Chinese media, advertising, and urban life.

Liu Cixin (刘慈欣) is probably the most popular Chinese science fiction author of the last decade, and the third volume of his Three Body trilogy is the most hotly-anticipated novel of the coming year.

Zhen Yufei (甄煜飞), a book planner and editor, posted the following short comment to his Sina microblog:

Famous Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin — remember, he's a science fiction writer. A science fiction writer writes science fiction. When we sent this author's work to the publisher for review and approval, they rejected it. The reason they gave for rejecting it was that China no longer existed in the world he depicted in the novel!

via Pan Haitian.

Update (2009.12.19): On the NewSMTH message board, Liu Cixin responded to fears that the rejected work was the third volume of the Three Body trilogy:

That's strange. There's a collection of old short stories that's currently in the works, but I haven't submitted a single new word this year. What got rejected?

Last year I gave Dajiao [Pan Haitian] a few thousand word short story on the destruction of Taiyuan, but China was still there.

Note: My translation of an excerpt of Liu Cixin's military-themed SF novel Ball Lightning can be found in the current issue of Words Without Borders magazine.