Science fiction blasts off

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For many years, science fiction attracted few Chinese readers, but in the past few years the genre has been taking off.

When Lu Xun and scholar-educator Liang Qichao introduced the adventure novels of French writer Jules Verne as early as 1900, they hoped the ingenious, sci-fi precursors would spur interest in science in China.

At the time, the nation was falling apart and intellectuals believed science and technology would be saviors. The early stories Lu translated from Japanese sold poorly for decades.

The first best-selling Chinese science fiction was written in 1961 by children’s author Ye Yonglie who followed a child into the future where people traveled by nuclear-powered boats and wore watches that broadcast TV programs.

For years, science fiction was either marginalized or categorized as a sub-genre of children’s books. There were almost no Chinese publishers for sci-fi, except for the journal Science Fiction World, which was established in 1979 and mainly published Western works.

Many people were surprised when science fiction suddenly took off in China in the past three to five years, despite the declining readership in the West, where it originated and where fantasy now reigns.

“The genre is on the rise and it might even be called a boom,” says Yan Feng, Chinese literature professor from Fudan University and editor-in-chief of magazine Science & Vie.

“Mainstream Chinese literature has always followed the realistic tradition. And Chinese writers are not traditionally strong in imagination, which is essential in science fiction,” Yan adds.

Powerful imagination about the vast universe is what attracts university student Stella Wu to the genre, starting with the trilogy “Three Body” by engineer Liu Cixin, considered by many to be China’s best sci-fi author.

Citing Arthur C. Clarke as a major influence, Liu applies the famous mathematical predicament, the three-body problem, as the basis of an alien civilization that plans to migrate to earth since their own world is ending.

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