Science fiction’s literary roots trace to Mary Shelley, whose Frankenstein is widely considered the first true science fiction novel and remains influential today. [3][4].

Pioneers like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells shaped early 20th‑century science fiction, with Wells’s The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds pairing speculation with sharp social critique and inspiring a century of tales. [11].

Influential mid‑century voices included Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, while Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert A. Heinlein became foundational figures in the genre.

An era of innovation followed with writers such as Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, and Philip K. Dick introducing new concepts and experimental approaches.

Technological change—from rocketry pioneered by Robert H. Goddard and Wernher von Braun to broader 20th‑century scientific advances—repeatedly expanded science fiction’s themes and horizons. [13][41].

The genre increasingly engaged philosophical and scientific inquiry, using narrative to explore implications of emerging knowledge and technology. [9].

Critical lenses such as feminist and postcolonial studies reframed science fiction as social and cultural commentary, bringing themes like racism, minority struggles, and ecological crisis to the fore.

Science fiction often mirrors its era’s anxieties, with contemporary works voicing environmental concerns and encouraging readers to rethink power and society. [15].

Cross‑genre experimentation has been a major engine of change, with science fiction blending with fantasy and horror to create new subgenres and narrative possibilities.

Examples of this intersection include Dune’s science‑fantasy world‑building and Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti, which weaves science fiction with horror elements. [33].

Technological culture helped spark cyberpunk in the late 20th century, while later works like Neuromancer explored artificial intelligence and virtual reality. [2].

The field globalized dramatically, with Chinese science fiction moving from dormancy in the 1960s–1977 to brief flourishing after 1976, facing suppression in 1983, and then booming in the 1990s under Western influence and a popular magazine reaching 400,000 circulation.

Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, signaling the international prominence of Chinese science fiction. [1][4].

China’s science fiction industry has grown rapidly, with major revenues and internationally recognized authors like Wang Jinkang contributing to global conversations. [10].

Other regions have rich traditions and expansions too, from early Arabic speculative works like Avicenna’s The message of Hayy bin Yaqzan to modern Russian postmodernist contributions by authors such as Vladimir Sorokin. [14].

In India, filmmakers like Shekhar Kapur and S. Shankar have pushed science‑fiction themes into mainstream cinema, reflecting the genre’s wider cultural reach.

New technologies have introduced fresh subjects and tools for storytelling, with virtual reality and artificial intelligence opening additional narrative frontiers and ethical debates. [49].

Contemporary authors and projects also emphasize interdisciplinarity and collaboration between science and literature, exemplified by initiatives like the Dartmouth Speculative Fiction Project.

Women and authors of color have profoundly reshaped science fiction, with figures such as Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, N.K. Jemisin, and Nnedi Okorafor expanding themes of identity, power, culture, and social justice.

N.K. Jemisin’s work uses macro and micro worldbuilding to interrogate cultural conflict and power, urging readers to envision better futures.

Chinese women writers have rapidly gained visibility, publishing multiple anthologies, focusing on distinctive female experiences, and benefiting from the internet’s reduction of traditional barriers to entry.

Queer literature has also grown in visibility and scope, with LGBTQIA+ writers introducing diverse, nuanced narratives that challenge genre norms.

Awards and institutions have helped consolidate both canon and diversity, with the Hugo Awards promoting landmark works such as Dune and The Left Hand of Darkness and the Xingyun Awards recognizing a broad range of Chinese science fiction, including translations. [37].

Classic cornerstones for a book club include Frankenstein, The Time Machine, Dune, Ender’s Game, and The Left Hand of Darkness. [4][14][59].

Contemporary and global selections that broaden perspective include The Three-Body Problem, Binti, The Fifth Season, Parable of the Sower, All Systems Red, and This Is How You Lose the Time War. [4][6][1].

Anthologies like The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 can efficiently surface new authors and underrepresented voices for group discussion.

For deliberate inclusivity, seek non‑American writers, mix established and emerging authors, and use diverse‑book frameworks to ensure a wide range of voices and experiences.

Reading diverse books deepens cultural understanding and addresses longstanding representation gaps, helping a club reflect the genre’s evolving breadth. [62].

Overall, science fiction has evolved from the social critiques of Wells and the speculative origins of Shelley to a global, interdisciplinary, and increasingly inclusive conversation shaped by technological change and diverse creators. [11][3][4][6][41].

Science fiction’s literary roots trace to Mary Shelley, whose Frankenstein is widely considered the first true science fiction novel and remains influential today. [3][4].

Title:

Content: Tribute to Frankenstein! "Science Lovers" turned AI AI version author into transgender
▲ In response to "Frankenstein" two centuries ago, contemporary writer Janet Winterson wrote a tribute to "Science Lovers". (Photo / Courtesy of New Classic Culture)
Journalist Yu-Aya Lin / Comprehensive Report
In 1816, writer Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein", and now the boldest contemporary writer Janet Winterson wrote a tribute to "Science Lovers", which not only made Frankenstein "electric" into AI, but also turned the author into a transgender romantic lover. Chinese version of Classical Culture.
In 1818, Mary Shelley published the first science fiction novel "Frankenstein", in which the protagonist is a curious medical student, Frankenstein, who disregarding the taboo to assemble body parts and connect the electric current, creating the horror monster we are now familiar with - "Frankenstein".
This novel not only opened up the science fiction vision of literature, the author also used monsters to refer to the situation of women in the early stages of the industrial revolution: unable to receive education, excluded from the public domain, and extremely limited scope of life.
[Advertisement] Please continue reading...
In 2018, when “Frankenstein ” turned 200 years old, Britain ’ s most original writer, Janet Winterson, paid tribute to the classic two centuries ago with her new book“ Science Lovers: A Story of Love ”, and also asked the question: In the modern era of artificial intelligence and genetic technology, does the line between “artificial life and human ” and“ woman and man ” still exist?
In the humorous pen of author Janet Winterson, Dr. Frankenstein, who had previously violated the taboo of life, has become Professor Victor Stein, the developer of artificial intelligence; and Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, has become the lover of Professor Stein; Lord Byron has also come to the modern age, becoming a playful sex robot maker. The success or otherwise of his career has influenced the "sexual" well-being of the world.
Dr. Vito Stein, on the other hand, is secretly conducting some kind of taboo experiment, and with Rui ’ s help, he wants to steal a mysterious head from the ultra-cryopreservation of the human body in Phoenix and upload its consciousness to the cloud.
Mary Shelley, less than 19 years old, published Frankenstein in 1818.
Right: The most daring writer of the time, Janet Winterson, wrote the modern version of Frankenstein ’ s response.
(Image / taken from the network)
Mary Shelley, who was less than 19 years old, wrote Frankenstein; and Janet Winterson, who also experienced extraordinary experience, wrote a humorous, cynical, bold and frank modern version of Frankenstein in response to Mary Shelley, and the modern intersection of the development of artificial intelligence and the breaking of human and non-human boundaries, embracing science and love of literature. She asks, “What is the nature of life? ”
The work has also been well received by international media, with Elle magazine praising Janet Winterson as "the boldest and most original writer of our time."
“Winterson ’ s smartest scheduling in this book is perhaps to point out that transgender people are the real pioneers in a future we can decide for ourselves, when we can design our own bodies. ”
In rewriting Frankenstein from this perspective, the monster no longer looks like a monster; he was just born too early.
One day, Winterson pointed out that biology no longer defines us.
We are just consciousness - unbridled consciousness. "
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What is considered the first true science fiction novel of the modern era, which foreshadowed genetic tinkering?

Pioneers like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells shaped early 20th‑century science fiction, with Wells’s The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds pairing speculation with sharp social critique and inspiring a century of tales. [11].

Title:

Content: 60 Sci-Fi Books That All Science Fiction Fans Must Read

Are you looking for a new science fiction book to read? Looking to fill up your reading list with journeys to strange new worlds and fast-paced science fiction adventures? You're in luck because we've compiled a list of the best sci-fi books.

Whether you're looking to dive into the great sci-fi classics you missed out on or you're looking to delve into brand new tales from up-and-coming indie authors, you're sure to find something that will spark creativity and excitement for you. Science fiction and fantasy novels provide us with allegories, cautionary tales, and deep dives into the human condition told through the lens of the fantastical and the cutting-edge.

The Best Sci-Fi Origins Books

Where did it all begin? Read these early tales with impossible futures, fascinating creatures, time travel, and alien invasion!

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein brought us the iconic monster made by Victor Frankenstein. Considered the first true science fiction novel of the modern era, it would foreshadow genetic tinkering stories of the future.

The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish (also called The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World)

Considered to be the first science fiction work, in the 17th century, Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish wrote of a utopian world.

Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The third Oz book by L. Frank Baum features Tik-Tok, the wind-up clockwork man Dorothy Gale encounters in the Land of Ev. Tik-Tok is basically one of the first robots in literature. Other wacky features in Ozma of Oz include a sand-sailing boat and lunch pail tree.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

A 19th century classic by Wells, depicting time travel and inspiring science fiction tales for over a century.

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

The book would go on to inspire a radio program that terrified people into thinking Martians were actually invading Earth. Wells would kickstart first contact stories and alien invasion at the same time, offering up a cautionary tale that touches sci-fi to this day.

The Best Sci-Fi Space Epics Books

Transport yourself across the universe with these pillars of world-building in science fiction, all of which are either now adapted for TV or film or soon will be.

Dune by Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert’s Dune is considered a masterwork of world-building and family intrigue, inspiring other famous series and their respective houses. In the first book, Paul Atreides encounters the resident free people of the planet Arrakis (Dune), the Fremen, and achieves a destiny of messianic proportions. Dune recently graced the big screen in a new adaptation by Denis Villeneuve.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor's Binti novella series begins with Binti, a Hugo-award-winning Africanfuturistic science fiction horror story published by Tor.com. Binti is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the most exalted institution of higher learning in the galaxy. She faces the choice to accept the offer and give up her place in her family so that she can travel among the stars. Hulu has ordered a pilot for Binti.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

The beginning of the Foundation series reveals the “psychohistory” developed by mathematician Harry Seldon. Seldon would establish a new empire called Foundation to preserve the culture from societal collapse. Foundation debuted as a TV show on Apple TV in 2021.

Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell

Gareth L. Powell's award-winning trilogy Embers of War follows the war-weary crew of the sentient spaceship Trouble Dog, who after becoming disgusted by her role in war joins the House of Reclamation. Trouble Dog and her captain Sal Konstanz are sent on a rescue mission, which intersects a mission to find missing poet Ona Sundak. The galaxy teeters on the brink of another war, just as an alien presence makes itself known, altering the course of things to come. Now under development for TV.

Rendezvous with Rama by Sir Arthur C. Clarke

A strange spacecraft enters the solar system, and humanity investigates. The secrets within the enormous craft, called Rama, reveal the heritage of an advanced alien civilization. Rendezvous with Rama is in development for a film adaptation with Denis Villeneuve at the helm.

The Best Hard Sci-Fi Books

If you like your science fiction taut with the edginess of battle and the implication of future wars, you must add these books to your collection!

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

This classic military sci-fi epic details the tragic effects of time dilation on a group of soldiers fighting a seemingly endless war.

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Set in the 29th century, Louis Wu and his companions explore a vast, Earth-orbit-sized, constructed world. Their adventures uncover the alien civilization that built it.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

First set with the backdrop of China’s cultural revolution, this new epic involves secret scientific experiments, alien invasion, challenging moral dilemmas, and impressive world-building.

