Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

factordaily.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 205 posts

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#31

Post by toufiqbarhamov »

forkLding wrote: post #14
treephen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's back in 2006. Now everything has changed. Now China thrives on closing down churches, jailing pastors, censoring 'sensitive' materials in Hong Kong, indoctrinate muslims to eat pork and drink beer, etc etc etc. Doubt any book of significance will arise in this environment

CCP thrives on atheism, most Chinese science fiction novels actually are also non or anti-religion which wins them points in the censor department. At least I've read several post-2015 Chinese sci-fi and whenever religion comes up, the religious figures are always greedy, corrupt and using their religious title for power, "polygamous-cultish" or fanatically stupid. Although the ones I've read have been remixing Cthul…

So don’t hold my breath for the Chinese Version of ‘Black Mirror’ hm?

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#32

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #3
treephen wrote: post #2

I bet none of the books will tackle topics like censorship, big brother, and concentration camps for minorities

Liu Cixin already covers this in his well-known trilogy. Also, Folding Beijing is an award winning short story encompassing all three things plus class strife, written by a Chinese author.

Soviet censorship used to be less heavy on science fiction then on other subjects. is that true for China as well?

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#33

Post by taurath »

yorwba wrote: post #15
the_duke wrote: post #6

As far as I know the Chinese book market is heavily censored. I'd be curious about how this affects Chinese authors, and if and how they have to limit the topics and the creativity of their writing due to this.

Famous authors can write for the international translation market, essentially. A few months ago there was a submission about Yan Lianke's struggles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18206445 It's still possible to read banned books on the mainland if you know the right sites, but most consumers of banned literature are probably just looking for porn, so you might need to do some digging to find something more hi…

Is porn banned? Or only some types?

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#34

Post by Jerry2 »

Cixin Liu's 'Remembrance of Earth’s Past' trilogy are the greatest sci-fi books I've ever read. I still remember when I picked the first volume and than patiently waited for a very long time for translations of the next books to arrive. The wait was well worth it. He manages to put his characters into seemingly insurmountable situations and it feels like he won't be able to write his way out of them but somehow he manages to achieve the impossible. His world-building skills are second to none and he introduced so many novel and interesting technologies into his universe.

Liu's a true master of sci-fi (and definitely a genius) and these books are my favorite fiction books of all time. After I finished the last book, I was depressed because I realized that I'm not going to read something this great again for a very long time. They're also the first Chinese sci-fi books I've ever read. Since then, I read the rest of Liu's books (including the Ball Lightning which came out last year).

Can't recommend these books highly enough but beware that it might make subsequent sci-fi books less enjoyable since you'll be judging them by a different yardstick. I tried to read so many sci-fi books since (I usually buy various award winning books since it's a decent filter) but I rarely finish them because they never capture my attention (and imagination) like Liu's books.

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#35

Post by [deleted] »

andrenth wrote: post #26
qlk1123 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough statement, but it looks more like a direct translation from Chinese sentences to me. > "No Harry Potter local as no magic, ..." We don't publish localized Harry Potter (don't they? I am not sure) because magic fantasy is abandoned. > "... no god, no fiary after 1948." Why 1948? The year is not that meaningful for modern Hong Kong people, but it is a important year for China and Taiwan. At 1948, KMT was de…

> No Harry Potter local as no magic, no god, no fiary after 1948. I read that as “after 1948, no references to magic, religion, fairies (in other words, the supernatural) is allowed”.

[deleted]

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#36

Post by forkLding »

qlk1123 wrote: post #21
treephen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it looks like he's posting from hong kong, and he is trying to avoid the Chinese government censors or get thrown in jail.

Fair enough statement, but it looks more like a direct translation from Chinese sentences to me. > "No Harry Potter local as no magic, ..." We don't publish localized Harry Potter (don't they? I am not sure) because magic fantasy is abandoned. > "... no god, no fiary after 1948." Why 1948? The year is not that meaningful for modern Hong Kong people, but it is a important year for China and Taiwan. At 1948, KMT was de…

The first sentence is probably parsed wrong, Chinese fairy/mythological novels are very popular in China, they've surpassed Chinese martial arts novels which has broken my heart because the fairy/mythological novels suck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xianxia_novel

Note 仙 can mean fairy in Chinese, they are part of the Chinese category known as 仙侠 or 玄幻，which is Asian/Chinese themed fantasy that differs from Western fantasy novels because its about Taoism/Buddhism, Chinese dragons, demons, immortals and Chinese legends.

As well Chinese magical fantasy or 奇幻 is still alive and well but they're basically Western fantasy genres written by Chinese people with similar ideas of Kings, Queens, Western Dragons.

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#37

Post by toufiqbarhamov »

aerophilic wrote: post #25
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liu Cixin already covers this in his well-known trilogy. Also, Folding Beijing is an award winning short story encompassing all three things plus class strife, written by a Chinese author.

One thing I really appreciated about the three body problem (Liu Cixin), was the “completely different perspective” brought to bear. I feel to often with (American) science fiction, you have well known and “expected” themes. What will be interesting is how much further they can go. I personally prefer a “wealth” of perspectives, and you can only get that if people are coming from different cultures.

It was amazing, and it was such a startling, yet “obvious-in-hindsight” way of packaging the potential isolation imposed by the sheer scale of the universe. The sense of dread, loss, and ultimately hope was almost overwhelming. I feel lucky to be alive at a time when I can hear on a website about a book written in China, find a digital copy of the whole trilogy professionally translated, and then discuss the experience on another site full of like-minded people.

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#38

Post by georgeecollins »

treephen wrote: post #2

I bet none of the books will tackle topics like censorship, big brother, and concentration camps for minorities

The Three Body Problem (which I recommend highly) begins with a terrifying scene during the cultural revolution. I think most Chinese people are generally proud of modern China. They know it has problems, but they see problems in the west too.

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#39

Post by est »

> science Literature which first came out in 1979, continued to publish during the campaign against spiritual pollution and continues to this day under the name of Science Fiction World.

Here are some interesting trivia about Science Fiction World

- Nearly all of Liu Cixin's work was first published on this magazine

- The publisher was located in Chengdu, Sichuan, it's an official member of Sichuan Science Society, which is under direct control of Communist Party Sichuan Committee.

- One of the chief editor of SFW, A-Lai[1], who is a Tibetan, also a very established award-winning writer. His most famous work is about the conflict in feudal serfdom Tibet in the 20s century. A very interesting novel.

- SFW was once considered the largest science fiction magazine published by volume. In 2010 there was an online campaign from its staff requesting step down of Party appointed president & chief editor, LiChang.

- LiChang was also responsible for opening another magazine lineup, the famous Magic Fantasy World. Because of the LotR and Harry Potter influence. The magazine was discontinued in 2013.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alai_(author)

Re: The Rise and Rise of Chinese Science Fiction

#40

Post by yanowitz »

Jerry2 wrote: post #34

Cixin Liu's 'Remembrance of Earth’s Past' trilogy are the greatest sci-fi books I've ever read. I still remember when I picked the first volume and than patiently waited for a very long time for translations of the next books to arrive. The wait was well worth it. He manages to put his characters into seemingly insurmountable situations and it feels like he won't be able to write his way out of them but somehow he ma…

I listened to them. The audio books are truly wonderful and immersive narrative (all 96 hours!). I can’t recommend them enough to hard sci fi fans. Although I did have a few false starts with the first book.
Post reply on HN