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China's vital role in Chinese science fictionPosted by Joel Martinsen on Friday, December 18, 2009 at 2:09 PM
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:
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:
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. |
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Comments on China's vital role in Chinese science fiction
Are there any English translations of Chinese science fiction novels? I would love to read some.
I wonder if a Chinese edition of David Wingrove's *Chung Kuo* has been published? In that one - a future Earth scenario - the Chinese have taken over the world, the Mandarin class has returned, and history has been rewritten to give the Chinese credit for everything. Everything good, that is.
Then again, probably not. Too bad. Sorta fun.
Xiaolu Guo's UFO in her eyes is available in English (Amazon UK link below) -- though I think it was written in English, not a Chinese language. It's not very SF, in the sense that it is not filled with futuristic technology. Rather, it is an elegiac and considered piece about human society and change (which, I suppose, is exactly what most SF is about, so in that sense it is very SF). link
Interesting post by Liang Wendao. The subject is a recently published (in HK) book by 陈冠中 entitled *盛世:中国2013年*. Something for Chinese SF fans, perhaps.
link
John Chan's novel is pretty interesting and does a good job of portraying the feelings and anxieties of Beijing intellectuals of a certain stripe. It's a nice fusion of pulp and literary satire, and an interlude where the narrator goes off to an underground church community is particularly well-done, if not exactly connected to the plot.
Where the book finally goes off the rails is in the last fifty pages or so, when the plot simply stops and a character delivers a lengthy lecture on China's place in the international community in the first half of the 21st century. Ugh!