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

A man in his 70s is recruited as a soldier in the Colonial Defense Force, and altered physically in unexpected ways. Strong on character development, this kickstarts the Old Man’s War Series.

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

This classic military sci-fi tale follows Johnny Rico and military recruits who become involved in a battle between humans and aliens nicknamed Arachnids or “Bugs.”

If you love Starship Troopers, check out our review of the wisdom of Grand Admiral Thrawn – Michael

The Best Sci-Fi Robot Stories

The future of robots is here and is complex and necessary reading in these sci-fi tales.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov’s intriguing work introduced the laws of robotics that all robots must adhere to work alongside humans.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

The first novel in the Murderbot Diaries, All Systems Red, follows a cyborg that goes by the name Murderbot contends with self-awareness in the corporate-dominated future.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

The beginning of the Lunar Chronicles series is a retelling of Cinderella from the point of view of a cyborg.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

Famed for its eventual big-screen adaptation, Blade Runner, this novel recounts a future in which highly realistic artificial fugitives are on the run from bounty hunter Rick Deckard.

The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia

Mattie is an automaton in this steampunk and urban fantasy novel involving gargoyles, Mechanics, and Alchemists.

The Best Sci-Fi Mars Stories

Our neighbor, the red planet Mars, beckons to us. What would it be like to walk on the shifting red sands of Mars? Find out in these Martian classics.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury’s mesmerizing prose introduces us to a Mars full of exotic possibility, soon plundered by humanity’s arrival.

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

The first in the Mars Trilogy, Red Mars, involves the colonization and terraforming of Mars and the conflicting moral questions that result.

The Martian by Andy Weir

Astronaut Mark Watney is left behind on a Mars mission and must draw upon his skills and ingenuity in order to survive.

Mars by Ben Bova

Navajo geologist Jamie Waterman joins the first expedition of scientists exploring Mars. The grounded approach Bova takes to all the interaction, politics, and bureaucracy help achieve a plausible future story.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

The first book in the Red Rising Trilogy envisions a future of planetary colonization in which caste systems abound. Darrow must fight against this system of overlords.

The Best Sci-Fi Fantasy Books

Fly high with dragons, roam lands on epic quests, and learn the hearts of true heroes in the fantasy masterpieces.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnum opus spans three books, opening up a fantastically detailed and wholly invented universe in Middle Earth that was hinted at in The Hobbit. Considered the ultimate work of fantasy, The Lord of the Rings brings myth, allegory, poetry, song, war, and melancholy to heights of realism and wonder.

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

The first novel in The Earthsea Cycle tells the tale of the wizard Ged, and his journey to redeem his reckless past.

A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin

Beginning with A Game of Thrones, Martin’s elaborate, dark fantasy series covers land in which seasons last decades, and a terrible force from the north threatens to bring an icy apocalypse to an area filled with rulers jockeying to take the Iron Throne.

The Dragonriders of Pern Series by Anne McCaffrey

This remarkable series takes place in the world of Pern, where people telepathically bond with dragons. Dragonflight is the first in the series.

The Fifth Season: The Broken Earth, Book 1 by N.K Jemisin

The Fifth Season marks the first book of the award-winning The Broken Earth trilogy. Set against civilization’s collapse and natural disaster, Essun endures great personal tragedy in her quest to rescue her daughter.

The Best Sci-Fi Dystopian & Apocalyptic Books

Set in a nightmare future, these dystopian and apocalyptic legends will keep you up at night.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

In a totalitarian future America, handmade Offred is forced to bear children to men of a ruling class. The tale follows her harrowing life in a bleak future, and the attempt to escape and bring down the subjugating class to restore rights.

The Stand by Stephen King

A deadly pathogen escapes a military installation, rapidly spreading and bringing civilization essentially to an end. A group of survivors makes its way to a form of a promised land while battling a malevolent group seeking domination.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

In the near future breakdown of the society of Los Angeles, empathic teenager Lauren believes in a better future entailing traveling to other planets. Lauren gathers followers to her belief as she makes her way north.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Set in the Great Lakes region of America, a group of nomadic creatives picks up the pieces after the fall of civilization due to pandemic flu. Station Eleven has been adapted for HBO Max.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The first book in the Hunger Games Trilogy follows the immense challenges that Katniss Everdeen faces in the post-apocalyptic version of America called Panem. She takes her sister’s place in the government-sponsored Hunger Games to compete for survival in a no-holds-barred and deadly competition.

The Best Sci-Fi Near Futures Books

The future is here, or nearly so, in these ground-breaking novels set close to our present day.

Contact by Carl Sagan

Scientist Ellie Arroway detects a potential extraterrestrial signal from space, which appears to instruct humanity in how to build a machine. She faces self-doubt amid scrutiny to uncover the mysteries of the discovery.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

This cautionary tale about genetic engineering in which scientists make living, cloned dinosaurs for an amusement park. Mayhem ensues.

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

Mysterious monoliths appear across many worlds, seeding life with intelligence. Following the discovery of one such monolith on the moon, Dr. Bowman and a team of scientists investigate the signal it sends to Saturn’s moon Iapetus. The onboard AI begins exhibiting dangerous behavior during the journey.

Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer

A physics experiment creates an unintended consequence of everyone on earth losing consciousness for two minutes. Each person sees a “flash forward” decades in the future while they are unconscious. The resulting accidents and visions challenge everyone’s ideas of free will.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

In dystopian 2044, impoverished Wade Watts navigates through the virtual reality world of the OASIS, seeking to reverse his fortune.

The Best Sci-Fi Books for Younger Readers

Take adventures through time and space, no matter your age!

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

The Murry children and Calvin O’Keefe crosses universes and space-time to try to find their missing father. Their tale is a mind-bending adventure of good vs. evil.

His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass/The Subtle Knife/The Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pullman

The Golden Compass/Northern Lights begins this sweeping saga of two children, one born in a parallel universe, one born in our own. In Lyra’s world, people’s souls exist in animal form, called daemons. Her father and mother represent warring factions determined to control all universes. Filled with talking animals, witches, airships, and strange creatures, His Dark Materials packs an emotional punch.

The Apothecary Series by Maile Meloy

Set in the 1950s, The Apothecary starts this highly entertaining, thrilling adventure series in which American Janie Scott meets Benjamin Burrows, the son of an apothecary. After Benjamin’s father is kidnapped, the teenagers uncover a terrifying plot that could result in humanity’s end. They use potions with magical effects to try and stop the impending doom.

The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #1) by Sayantani DasGupta

The first of the Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond series, book one begins with Kiranmala discovering her parents are missing, and there is a demon in her kitchen! Two princes recruited her and sent to another dimension, where she must battle the Serpent King and the Rakkhoshi Queen to rescue her parents and save the Earth.

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

This delightful middle-grade novel recounts a discarded robot named Roz and her search for love and acceptance.

The Best Sci-Fi Ponderous Books

These mind-bending sci-fi novels will have you thinking for a long time afterward.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Raised on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith returns to Earth and tries to fit in. His unusual upbringing makes him seem superhuman, but he attempts to help his Earth kin understand things from a different perspective.

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester

Set in the 24th century when telepaths (“Espers”) are common, and police are telepathic as well. Ben Reich tries to evade the telepathic police for a murder he wants to commit. The story opens up the moral issues of using telepathy, regulated mostly by a guild, but raises concerns about the exclusion of telepaths who run astray as well as psychological intrigue.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Solaris follows humans’ failed attempts to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence. The sentient planet tests the researchers with their memories and emotions.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

A story spanning time and space and connections between various characters, Cloud Atlas explores the theme of fate with a mind-bending narrative.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

This classic tale follows the journey of Genly Ai on his mission to the planet Gethen. The ambisexual Gethenians present challenges and growth for Ai.

The Best Sci-Fi Cyberpunk Books

If you dream of the future lit by neon, shadowed by noir, and fueled with intrigue, these seminal cyberpunk novels are for you!

Neuromancer by William Gibson

In the first novel of the Sprawl Trilogy, hacker Henry Case is hired to help an AI take over the global network called The Matrix.

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

A modern cyberpunk tale is weaving together magic and science, with wit and feeling.

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Set in the 25th century, humans have spread through the galaxy and can be preserved after death via cortical stacks, then essentially regenerated or “re-sleeved” into another body. Takeshi Kovacs stumbles upon a vast conspiracy after his latest “sleeve.”

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

This early entry into cyberpunk sci-fi follows teleporter Gully Foyle, an outcast considered dangerous.

Synners by Pat Cadigan

The synthesizers, or Synners, are people who can turn mental images into products for consumption. The story is told via various characters’ viewpoints.

The Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books by Indie Authors

Discover the latest sci-fi and fantasy stories, while supporting independent authors!

Mindful Things by Mya Duong

Nineteen-year-old Lauren begins to experience visions and uncovers the fact her deceased parents were witches. A madman hungry for power pursues her, and she must embrace her magical heritage to try to stop him.

The Infinite by John W. Akers

The inventor Pax works on a secret project that can revolutionize human cognition. His plans are derailed by a computer virus that could end civilization, so Pax is forced to choose how he can help humanity survive.

Threadwalkers by Joanna Volavka

Miranda Woodward undergoes a discordant series of events following her father’s death. This is a young adult time travel tale.

Resonance by Jennifer Greenhall

In Book One of the Resonance Series, Sophia Walsh uses her psionic abilities for good but finds herself the next target of a killer.

Heliopause: The Questrison Saga®: Book One by J. Dianne Dotson

Heliopause by J. Dianne Dotson kickstarts The Questrison Saga®, a four-book series science fiction and fantasy series. In Heliopause, a mystery at the edge of the solar system reveals a galactic menace. A galactic natural disaster unfolds, aiding the monster in the void. Human Forster and human-looking, ageless Galla-Deia team up with telepaths, galactic mages, aliens, and androids to face the greatest threat to all life in the galaxy. Full of diverse characters and exotic worlds, found and made families, heartbreak, and whimsy, this space opera recalls Star WarsDoctor Who, and Game of Thrones.

At Your Money Geek, we are huge fans of the science fiction genre, everything from military science fiction to novels about space travel, parallel worlds, and fantasy novels. We are always looking for new books to read and exciting sci-fi writers to profile, let us know in the comments what authors you are currently enjoying.

This post was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.

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J. Dianne Dotson dreamed up other worlds and their characters as a child in the 1980s in East Tennessee. She formed her own neighborhood astronomy club before age 10, to educate her friends about the universe. In addition to writing stories, she drew and painted her characters, designed their outrageous space fashions, and created travel guides and glossaries for the worlds she invented.

As an adult, Dianne earned a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology, and spent several years working in research. She published Heliopause: The Questrison Saga®: Book One (2018) and its sequels Ephemeris: The Questrison Saga®: Book Two (2019), Accretion: The Questrison Saga®: Book Three (2020) and her last novel in the saga, Luminiferous: The Questrison Saga®: Book Four (2021).

Dianne is also a science writer, content writer and manager, short story writer, watercolorist, and illustrator. She lives with her family.

What time period produced science fiction works that included idealogies such as capitalism, and communism, and also threats of nuclear power, racism, pollution, and more?

Influential mid‑century voices included Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, while Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert A. Heinlein became foundational figures in the genre.

