleak future. “It’s pretty easy to see that if you choose a glorious future that sings the praises of scientific progress， your story will lack drama，” he added.

Canadian Hugo Award-winner Robert？J. Sawyer， who visited China in 2014， said he thinks the reason Chinese authors depict a dark and grim apocalypse has to do with what China and its people suffered throughout history. Yet to Liu， science fiction as a genre is actually more closely related to a society’s development and its progress in the fields of science and technology. For example， sci-fi novels first debuted in the UK during the Industrial Revolution. The golden age of science fiction in the US was from 1930-60， correlating with the country’s ascension to its current role as a world superpower.

“Nowadays， some Chinese sci-fi novels have pocketed awards and received attention in the US partly because of China’s rise in power，” Liu told NewsChina. “It is an underlying reason.”