Title:

Content: Supplement
Sunday literature.
Culture
Sunday Literature: Tu Chien's Years, Huang Hua and Long Memories: A Review of Books by Tu Chien
He died, and there was a great book about him, and a great book about him.
Born in Hong Kong on February 19, 1935 (also known as February 19, 1934), Du Chin studied at Lingnan Primary School and St. Stephen's College in Hong Kong. He graduated from the Chinese Department of Sun Yat-sen University.
Du has been engaged in the editorial and translation work of newspapers and periodicals for 30 years. He has edited the monthly book “Open Volume ” and“ Readers ’ Friends ”. He is the author of “New Trends in Asian, African and Latin Literature ” (1976),“ Contemporary Foreign Writers and Works ” (1980), “The Night Voyage of the Book Sea ” (2 volumes, 1980, 1984),“ World Science Fiction ” (1992). He also translated several science fiction novels, including The Story of a Detective (1994), The Story of a Detective (2019), The Story of Three Generations (2014), Long Memories: The Eyes of a Teacher and Friends (2015), and translated several science fiction novels.
Du moved to Canada in his later years and died on July 23, 2022.
From Afro-Asian to Contemporary Foreign Literature
I have "Asian, African and Latin Literature New Trend", published by Hong Kong Wanyuan Book Company, this book from the left side, introduced the Asian, African and Latin literature, and it is rare to write a relatively mild, not too much ideological discourse.
From the illustrations in the book, Du Chen should have seen a number of foreign books before writing this book, including book reviews such as "Achebe's Novel Creation" and "Du Bois's Will", which discuss the more famous black writers, and scroll down a "text prison of a novel - this novel exposes the corruption of the police", from 1974 Nelson Marra The award-winning novel “The Bodyguard, ” and its associated spate of arrests, describes the repression of freedom of speech and the press by the Uruguayan police, as well as the repression of the literary and artistic world.
The incident has faded from the memory of ordinary literary readers, but Du Jian recorded it with a book review and became a page of literary history.
Towards the end of the 1970s, the tendency of the dogmatic left gradually faded, and Du Jian ’ s reading range became wider. Contemporary Foreign Writers and Works was published by the Hong Kong Ocean Arts and Culture Society, and its chapters were published in the magazine Ocean Arts and Culture.
Du introduced Graham Greene, John Cheever, Colette, Bertolt Brecht, Isak Dinesen, Nadine Gordimer, Ryuichiro Tanizaki and Ryuosuke Okawa, eight 20th-century writers who not only came out of the confines of Afro-Asian literature. As soon as the book is in hand, readers can enjoy the work from the two texts of the commentary and the translation. In “Contemporary Foreign Writers and Works, ” Du Jian chose to translate Ryuichiro Tanizaki ’ s“ tattoo ” and Ryuosuke Okawa ’ s “bamboo forest ”, both of which are popular and popular.
The South African female writer Gaudimet, introduced by Du Jian in the late 1970s, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991.
Book Sea Night Flight
"Book Sea Night Voyage" two episodes published by Beijing Sanlian, when there were many prints in mainland China, naturally has a certain influence, these two books seem to have opened a window for long-closed mainland readers.
Some of the book ’ s reviews have been found in The New Trend of Asian, African and Latin Literature and Contemporary Foreign Writers and Works. The book is mainly a collection of book reviews written by Du Jian in his spare time between 1974 and 1978.
As for "Book Sea Night Voyage II", the content is equally extensive, there is no less than, the second set of the epilogue, Du gradually explained his own ten years as a day of three paragraphs on the reading method:
"I read there is no shortcut, and will not" speed reading ", using a stupid way, the old man actually read the book, there is no other way.
I divide the time into three sections every day, to work a section, do work concentrate on other, the other section is translation and writing, people engaged in writing in Hong Kong, every day have to be a "reptile", write thousands of words, earn some manuscript money to earn a living, is the so-called book is only for the straw.
Only in the evening, I have my own time, from eight o'clock to two o'clock at night, I use to read the books I like to read, write what I like to write, these five or six hours are my most precious, but also I can control a period of reading and writing time. 」
In the second part of the book, Du Jian pointed out that the title of the book was Yan Qingshu (pen name Tang, author of "Jinling Spring Dream") in the illness, Du Jian wrote this book to commemorate the death of his friend Yan Qingshu.
Tang Tao wrote the preface to The Book of the Sea and Night Voyage II. At a glance, when he saw that the book was written by Zhang Dai (Zi Zongzi) and Ah Ying's The Book of the Night Voyage, Tang Tao, a veteran scholar of books, wrote:
"The Book of the Sea of Night Voyage, the Night Voyage Collection, and the Night Voyage Ship have a common meaning, suggesting that the author began his life of reading and writing at a time of silence and complete silence."
The first three books deal with this.
However, Zhang Zongzi has his own experience and opinions, which deserve our attention.
He said that the world is the most difficult to deal with, except for the night boat.
Yu Yao custom, the children of later generations, all do not read, after 20 years of learning as a handicraft, so the hundred works of acrobatics, occasionally have questions, such as "Yingzhou 18 bachelor, Yuntai 28 generals", one by one registration, the answer is like a "two-legged bookcase".
This kind of question and answer is often carried out in the night sailing ship. "Tang Tao also mentioned the funny story of a monk and a man in Chang Dai's" The Night Voyage Ship ", so let's not record it, and if you are interested, it is not difficult to find it.
Science fiction and detective fiction
In the 1990s, two volumes of The World Science Fiction Literary Landscape, published by the Modern Education Research Society and published by the Hong Kong Triumvirate of Detective Reasoning Novels, were the first books Du Jian wrote for young students to read.
According to Li Weicai in the book preface, the article in the "World Science Fiction Literary World" came from 1987 to 1988, and Du Jian was the "Strange Book Talk" column of the "Commercial Daily".
Watching H.G. Wells ’ s “The War of the Worlds ” and“ The Invisible Man, ” as well as Jules Verne ’ s works, Du recalls, was captivated by science fiction.
"World Science Fiction Literary Grand View" divides science fiction into four eras of creation, development, gold and innovation. The originator is "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley (Mary Shelley), followed by Verne and Wales, and the development era has Huxley (Aldous Huxley) and George Orwell. Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein and Frank Herbert, author of Dune, the era of innovation is even more grand, including Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and Ballard. J. G. Ballard is one of ten.
Ni Kuang's novels are highly readable because of their dramatic plot arrangements and vivid writing.
"World Science Fiction Literary Grand View" does not have esoteric nomenclature and academic discourse, but takes characters as a special chapter, and introduces the contents of representative works, which are all-encompassing, and is both a brief history of science fiction and a good primer for teenagers.
"Detective Reasoning Novel Talk" has an additional edition of "Detective Story", according to the reprint preface, Du Jian pursues "reading no forbidden area", since childhood likes adventure novels and detective novels, he also pointed out that Qian Zhongshu, Yang, Qian Yuan's family of three are fans of reasoning fiction.
"Detective Reasoning Novel Talk" from the beginning of the conversation between Allan Poe and Holmes, also mentioned Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu, James Bond three novel characters; Japanese reasoning fiction also accounted for a considerable amount of space, the additional edition of "Detective Story" added "Little Roosevelt's" First Lady Detective Case "," The Cat Detective Case "female writer Lilian Brown", style change New materials were added to the four articles of Keigo Higashino and the New Trend of Reasoning Novels and the Past and Present of Chinese Detective Reasoning Novels.
Aged yellow flowers
In his later years, Du left behind two books, one is a memoir, "Years of Yellow Flowers: The Search of Three Generations", and the other is a collection of essays, "Long Face Memories: The Eyes of Teachers and Friends."
From the childhood of the beacon fire (1935 – 1946), experienced the ideal pursuit of studying in mainland China, the anti-rightist struggle, and the storm of the Cultural Revolution. After 20 years in mainland China, he returned to Hong Kong and lived in Hong Kong for another 20 years.
Due to the serious illness of his mother, Tu Chin returned to Hong Kong with the President of the Xinhua News Agency, Mr Leung Wai-lin, and then came to Hong Kong with a one-way permit to accompany his father, Dr Li Song, to work in a pharmacy.
In the past 20 years in mainland China, many books can not be seen, so once in Hong Kong, they constantly buy books to read.
Du Jian bought a collection of poems by Kahlil Gibran and translated some of the novels, but he wanted to kill time and practice writing. Moreover, "In the past few years, the pollution caused by the language of the Cultural Revolution in China, when I opened the newspaper, I saw all the big stories and false stories and official words, and it was best to clean the scum of my own language and words. I was able to learn his writing skills and practice my own Chinese writing, so I started translating Gibberlain ’ s novels. ”
He does not want to hide in the willow.
Du Jian went to the "New Evening News" to see the work, Rover asked Du Jian to translate a draft to see, Du Jian reluctantly to his own translation of the novel and the introduction of Ji Boren's short article to Rover.
The next day, Du Jian opened the "New Evening News" and found that his article introducing Gilbert was published in the newspaper.
As a result, Du turned to work at the newspaper office, because the newspaper was short of people, so he worked in the supplement of the newspaper.
He changed his name to Dujuan, meaning Dujuan Dujuan, to "Dujuan Dujuan".
My handwritten collection of Kiberon's novels, a small book by Daguang Publishing House in 1975, is a collection of translations from Du Jian's that year.
Du Jian said in "The Golden Flower of Time" that Zhang Huai, editor of Daguang Publishing House, is his acquaintance and has published several books for him, including "Life and Death", "People at the bottom", "New District Governor", "Golden City of Blood", etc. These books are not easy to find nowadays.
Teacher 's Eyes
In the preface to the book "I Know Du Zhen", the subtitle of "The Yellow Flower of Time", Lan Zhen points out that "The Yellow Flower of Time" "tells the story of the three generations of his family (grandfather Pan Ta Wei, father Li Song and Li Wenjian) who followed the truth and participated in the democratic revolution." His father was a little older, and his father was a little older, and his father was a little older, and he was a little older, and he was a little older.
It is divided into two parts: the first part is "Teacher's Letters", which, as the name suggests, are reminiscent of teachers and friends, including Lun, Chen Ti, Wu Chi-min, Lu Fu, Yen Ching-shu, Fan Yong, An Tzu Chieh, Kang Chun-fang, Li Liang-min, Xiao Qian Qian, Xu Xu, Lin Nien-tong, Huang Kuo-chih, Ma Kuo-chuan, and Qian. In the second half of the book, "Looking Back on History," Du Chien writes about the old stories of Liao An-hsiang, Pan Chu, Huang Leng-kuan, Pan Ta-wei, and Chen Lu-kui.
There are a number of overlaps between the "Love of the Teacher" and the "Yellow Flower of the Year". "From scratch" is a macroscopic view, and "Love of the Teacher" is even a micro-close-up. Du Jian writes old prose with the pen of a novelist. It is better to be lively and friendly, and everyone is alive. — Remembering my grandfather, Pan Ta-wei ” is a particularly detailed and wonderful article. Pan Ta-wei was influenced by Sun Yat-sen ’ s ideas and joined the Xingzhong Society. Later, Pan Ta-wei became the organizer of the Southern Section of the League.
The most famous story of Pan Ta-wei is the collection of the remains of the 72 martyrs of Huang Hua-gang. This passage is told by Du Chien through the words of his mother-in-law, Chen Wei-chang. When Chen Wei-chang died, Du Chien was very young. It was impossible to record his mother-in-law ’ s words. In other words, Du Chien used a small pen. The story of his father is told in the book of Revelation, and the story of his father is told in the book of Revelation.
Author: Wu Chi-min, editor of Readers ’ Liangyou Monthly (1984-1988, 45 issues), Science and Science Fiction Series (1990, 4 volumes) and Readers ’ Liangyou Library (10 volumes), Zhao Jiabi, Liang Yusheng, Hsu Ting-ming, Dong Ding-shan, Hsiao Chien, Ku Tsang-wu, Huang Ji-shih, Chen Hui-yang and Du Chien-chun.
Combining "The Yellow Flower of the Year" and "The Memory of the Long Face", now imagining Du Jian's career of writing books, translating books, and compiling books is bound to feel wonderful.
by Vincent Cheng
Art • Liu Ruoji
Editors • Chu Chien-hsun
Email • literature @ mingpao.com
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What time period produced science fiction works that included idealogies such as capitalism, and communism, and also threats of nuclear power, racism, pollution, and more?

Who are considered great masters of the golden age of science fiction?

Arthur C. Clarke
Robert A. Heinlein
Isaac Asimov

An era of innovation followed with writers such as Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, and Philip K. Dick introducing new concepts and experimental approaches.

What are the four eras of science fiction according to Du Jian's book?

What time period produced science fiction works that included idealogies such as capitalism, and communism, and also threats of nuclear power, racism, pollution, and more?

Technological change—from rocketry pioneered by Robert H. Goddard and Wernher von Braun to broader 20th‑century scientific advances—repeatedly expanded science fiction’s themes and horizons. [13][41].

Title:

Content: A reading-room.
A Moment Between Past and Future
37 0
In "Izbe-chitalnya" we have today an article by science fiction writer Vsevolod Glukhovtsev.
A moment between past and future.
Dear readers!
Not so long ago, on the pages of this blog, there was a material dedicated to the absence of a coherent ideology in Russia, that is, a system of goals, tasks, managerial decisions of a nationwide scale, in the amount of creating social positive, hope, attracting masses with images of a beautiful future - well, or not so pathos, a future with obvious evolution, long-term stable development.
Hope is our earthly compass, this is said remarkably correctly, it is better not to say, society in principle cannot fully exist without a great goal.
There is no doubt that we have such a problem in Russia, but it is only part of a much more global problem – which I will discuss below.
In fact, as I ’ ve said more than once in the “Collective Intelligence Experience, ” regular readers of the blog probably remember these philosophical passages and the discussions around them.
And now I would like to concentrate all that, add something else and again present for public review and discussion.
I ’ m almost sure that some of my conclusions will seem crazy – and okay, this is the privilege of science fiction writers, we can safely say what an ordinary person may, and would like to say, but is afraid to be called crazy.
And we are fine, we have the help to pulsate ideas.
Here I want to share them, hoping to cause an explosion of thoughts, emotions, comments; a sinful deed in advance I grin, anticipating someone ’ s brutally scorched exhaust pipes (in the dialect of the inhabitants of the current wild field, this situation is called “vibuh and pozhezha dupi ”)... - I think readers appreciated my refined humor of a hereditary intellectual...
They were joking and will be.
Let's start a serious conversation.
In my essays mentioned above, the pillar thought was the following: modern humanity – at least what I call “Europogenic ”, and to which we certainly belong, formed by the ancient Christian cultural paradigm – so, this humanity is in a total crisis, generated by the lack of a guiding perspective idea.
In other words, society as a whole does not know where to go.
And here, having collected the previous postulates, I intend to develop this thesis as concentrated as possible with the formation of clear conclusions.
I will start with the position of the most general: a normal self-developing system (hereinafter referred to as SRS) physically grows, occupies an increasing amount of space - this is its natural vector or even tensor, so to speak.
Any healthy human society: a tribe, a people, a state, a superpower is just such a SRS and it increases exactly as, materially, in volume, in mass, determined by two main parameters: territory and population size.
What we habitually call “world history ” is essentially a history of politics, or rather, of geopolitics, of the actions of the largest and most influential states and empires.
Yes, of course, any state is an entity that is born, grows, seeks its place in the world, falls into crises, it happens that it dies, it happens that it is reborn...
But in empires all these processes occur so powerfully, pictorially, that whether, especially instructive, and therefore it is their descriptions that make up the lion's share of the corpus of historical sources: the empire of Alexander the Great, the Romans, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Napoleon... and so on.
It is understandable, because, first of all, the actions of superpowers contribute to the unification of different human communities, in other words, they contribute to globalization.
And the united humanity formed in the course of this process, of course, also grows, captures the physical space.
What are the obvious markers on the way to the formation of global humanity?
Probably, it is possible to note quite a lot of such points, but for us the greatest interest is the middle of the XIX century: when the physical surface of the globe with the peoples inhabiting it was actually revealed, and technical progress, after a rather long formation of methods of scientific knowledge, was designated as the most important social factor.
Of course, technological progress in our usual understanding has always existed, since primitive times, but historically it turned out that purely scientific algorithms and models of thinking (differential, integral calculus, Cartesian coordinate system, etc.), led to discoveries made “without leaving the office ”, with the help of the head, goose feather and sheet of paper, and these discoveries, in turn, became a springboard for progress. given before.
It took about one and a half centuries for knowledge in the field of mechanics, thermodynamics, hydraulics, electromagnetism to be embodied in machines that concentrate and transform arrays of energy, many times surpassing the previous ones.
And it is natural that the machines of the middle of the XIX century in terms of the sum of simultaneously operating subsystems became inconceivably more complex, sophisticated and, naturally, more valuable than anything that was created before, and these complexity and high cost are an adequate fee for the ability to concentrate and direct huge energy flows in the channel needed by the operator, to put it simply – to give gigantic forces into the hands of a person.
In some articles here, I gave an example of an image that is extremely sympathetic to my writer's gut: every technical construct is nothing more than a "magical technocostume", wearing which, a person turns himself into a completely fabulous creature, becoming a participant in the "technocarnival":
a) chauffeur + car = centaur;
b) pilot + combat aircraft = dragon … etc.
In short, techno-suit, even the most primitive, like a protective shell, helmet and spear is a fundamental strengthening of the operational capabilities of a person, and even steam locomotives, steamships, electric motors (already in 1839 an experimental electric ship was built, a little Pushkin did not live to see him - this is for understanding the era)!..
- It was clear to any sensible politician what colossal advantages technical progress brings first of all in the military plan, and it is more fair to say, of course, scientific and technical, STP, because the evolution of technology has no basis other than scientific research, including fundamental ones.
My next thesis, I suppose, will cause some controversy, but I am convinced of it: since then and until recently, about 150 years, with all the obvious costs (terrible wars, environmental problems...)
NTP was the main inspiring idea of humanity, it was perceived as the main and elixir of growth, and the hope of humanity, its Eldorado, Belovodye, the magical shore of hope.
Let ’ s not forget: humanity is a normal SRS, it is growing physically, and the NTP gave it both unprecedented losses and a gigantic increase in the population – I will not prove this, everyone will easily find figures and graphs.
Well, where the population growth, there is the growth of the territory, a growing society needs new lands and skies, but with them in the last few decades, the situation is purely ambiguous.
Last year, exactly half a century was marked by the highly acclaimed report of a group of researchers led by the American Dennis Meadows “Limits to Growth ”, developed under the auspices of the no less famous Club of Rome.
The report became a sensation, causing an explosion of polar opinions and fierce controversy.
Let me remind you that back then, in 1972, the Meadows team predicted the exhaustion of the resources of our entire planet within thirty years, that is, by 2002 - with such consumption of these resources by collective humanity as then, in those years.
But it has been 20 years since the supposed deadline.
Thank God, there is no universal catastrophe, resources have not dried up, they are still being drawn to this day, but Meadows and his comrades, I must admit, were right in something.
Maybe even in the main.
Today we see various social measures aimed at inhibiting global consumption (whether these measures are spontaneous or conscious is a special topic): a protracted economic recession, a pandemic, managed local wars – in other words, we see a total crisis in something similar to the Great Catastrophe of 1914-1945, however, which has completely different causes and significant differences, in particular, it proceeds incomparably softer than a century. back.
But I have no doubt that this is a deep, existential crisis of Europogenic society.
This society, in fact, has nowhere to grow, here I fundamentally agree with the statement of the problem, and I undertake to confirm it.
Thus, normal society grows spatially.
The original primitive tribe fed from the surrounding ecosystem (forest, field, river, lake...) within a radius of several kilometers, and with the emergence of cattle breeding, agriculture, the area of   cultural development grew significantly for two main reasons:
(a) The technologies required territories, pastures, arable land and steam land;
b) the constant supply of food has led to a demographic, if not an explosion, then a strong rise, and more people, of course, just need more place to live.
And so on - the Russians rushed to Siberia because these expanses carried precious furs, the Spaniards to America, a source of gold and silver, the British to India, the French to Africa... somewhat conditionally, but essentially so.
All this was before the outbreak of the STP, and the rapid breakthrough of technology in the late XIX-early XX centuries absolutely logically led to the idea of   the development of extraterrestrial space.
Frenzied progressing humanity urgently needs more and more expanses, and it is quite natural that the eyes turned to distant planets, nebulae, stars and other romance, and it is good that such a romance was, because it provoked quite sober calculations.
I am ready to assert that the idea of space exploration was the main stimulus of Europogenic mankind in the twentieth century, its blissful dream.
It began to take hold of minds at the beginning of the century (“Aelita ” was written in 1923, exactly a hundred years ago), but the Great Disaster, of course, cut down the topic for a long time, everyone was not up to space, would have lived.
But after World War II, people returned to it at an incomparably different technological level, and after the first space flights, people really felt the exciting proximity of huge mysterious spaces, and the dream that we are about to rush there, into unknown distances, joyfully seized many minds.
In the social dimension, society saw before itself the space of great achievements, was inspired by the idea of unlimited exploration of the Universe, which created a generally healthy mood, the expectation of a promising future, that is, the basis of a social positive deeply desired by the authorities.
We are now forced to admit that those hopes have not been realized, having sunk into two intractable problems, or rather, it is the same problem in two guises:
(a) The extreme complexity, hence the riskiness and accident rate of space technology;
b) its ruinous cost.
In other words, over time, it turned out that the practical development of extraterrestrial space is unrealistic: technical systems here are so complex, so many subsystems must work in them at the same time that their impeccable joint work is extremely unlikely, at least somewhere, but some kind of failure will happen.
And spending on this is very burdensome for budgets, of course, only superpowers can afford to play in space, and even then only limited.
And after the first turbulent years of progress, cosmonautics trampled on the spot, there is no question of any settlement of mankind on distant planets, with great efforts, several people only visited the Moon, which ended.
More than half a century has passed since then, the matter has not progressed one step, even the superpowers did not play in such expensive toys.
So the dream of millions gradually melted away.
But the masses cannot live without a guiding idea, this puppeteers know very well, even if they say about a “society without ideology ”.
“No ideology ” is already an ideology, and what else, namely: after the collapse of the USSR, Europogenic society tried to infect with a moral virus such as“ buy and have fun ”; we recognize that it is extremely easy for us by our human nature to get on this needle.
When you can actually buy more goods and services today than yesterday, and tomorrow more than today - not because it is vital for you, but because it is cool and fun, and in general, life is a game of shopping and a demonstration of prestigious junk.
Well, in fact, it kindles well, gives a vector of life to an individual, thereby stabilizing society.
This unspoken ideology of “status consumption ” worked quite effectively – but, of course, smart puppeteers were well aware that this could invigorate and structure society temporarily, that this is only a respite, during which it would be good to find a real, spiritualizing idea.
And if it does not work, then you will have to invent something that moderates consumer appetites.
This, of course, is unpleasant, you can cause an explosion in a society accustomed to contentment and comfort - therefore, here, too, you need a sensible socio-psychological treatment of the population, which is carried out today, not without squeaking, not without noticeable turbulence, which affected you and us - the era of satiety has curled up, and the new time is alarmingly looming pandemics and local armed conflicts.
And still, no flammable idea is not visible: people live because it is necessary to live, home, life, family, again echoes of status consumption - we can no longer imagine how you can live without a car, a smartphone, the Internet, while it is desirable that it was not worse than others, so as not to experience mental discomfort...
This is life today, not the future.
The future, by and large, is not.
Not yet.
I fundamentally believe that society cannot exist without a goal-setting idea, even if it is deceptive, like a carrot before a donkey.
And I would be a bad philosopher and writer if I didn ’ t think about it and make predictions.
Philosophy is the “forward-looking ” of humanity, I said it and will say it, well, I will not forget to repeat that a science fiction writer can and even should produce hypotheses that look good“ crazy ”.
Life will show what will be justified, what will not be justified, but one of the tasks of the forerunner is to stir up society, make it think, worry, argue, and, you see, in the dispute the truth will be born.
First of all, I want to draw attention to the fact that the exhaustion of progress, in particular, the exploration of space, concerns large powerful machines designed to enhance the physical power of man (as a rule, these are so-called heat machines, but I prefer the term “fire machines ”, it is brighter and even more correct, if you think about it).
In fact, the classic STP of the XIX-XX centuries was dedicated to this: to merge a person with a mechanism the more powerful, the better.
A person behind the wheel of a car, the steering wheel of an aircraft, submarines, the remote control of a nuclear power plant - all these are biotechnological complexes, characters of technocarnival.
And it reached its maximum, to the maximum power around 1975 – about, of course – and then either stood up or the pace of progress fell, because the bio-operator of such a complex, Homo sapiens (hereinafter – HS), due to biological limitations, simply does not cope with the greater volume and unpredictability of physico-chemical processes than those that managed to conclude in fire machines half a century ago, so that attempts to create something even more complex (controlled thermonuclear reaction, space aeroplane...) became like a fuss with a herd of mustangs: catch seems to have been caught, but tame is not very good.
Therefore, a dead end.
What is not a dead end in the last forty or fifty years - it is quite obvious that these are the means of informatics and communication, the machines are small, weak, not so much serving the transformation of a person into a powerful biomech, but improving his information and analytical capabilities, that is, the focus of progress is noticeably shifted from the executive to the coginitive-staff, so to speak, the weakest place of the technocarnival figure is being modernized - the bio-operator.
And the more obvious trend for me in recent years is the shift of the epicenter of scientific research in the field of biology, especially genetics, which hints at the possibility of a fundamentally new modernization of man, not by attaching an external technocostume to him, but from within, genetic modification, up to the formation of a new species whose genome is quite different from CS, and we can assume that this genome is more perfect, its owner, let ’ s call it Homo gene mutatio, HGM, is able to perceive a larger volume of the universe.
Some fairly convincing data (referring those interested in the works of the famous neurophysiologist N.P. Bekhtereva) indicate that our sensory system is very limited, we simply do not catch much of the existing.
What we habitually call reality, perceived through the filter of our five senses, is only a part of being, and it does not seem to be very large.
Well, what can I say, Plato with his “cave ” described this picture two and a half thousand years ago: a huge shining world is visible to us in fragments from the twilight cave of sensory communicates (“ idols of the genus ” according to F. Bacon), and gene modification can be considered as an opportunity to reveal access to the completely real reserves of space-time hidden from the CS, only vaguely guessed behind the visible surface of events.
Once I was deeply touched by the ingenious simplicity of the thought of V.I. Vernadsky, and the impression was that the academician himself reacted to it somehow in passing: he said it, but then he did not develop it.
Maybe he just did not have time, I do not know; but in general he was very interested in the problem of finding a fundamental criterion that distinguishes living matter from non-living.
It is clear that the living and the inanimate are radically different forms of the organization of matter, and it is extremely important for the natural scientist to build a system of signs that clearly separate one from the other.
Now, of course, a well-established ensemble of these criteria has been formulated, but Vernadsky ’ s thought seems to cover them with a parachute: in his opinion, the difference between the living and the inanimate is in the structure of space-time; what we call the living is a multidimensional space-time continuum, much more highly organized than the inanimate.
Well, this prompted me to think this: an indirect indicator of the perfection of a particular system is what we somewhat vaguely call “beauty. ”
I undertake to assert that the more beautiful the object, the more highly organized the system it is, the greater the energy and labor invested in it, if it is artificial.
Well, the most beautiful, I would even say beautiful, I will undoubtedly declare the Earth ’ s biosphere (remember Shishkin ’ s picture “Forest Dali ”!) - with the uniqueness of all this in space inexplicable from well-established positions (Fermi paradox).
It is Vernadsky ’ s idea that allows us to explain this uniqueness: the fact that we see how living forests, fields-skies are in fact the surface of yet unknown hyperspace-time, the sensory system and the brain of the CS is able to perceive this continuum only in the image of the extraordinary beauty of the earth ’ s expanses, which are very different from other world space.
I would say that the planet Earth in space is a “white hole ”, the antonym of a black hole, failure to nowhere.
This, on the contrary, is the road upwards, from small space-time into the expanses of light living space.
And all of this leads us to the hypothesis that genetic modification of a person in the foreseeable future will lead to the fact that the HGM will be able to see what is simply not able to see the HS, only vaguely seeing it in the charm of landscapes, horizons in a light haze, sunrises, reflections of clouds in the lake blue...
Here I will decide to express what used to break through the same Vernadsky, Chardin, Lem in Solaris, but what is the twentieth century! - they will tell me, this is all good old Tengrianism!..
I don ’ t mind that comparison either.
And the essence is this: planet Earth, including the invisible part, the noosphere, is a sentient substance, a thinking being whose intelligence is obviously superior to human.
In principle, we can assume that the Earth in one person and the researcher and the laboratory, where it deduces in the course of evolution different bi-realties – like any researcher by trial and error, creating dead-end variants such as invertebrates, dinosaurs, abandoning them, and finally, finding a promising project in the face of the family of hominids, creatures that must evolve before reprogramming themselves, open up “rolled ” dimensions of biospatial space and biotime and make full contact with the soul of the planet.
At Lem Solaris easily communicated with HS, catching human images and turning them into some biogens, well, with the planet Earth in such a hyperproductive contact, suppose, is able to enter HGM, for which the inhabited continuum will be an immanent complement to himself, that is, the person and the personality of the planet will become if not a single whole, then something close to it.
The brain of HGM and the noosphere are in a positive resonance, making up an integral operational capacity, and in other words, modified humanity and the Big Earth will make up a living space.
I call this concept neo-geocentrism, predicting that the space-time reserves of our beautiful planet, when opened to our HGM descendants, will be much more spacious, comfortable, rich than the inhospitable dead spaces of the current universe.
What will it look like? … Well, here even my writer ’ s imagination gives back.
Until I made the painting.
I don ’ t know if I ’ m right to make these hypotheses.
Perhaps our coming century will be very different.
But in the fact that we live at the crossroads of ages, I am sure.
The old one is exhausted, the new one is not yet to be seen, except that its ghosts vaguely roar somewhere beyond the horizon of existence.
But this new must come, must illuminate the world, without a grandiose goal, society will sour and decompose, in general, the entire history of mankind, and the evolution of the biosphere indicate that the goal is an absolutely necessary component of the CCS.
In any case, neo-geocentrism as part of the worldview complex of HGM can become the basis on which further development will unfold.
As far as it is justified, it will not be justified – let ’ s wait, we will see.
And I would highly advise everyone interested in prognostic, futurological problems to closely monitor the achievements of genetics.
The ghosts of the future world are here somewhere.
(c) Vsevolod Glukhovtsev
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What time period produced science fiction works that included idealogies such as capitalism, and communism, and also threats of nuclear power, racism, pollution, and more?

The genre increasingly engaged philosophical and scientific inquiry, using narrative to explore implications of emerging knowledge and technology. [9].

Title:

Content: I love the story of the future: Consciousness against a more troubled future.
A novel by dr.
Sana Al-Shaalan (daughter of Naima)
3 minutes ago.
Our homeland today: Read: Aqeel Hashim / Iraq – After it turned out that the era is the era of narrative unlike the rest of the literary genres, the contemporary novelist seeks through experimentation to disrupt the narrative system of significance, formulation and formation, and ultimately results in the emergence of new developments on that era. The narrative discourse has a narrative — and a critique, and this has been exemplified by the novel “I adore ”.
I say that since we are in globalization an age of doubt and uncertainty, and this doubt is a prominent feature in the movement of the new novel, made the writer and reader a system of cognitive awareness communicative to read the puzzle of what is happening to our present, the reader is no longer naive to accept everything that is said to him, and therefore he wonders about every new phenomenon and therefore worries him and shakes his entity if he can not find a solution.
The novels known as "science fiction" novels, for example, rise to a major event about the prediction of the consequences of scientific phenomena in human life, and the readers of the novel have shown the validity of the predictions of many of these novels, which prepared their perceptions to accept and predict, as the novel "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, published in 1932. As technology evolves, and because the novel is by its nature an avant-garde art, it seeks to explore its horizons. Rather, it expresses its events about the past or the present only for the sake of a future vision that includes these events and a change in the insides of its characters. A special vision of time, and makes good use of the element (psychological time), the time in which its painted characters live and live.
The development of the narrative technique adopted in the new novel was a revolutionary introduction in order to get rid of the techniques of the traditional novel, as well as a new addition in the artistic structure of the novel, which is based on taking the reader out of his negativity, so it became necessary to consolidate the concept of self in the time of digital identity, which is more fluid, as it can not be proven. Create it without reference.
“Love Me ” by Dr.
Sana Al Shaalan, which was published in three editions, the first edition was published in 2012, and is the winner of the Dubai Cultural Award for Creativity 2010 / 2011 in its seventh session, the second edition was issued in 2014, and the third edition was issued in 2016.
The novel consists of (217) pages of medium size, this novel represents a narrative model that embodies the author ’ s attempt to benefit from some of the techniques of postmodernism, and that the investment of the so-called “future ”, and its employment in this novel, made it this distinctive.
The novel above all is the novel of the fundamental difference between a man and a woman, and it is the novel of fate, which connects the fate of each to the other, and connects the consciousness of each to the other.
Consciousness was not, as Gilles Deleuze once put it, “self-consciousness, but the self-consciousness of an unconscious self.
Consciousness is not the master ’ s consciousness, but the slave ’ s consciousness in relation to a master whose character is not to be conscious. ”
It is this bitter truth that pulls the two consciences to each other, and it shapes the conditions of their inevitable relationship.
This relationship seems to us to be in no way separated from the social and political context in which the novel takes place in our Arab world.
The time of the novel is set in the year (3010), and the place (the Milky Way Galaxy) chosen the place for her novel.
Characters:
Bassel Al-Mehri: A military intelligence man, excessively dedicated to serving a tyrannical government, a symbol of the state of oppression, violence and tyranny, lost his body in a terrorist incident because of his excessive dedication to his work, but his head remained healthy and vibrant, doctors advised him to undergo surgery, in which he transfers his healthy head to the body of a woman who has just died. Despite his regret, he justifies his action by saying: “But I am a coward weak in the face of my clinging desire for life, the sweet taste of life still gnaws at the will to refuse and overcome weakness in myself and insists on me with a bloody insistence to cling to life even in another body, even if it is a body stolen from a woman. ”
Shams: A female political activist and opposition to power rebel and rebel, she is a prominent national leader in the banned and opposition Al-Hayat party, and a famous writer and writer, Habiba Khaled Rami, a girl killed by the intelligence services.
Khaled Rami: Habib Shams and her lover, and there were dozens of love letters between him and Shams describing the burning love between them.
Ward: The fetus that Shams carries from her beloved Khalid, is still alive in the womb of the murdered Shams, moving with his mother ’ s body to the bowels of the military man Basil al-Mehri, and this name was chosen by Khalid, as Shams says: “Your name will be Ward, this name was chosen by Khalid, since now I can almost smell your pink smell in my newborn motherhood … The flower is also the name of an extinct animal that belongs to the time before the third millennium, its name is also the lion, and it is a predator, wild and strong, and noble as well, lives with pride, rejects the carrion, and cherishes its strength, and so we called you a rose to be a vow of beauty and strength and to love us.
In this particular narration, starting from the title, the miraculous, the multiplicity and the dispersion instead of unity and harmony, the abandonment of the plot, the lack of invalidity, the feeling of anger and the fictitious narrative, and the denial of causality.
We start by analyzing the title as it represents the first threshold for understanding the content of the novel. This title raises the reader to the semantic dimensions of the concept of love, love and passion, and gives a structure contrary to what is familiar, known, the foundations of the strange title, and a puzzling revelation of the concept of this relationship. Shaq and intimacy are mentioned in my novel.
The novel begins with the words of a woman in love named Shams, from the Milky Way, in which she says: “Only those with loving hearts are aware of the fact that there is a fifth dimension regulating this giant universe, which is love, and that love is the fifth most important dimension in shaping the features of our existence, only love is enough to revive this death. ”
What is important here is to emphasize that we are looking for what the writer wants and what she means from the miraculous manifestations found in the novel text is a counter-reaction to the death of love and the tyranny of the phenomenon of human death and the victory of technology that tries to overcome the facts of reality in an irrational way. It has become strange and strange, and the strange and strange event takes place.
The peculiarity of the novelistic event is reflected in several photos, the most prominent of which are: The opening of the novel with the presentation of a strange story:
This strange story put the reader from the beginning of the story in the tragic situation that befell the hero, and created a situation characterized by turmoil that shook the entity of man and woman to form one body, and felt the oddity of this unfamiliar world, and also his sense of sadness and fear throughout the novel due to the split of his personality;
This shows that it is possible for the aggressive nature of man to overcome the human nature or vice versa; the transformation comes suddenly – as a result of an accident – and there were no signs of its occurrence.
It lies in the transfer of the head of Basil al-Mahri protagonist to the body of a woman is (Shams) The transfer of the mind of an active and influential man in supporting power to the body of a woman political activist who stood against corruption in her country, which led the military intelligence to capture her, and then kill her after they failed to take any confession from her. At the same time (Shams) lost her head, and her body remained peaceful and vibrant, so the doctors gathered “and assured him that this female body, lying in the arms of death with a crimson smile full of peace and contentment, is the only body that is genetically appropriate, tissues and cells for his body...
Therefore, he must accept to plant his soul and brain in this small body on hatred or satisfaction in order to survive his life, otherwise he will die, and he must decide quickly and delay is not in his favor.
Dramatic action stimulates us, provokes us to look at our fates, to think about our lives, from the death and burial of feelings to the danger that awaits them and this is what we think the author wanted to explain – to worry the reader, to make him anxious, to question and to hesitate.
We find the confusion in this novel; the vision of the hero is dominated by mental delusions, confused imaginations of the mixing of the truth and its non-existence, and the novel continues, the writer here tries to appeal to the letters.
The message has the above importance, charm and a great communicative role, thus creating imaginary worlds, and as a document that penetrates the genre of fiction as a psychological response and an expressive suppression suffered by the characters concerned, it aims to unleash their souls pregnant with sensations, burning confessions and other things that are difficult for them to express in the presence of the recipient, whether he is a lover, relative or even an enemy....
The resort of Bassel Al-Mehri to read the memoirs of Shams in the journey of identification has left him in a emotional dilemma he did not expect, I turned all his decisions and promises to revenge against her and her body, it is the moment of disclosure, the moment of recognition of the existence of the other, after Bassel Al-Mehri knew the truth of this love between them he felt a bit of remorse and said: “How small in those moments!
And also a thief! … {He says to the fetus}: How lucky you were to have a mother of such beauty and all this love, ” the fetus carried by her body or his body is the fruit of a unique love committed by Khalid and Shams in violation of the laws of the galaxy.
After serious attempts, Basil Al-Mehri got a light package containing information about Shams in the framework of a diary she wrote to her lover Khalid and her baby (Ward), with a set of love letters sent by Khalid. The letters written by Shams and Khalid show true love. Basil Al-Mehri found in the first page only one paragraph written “Only the lovers of hearts are aware of the fact that there is a fifth dimension regulating this giant universe ”.“ Do you know why I repeat the word I love you a thousand times because it reduces all humanity to making love, I love you and I desire you? ”
I would say, the writer dr.
Sana Al-Shaalan always tries in her narratives to dive into the worlds of her characters with high professionalism and a great degree of neutrality through which she aspires to expel clichés and prejudices from the other so that the criminal killer has a demon completely, and the lover Alwahan is an angel.
This relativism in addressing issues is one of the pillars of its humanistic narrative project.
This relationship between the ego and the other is one of the manifestations of the novel and its integration and its quest to crystallize a special world, which offers us some important reading keys in it, because it is also achieved on a deeper level when the visions and expropriations involved in it correspond to reveal to us another key reading in the texts of the writer.
The symbolism of the “sun ” is a manifestation of the rebellious and liberated woman, an obsession with being, identity, time, death and the longing for the impossible realization.
In fact, what the novel says is the purely real world, the world formed by the combination of external reality and the psychological reality of the characters, and the intellectual or philosophical reality of the visions and ideas that seem to them and capture some of their interests, the moment is not permanent, because it is by nature instantaneous, but more importantly, narrative that it is uncertain in its own moment.
There is no hope of getting it back, let alone getting it back.
The negative and critical narrative text avoids the disclosure of the content so as not to spoil its seductive ambiguities.
He remains cynical in his ambiguities, but at the same time the writer will be responsible for the perpetuation of this sphere until the end, driven by an inevitable and inescapable amount of covering up the privacy of her characters until the end.
At the end of the novel, love is born between the killer and the murdered. After the hero finds himself in the body of his assassination, he falls in love with the body of the woman who was once the body of the woman he assassinated, after knowing her through her diary. The choice of love and life triumphs over death and annihilation, and Basil Al-Mahri becomes a fighter and supporter of the revolutionaries after he was a repressive hand in the hands of the government of the galaxy clutching rebels against its secularism and its misleading laws. Basil Al-Mahri believes that love is the way to save humanity from the misery it suffers. This is the easy and difficult equation, they are without a doubt the fifth dimension of things, then love is the fifth dimension of existence and the key to all its energies and the secrets of its existence, growth and mortality. ” Atheism leads to faith, and he is ready to risk his life in order to give birth to the baby (Ward), thus winning the choice of love and love at the end of the novel, heralding the birth of another new generation of humanity carrying the banner of love, brotherhood, justice and equality away from injustice and arbitrariness.
Finally, I say: “I adore me ” a beautiful and interesting novel despite its apparent difficulty, interceding its transparent poetic language and its semantic intensity giving, it tempts the reader to continue reading from the overlap of characters, and the dominance of the style of narrative suspense that makes the event the focus of the work of fiction, and urges the reader to gasp behind and pursue his chapters.
To get to know this mysterious planet called Woman, which in this regard is one of the most sincere novels in understanding women, and honest in dealing with them, she seeks to explore the depths of women from within.
A symbolic sun is a game of universes and galaxies, and its body is involved from the very beginning in a purely cosmic game.

Critical lenses such as feminist and postcolonial studies reframed science fiction as social and cultural commentary, bringing themes like racism, minority struggles, and ecological crisis to the fore.

Title:

Content: Science Fiction and Politics in Literature and the Arts (Symposium, Toulouse)

Science Fiction and Politics in Literature and the Arts

The aim of this symposium run by the LLA-Créatis laboratory at the University of Toulouse Jean-Jaurès is to develop open thinking about “political” questions, in the broad sense of the term, that science fiction narratives allow. Different types of stories can be considered, in different literary genres or in cinema, video series and comics. It can be studied and interrogated from a historical, political and social perspective by involving, where appropriate, the possible contributions of different analyzes (anthropology, semiotics, feminist studies, postcolonial studies, etc.) Diversity of perspectives and questions raised by gender.

The entire twentieth-century period produced works in San Francisco that were marked by ideologies such as capitalism and its “communist” counterpart, but also by threats associated with civilian and/or military nuclear power, religious-related abuses, racism, minority liberation struggles, and pollution. , etc. These perceptions persisted, but in the period from the last 20 years of the 20th century to the first 20 years of the 21st century, other concerns were voiced: ecological pesticides, the climate crisis, demographic crises, resource depletion, or the danger. The scientific and technical potential (transhumanism, “artificial intelligence”, etc.) is being carried away.

The link to the realities of the times (as in the collection “Le Passager Clandestin / Dyschroniques”) can of course depend on one or more authors, take into account a work or compare several (especially in the case of short stories and short films). The broader perspective will consist in considering the basic ideologies, either in relation to the literary prizes awarded, or in relation to the works themselves, the semantics of these presenting themselves from the outset sometimes as criticism, sometimes as propaganda, the two being able to be combined according to modalities that tend to be ironic, Satirical, disruptive, etc.

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In any case, it would be a matter of highlighting the “exploratory potential” in these works, of identifying the “problematic tools” and of making the ideas put forward in fictional form productive from the point of view of political theory. (Y Rambhala).

Of course, it is advisable to include works belonging to different geographical and linguistic fields so that the panorama of this search is sufficiently realistic.

Provisional schedule of courses (date adjustments possible)

Oct 20, 2-4 PM / Nov 17, 2-4 PM / Dec 15, 2-4 PM / Jan 19, 2-4 PM / Feb 9, 2-4 PM / Mar 15, 2-4 PM / May 31 , 2-4 p.m

Contribution proposals must be sent Before October 1, 2023 To the following addresses: frederics[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

What concepts does Ishiguro's literary science fiction novel bring up?

Science fiction often mirrors its era’s anxieties, with contemporary works voicing environmental concerns and encouraging readers to rethink power and society. [15].

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Content: Julia Nagel/Sun Photography Editor

Fantasy author N. K. Jemisin speaks at a Bartels World Affairs Lecture in Klarman Hall on Oct. 4.

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N.K. Jemisin Gives Bartels World Affairs Lecture, Speaks on Building a Better World

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N. K. Jemisin, best-selling science fiction and fantasy author well known for her book trilogy “The Broken Earth,” spoke about building a better world at this year’s Bartels World Affairs Lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 4 at 5:30 p.m. in a packed Rhodes-Rawling Auditorium. Jemisin spoke about how building fictional worlds helps her discuss the reality of our society, and concluded by calling on the audience to make choices in order to build the world they wish to see.

Following her talk, Jemisin joined a panel of Cornell faculty to kickstart the latest Global Grand Challenge: The Future. Global Grand Challenges bring together people and resources to understand and develop solutions to humanity’s most urgent challenges. The first challenge launched in 2019, and this year’s challenge, “The Future,” focuses on how to employ creativity to build a more equitable and sustainable future world.

Supported by the Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World Affairs Fellowship, the Bartels World Affairs Lecture is an annual, signature event hosted by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies that brings renowned individuals to Cornell’s campus to speak on international matters with students and faculty.

Seats at the event sold out and an estimated 330 people attended. In-person watch party tickets were made available as well, where attendees live streamed the lecture from an adjacent classroom near the auditorium. More than 270 local, national and international viewers who registered through eCornell also streamed the event live.

Vice Provost for International Affairs Wendy Wolford said that in addition to launching this year’s Global Grand Challenge, this event also fits into Cornell’s academic year theme of Freedom of Expression. Wolford explained that the world building, kindness and empathy in Jemisin’s work encouraged the Einaudi Center to select this event as the launch for the University’s new Global Grand Challenge.

“The theme of this new challenge is fittingly ‘The Future.’ With this challenge, we invite all of you, students, staff and faculty to step back from the immediate questions of your studies, your work and your research, to think about the world you want to live in,” Wolford said. “The Global Grand Challenge calls on us to go beyond the cutting edge… to imagine what the world would look like if we asked not just what can I do, but what do I want? What do we want?”

Jemisin began her lecture by describing her background in higher education, in which she spent 20 years working as a career counselor, academic counselor and director of experiential education before becoming an author. Jemisin writes science fiction and fantasy novels that explore a variety of themes, including power, cultural conflict and systems of subjugation.

“Many of the questions I tend to get are: Why science fiction? Why fantasy? Why would you, an ostensibly intelligent and mature person, write this kid’s stuff? And I tell people the same thing that Octavia Butler has said in interviews, which is in science fiction, I can do anything,” Jemisin said during her lecture.

Jemisin explained how people’s fears in a specific time period are reflected in their writing, especially in science fiction. She cited underlying fears of the sexual revolution displayed in 1960s feminist science fiction as an example.

“There’s another misconception out there that typically happens, which is that people think of science fiction as being about the future. They think of fantasy as being about the past,” Jemisin said. “It’s neither. Science fiction and fantasy are actually about our present world.”

Jemisin also described the process of science fiction worldbuilding on two levels — macro and micro. Macro worldbuilding involves creating the physical world of a story, including planets, continents, climate and ecology. Micro worldbuilding is crafting the society the characters will exist in, which includes species, morphology, racialization and power, among other things.

“The point of this [worldbuilding] exercise is to get people to start questioning their assumptions,” Jemisin said. “Understanding how our society functions is a lot more constructive than they think, so it’s important that I get across that all of this is changeable.”

Jemisin also spoke about how real people build worlds, and how our current world is not arbitrary, but rather the result of a series of choices. She emphasized that different choices remain possible, and that our understanding of ourselves and self-identity is evolving. Jemisin encouraged the audience to consider reasons for both creating and resisting change.

“We are being blasted with a constant firehose of disinformation which is fueled by a whole lot of money,” Jemisin said. “The only thing that we can do in order to resist this is begin to question and push back on how we became the society that we are and begin to recreate that society in our own design.”

Following her lecture, Jemisin joined a panel with Cornell faculty members Prof. Anindita Banerjee, comparative literature and feminist, gender and sexuality studies; Prof. John Albertson, civil and environmental engineering; and Prof. Kaushik Basu, international studies and economics. Each professor took turns briefly speaking about how their field of expertise relates to building a better world, and Jemisin followed with her thoughts.

“We see society now envisioning futures and being bold, making pledges of decarbonizing our energy supplies, decarbonizing our economy and setting ambitious timelines on which to do that,” Albertson said. “It’s relatively straightforward to plan the direct linear path of what you need to do there. But the question is: where are all the other parts of society that are touched by each of these changes?”

Asher Bergmann ’26 said his goal going into his sophomore year was going to more school  events, and was excited to find this lecture as someone who reads a lot of fantasy.

“I think she did a good job of not diving too deep into fantasy to where some people wouldn’t be interested, because while she’s a fantasy author, the point of this lecture wasn’t actually writing fantasy,” Bergmann said. “I think she did a good job of balancing her goal with what other people may have come here to see her speak about.”

Annabel Baniak ’24 decided to attend the event at the encouragement of both her professor  and her mom, whose favorite book is “The Fifth Season” by Jemisin. Baniak said she enjoyed the event and left feeling motivated and inspired to create change in the world.

Jemisin left the audience with a message to continue questioning the current world and to work towards building an ideal society.

“I have been having conversations all day with the students here, and they’re thinking ahead of me. I have to catch up. It is an innate part of youth to question our reality, and if the way that we live makes any sense,” Jemisin said. “I have to retain my own youthful questioning. They are right to question reality, and the rest of us need to keep doing that.”

Grace Liu ’27 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].

What concepts does Ishiguro's literary science fiction novel bring up?

Cross‑genre experimentation has been a major engine of change, with science fiction blending with fantasy and horror to create new subgenres and narrative possibilities.

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Content: 10 Science-Fantasy Books for You Funky Space Sorcerers

Science-Fantasy isn’t a new genre, per se, but it is one that is starting to get some clearer definitions within publishing, making it a buzzy place to read. Combining tropes and conventions of both science-fiction and fantasy, magic and time-space travel often go hand in hand. There are often unexplainable forces are at work alongside high tech machines and gadgets. Jumping off from the Spelljammer media list (which included a couple great science-fantasy books), I’ve conspired to get even more science-fantasy books on Gizmodo! Check out some of my favourites.

This Is How You Lose the Time War

I love This is How You Lose the Time War — it’s genuinely one of my favourite books. Two rival time agents leave messages for each other across worlds and universes, attempting to win the never ending Time War… and avoid falling in love. The twist at the end is so tone-perfect that it’ll make you want to read it again immediately.

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse

Taking fairy tale retellings and mashing them into a planet-jumping adventure/romance, How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse is a subtly magical space romp.

Winter’s Orbit

Definitely light on the actual science, Winter’s Orbit is much more of a romance than anything else, but it’s also a fun space opera full of court intrigue and politics. If you enjoyed Leia’s standalone Star Wars novel Bloodline, Winter’s Orbit is for you. Read an essay from the author on Gizmodo here.

Iron Widow

An absolute genre wreck of a novel, Iron Widow combines Confucian-based wuxia fantasy tropes and mashes them into giant evolving battle machines as the main characters fight aliens in this alternate-history retelling of Chinese historical figures. Read an excerpt on Gizmodo here.

The Unspoken Name

I’ve screamed about The Unspoken Name before, and I’ll do it again, but this debut epic fantasy novel has it all. It’s definitely more fantasy than science fiction, but with jump gates, flying ships, and ancient stasis technology, it definitely belongs here.

The All-Consuming World

Clones, a sentient universe, and the magic of memory all come to play in The All-Consuming World. With fervor and flair, this book navigates trauma and technology without missing a beat. Read an excerpt on Gizmodo here.

Saga

If you haven’t heard of Saga at this point, I’m just thrilled I get to introduce you to this incredible science-fantasy epic comic run that took the nerd world by storm nearly 10 years ago. It’s just been picked up again after a few years on hiatus, and I cannot recommend this emotional and fantastic tale of a family who are fighting the whole universe to stay together.

Dreadnought

I can’t mention science fantasy without at least one steampunk novel, and while Dreadnought is technically the sequel to Boneshaker, it stands entirely on its own, and was my first introduction to the Clockwork Century books. With an incredible heroine in Mercy and enough world-building to make you really believe in the proposed alt-history, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe

With a stunning magic system that spans an entire universe, making up the very code of existence, A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe is one of those books that starts out fast (literally, during an intergalactic space-race) and never stops.

Phoenix Extravagant

Following up the science-heavy science-fantasy Ninefox Gambit (which launched a rather wonderful series), Yoon Ha Lee dove into fantasy-heavy science-fantasy with Pheonix Extravagant, which takes place in an alt-fantasy Korea amid invasions and occupations and explores how different cultural magic systems interact with technology in a beautiful and totally original way. Also there’s a mecha-dragon. So if that doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.

Want more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.

Examples of this intersection include Dune’s science‑fantasy world‑building and Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti, which weaves science fiction with horror elements. [33].

What did Frank Herbert's "Dune" manage to achieve?

Who wrote "Binti," a Hugo-award-winning African futuristic science fiction horror story?

Technological culture helped spark cyberpunk in the late 20th century, while later works like Neuromancer explored artificial intelligence and virtual reality. [2].

What time period produced science fiction works that included idealogies such as capitalism, and communism, and also threats of nuclear power, racism, pollution, and more?

The field globalized dramatically, with Chinese science fiction moving from dormancy in the 1960s–1977 to brief flourishing after 1976, facing suppression in 1983, and then booming in the 1990s under Western influence and a popular magazine reaching 400,000 circulation.

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Science fiction "Three Bodies" adapted into a new drama on the Internet to impact the Chinese scale
Created by Chinese writers, the “Three Bodies ” was adapted by Western producers as a series performed by a number of foreign actors, which not only greatly reduced the Chinese elements, but also opened with scenes of the Cultural Revolution fighting dead.
Like the story of the alien invasion of Earth, it is also impacting the “beliefs ” of many Chinese and the“ yardstick ” of the Beijing authorities.
“Three Bodies ” is a bestselling novel by renowned Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin, who has won one of the world ’ s most influential awards in science fiction literature. In China,“ Three Bodies ” has been considered “difficult to adapt ” for its puzzling time jumps, philosophical dilemmas and intensive exploration of scientific theory.
Today, the “Three Bodies ” are on the international screen through Netflix, a rare breakthrough in foreign media observation, in contrast to the suppression of science fiction in Chinese history.
★ A rare breakthrough under Beijing ’ s repression
Produced by Game of Thrones producers, Netflix ’ s new series “3 Body Problem ” is based on China ’ s best-selling science-fiction novel of the same name, according to the BBC. The novel is still popular in China despite China ’ s ongoing censorship of the genre.
The story structure of the “Three Bodies ” is roughly the same: one day in 1967, Ye Wenjie, an astrophysics student in Beijing, witnessed her father being beaten to death by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
She joined a military project in Inner Mongolia to avoid being punished by a series of sit-ins, but on the condition that she never leave the base.
At this cold outpost, under a huge parabolic antenna, Ye Wenjie lost all confidence in humanity.
She devoted her life to research and made scientific breakthroughs, broadcasting high-power radio signals into outer space.
This action will have serious consequences, and it all stems from that disastrous day in Beijing.
In addition to the trans-cosmic plot, the Three Bodies also involve secret scientific projects; an alien species in the solar system beyond the stars; and a strange video game depicting the rise and fall of great civilizations over the millennia.
“The Three Bodies ” is the first of a trilogy of“ Past Events on Earth ” written by Beijing-born Liu Cixin. A Chinese adaptation of the film was shelved in 2017.
But now it ’ s on the international screen via Netflix, the belated return of Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and DB Weiss.
Early reviews were divided over whether they could be successfully adapted.
What ’ s more, the original novel has been an incredible success. It was first serialized in China ’ s Science Fiction World magazine in 2006 and translated to Western readers by Liu Yukun in 2014.
Its fans include former US President Barack Obama and "Game of Thrones" author George RR Martin.
He is the author of the Qur ’ an.
Liu Cixin won the most prestigious Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015, and the book and its two sequels have sold nearly 9 million copies worldwide.
Today, Liu Cixin is credited with bringing Chinese science fiction to the world.
This is an incredible feat considering China ’ s historical suppression of science fiction.
The English translation begins with the words: “In more than 40 days, in Beijing alone, more than 1,700 victims were beaten to death at a protest meeting ” and“ many others have chosen an easier path to avoid this madness. ”
Set in 1967, the novel kills as many as 2 million people in the Cultural Revolution over the next decade as the student-led radical Red Guards gradually turned violent in support of the Communist policies of then-Communist leader Mao Zedong.
Many of the victims committed suicide to “end their suffering. ”
The report believes that, in the modern episode of the “Three Bodies, ” the unexplained suicides that have occurred in the scientific community hint at this fact.
But what ’ s more striking than how this real history shapes events in Liu ’ s work is how the Mao regime shaped the course of science fiction in the real world.
It was dormant in the 1960s.
Liu Cixin was born in 1963, three years before the Cultural Revolution.
Li Hua, a professor of Chinese at Montana State University, said that in that era, scientists, writers and other intellectuals were branded “counter-revolutionaries ” and sent to labor camps for“ ideological transformation, ” with few literary works published, “Chinese science fiction remained dormant from the early 1860s to 1967, ” and it was especially difficult to survive the turbulent political situation, with many common themes being taboo, such as Mao ’ s. Marxist-Leninism makes no provision for the existence of aliens in the universe.
But as the “three bodies ” postscript reveals, after witnessing China ’ s first artificial satellite painting the sky in April 1970, six-year-old Liu Cixin will still be moved by“ unspeakable curiosity and longing. ”
A few years later, he found a box of books under his father ’ s bed, including Jules Verne ’ s “Journey to the Heart of the Earth. ” Liu found that he had a determination, like the character in his book, Ye Wenjie, that would ultimately have a profound impact.
Mao Zedong died in 1976, and Ye Wenjie described that year in “The Three Bodies ” as“ the horrors experienced during the Cultural Revolution gradually subsided ”. After Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1977, science fiction flourished for a short time. Deng Xiaoping said that “science and technology are the first productive force. ” Creation.
Fearing a greater spread of Western ideas to China, the CCP launched a campaign in 1983 to “clean up mental pollution. ”
Li said: “It aims to eradicate the Western-inspired trend of ‘ bourgeois liberalization ’.
The Propaganda Department singled out specific literary genres to attack and suppress, including sci-fi works of ghost stories, violence, sex, anti-scientific assumptions, and veiled criticisms of socialism, and classified them as “spiritual pollution. ”
Leading writers such as Ye Yonglie, who wrote stories about space travel when China launched its first satellite into orbit, were condemned, and Science Literary magazine was forced to publish non-fiction works, and in the process renamed the more unobtrusive “Strange Tales. ”
Li said that after a few months, Deng Xiaoping ended the event, but "many science fiction writers, disappointed and emotionally hurt, left the field."
Even if science fiction is revived again, political sensitivities are holding back its development.
Liu Cixin ’ s first full-length novel, China 2185, in 1989, describes cyberpunk fantasies about Mao ’ s resurrection in virtual reality.
This suggests that sci-fi narratives “were prevented from appearing in print due to sensitive sociopolitical topics, but were later published online, ” Li said, but many such works would soon be removed.
Most writers are self-censoring.
With its rapid economic growth in the 1990s, China is now a modern and prosperous country, and science fiction has flourished in China. In the 1990s, with films such as Jurassic Park and The Hacking Empire, Western works by Hugo Award winners Philip K Dick and Arthur C Clarke hit bookshelves.
By the turn of the century, “Science Fiction World ” had reached 400,000 copies, the largest of its kind. In 2019, another film,“ Wandering Earth ”, directed by Liu Cixin, became a hit in China, marking a watershed moment for Chinese science fiction films.
Li Hua believes that the change during this period is that the Chinese government's censorship system is relatively strict on social and political issues, but relatively lax on technical issues, so most writers will self-censor their works and avoid mentioning sensitive topics.
But the report believes that sociopolitical criticism is not impossible for Chinese writers.
Liu Yukun, a translator, said at the Reddit “Geek ” conference in 2015 that“ criticism of the Cultural Revolution is not a forbidden topic in China. ”
Liu Tsz Hin became the first Asian to win a Hugo Award, but his book nonetheless exposes the sensitive nature of his ideas. After all, chapters with a Cultural Revolution background were moved to the middle part of the original Chinese version for fear that government censors might find them too politicized, which is the beginning of the English version of the “Three Body ”.
Netflix ’ s new series “Three Bodies ” starts in the same way as the English version of the book, and they don ’ t worry about censorship.
But the new series is based on Liu Cixin ’ s original novel, and unlike the original novel, they will face the critical judgment of the audience.
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What time period produced science fiction works that included idealogies such as capitalism, and communism, and also threats of nuclear power, racism, pollution, and more?

Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, signaling the international prominence of Chinese science fiction. [1][4].

Title:

Content: People 's Daily Online > > Economy and Technology
Science fiction writer Liu Cixin: Someone must dare to dream like this
June 16, 2024 08: 58 | Source: Xinhua News Agency
Small number
"No one knows what the future holds, but someone must dare to dream like this."
At the recently concluded 8th China Science Fiction Conference in 2024, a science fiction short film adapted from the novel of the same name by science fiction writer Liu Cixin, "Earth Cannon", was unveiled for the first time.
The classic quotes and shocking pictures complement each other, bringing the audience into a futuristic world full of science fiction.
On the wings of imagination, what kind of future will science fiction arrive? Recently, in an interview with Xinhua News Agency reporters, Liu Cixin, who is the president of the Beijing Yuanyu Science Fiction Future Technology Research Institute, further explained the underlying logic of science fiction imagination.
“Everything needs imagination. ”
During this science fiction conference, Liu Cixin, who is over 60 years old, is very busy, and the topics and questions related to science fiction converge to this representative of the Chinese science fiction community.
Liu Cixin, born in 1963, worked as a computer engineer at a power plant in Shanxi Province and began publishing science fiction works in the 1990s.
Its published novella "Wandering Earth", imagines the human race struggling to find a suitable home when the sun is destroyed; the subsequent novel "Three Bodies" leads the reader to explore unknown civilizations outside the world with a more strange and bold imagination.
The latter won the Hugo Award, the highest honor in science fiction, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has recommended the book to his tens of millions of fans.
Many readers are curious about the "underground city" in "Wandering Earth", the refuge of mankind in the face of the sun crisis. Liu Cixin said that the "underground city" that will be built in the future is completely different from what we imagine now.
It doesn't have to be closed, it can be very expansion.Where humans need to build underground cities the most, it may be on the moon or Mars.
There, the underground city can effectively block the strong radiation in space, while creating a breathable and temperature-appropriate environment, "Liu said.
Liu Cixin believes that science fiction is based on the imagination of science and technology, and with the rapid development of science and technology, many scenes in science fiction are gradually becoming reality.
For example, in the sci-fi imagination, humans can achieve "brain networking", connecting the brain to the outside world and even other brains.
In the current reality, brain-computer interface technology has enabled paraplegic patients to use their thoughts to control the cursor to move.
In Liu Cixin's view, when humans use brain-computer interface technology to 100% identify, store information in the brain, and then send it to the computer - this is digital survival.
Science fiction originates from the rational expansion of cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements and scientific discoveries, and constantly "ignites" people's imagination and curiosity, and technological innovation is also changing the connotation and extension of science fiction.
The 2024 China Science Fiction Industry Report predicts that the impact of innovative technologies on the science fiction industry will be further manifested, and the deep integration of science fiction and future industries is expected to provide assistance for the development of new quality productivity.
"New quality productivity itself must have a strong innovation factor, and innovation requires us to have an open vision, active thinking."
"We hope that the development of science and technology in the future will enable mankind to build a better earth, and at the same time allow mankind to develop a greater living space," Liu said.
“China is a country full of a sense of future. ”
"Three Body" has been translated into dozens of languages to spread around the world, "Wandering Earth" series of movies overseas to win praise, "Earth Age" "first series" as the representative of a number of Chinese science fiction online literature works have been included in the British Library Chinese collection books … In recent years, more and more Chinese science fiction works "out", Chinese science fiction "go out" step up.
"The rapid progress of modernization has made China a country full of 'futuristic' and promoted the rapid growth of Chinese science fiction literature." Liu Cixin said that the rapid development of China has also attracted the world's attention in culture, and Chinese science fiction will be exported to more parts of the world in the future.
The 2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Conference held Liu Cixin signing activities attracted many science fiction fans. Photo by Xinhua reporter Shen Bohan
The "China Science Fiction Overseas Communication Report (2018-2023)" jointly developed by the China Science Fiction Research Center and the International Communication Big Data Intelligent Service Platform of the World Research Institute shows that the overseas search popularity of Chinese science fiction works and the number of relevant mainstream media reports are increasing year by year, and Chinese science fiction is becoming an important force in Chinese culture "going global".
From the animated version of "Three Body" to Tencent's domestic drama series "Three Body", to the Netflix version of "Three Body" launched in March this year, the film and television dramas and animation works adapted from the science fiction novel "Three Body" have frequently attracted attention at home and abroad.
The "Three Body" IP Sea Observation Report jointly developed by the China Science Fiction Research Center and Tencent Penguin shows that nearly 80% of overseas respondents want to understand China after watching the original domestic TV series "Three Body", and most want to further understand "China's cultural tourism" and "Chinese history".
This is a Japanese translation of the Three Body.
Photo by Wang Hao, Xinhua News Agency
For the "Three Body" has garnered so much attention overseas, Liu Cixin believes that one of the important reasons is that the "Three Body" describes human beings and human civilization "as a whole."
In the vast universe, humanity is a very small existence.
The idea of "jointly facing future crises and challenges" transcends cultures and countries, and arouses the resonance of people in different cultural backgrounds.
"We have seen the proposition of human existence beyond the individual, even beyond the country, civilization and culture, and the relationship between people and the universe and the possible existence of intelligent civilization in the universe, which should attract everyone." Liu Cixin said.
“Put your eyes on the whole scale of human civilization. ”
Since the rise of the concept of "science fiction" in the 1920s, the connotation and extension of science fiction literature have been continuously expanded in the past century.
In Liu Cixin's eyes, science fiction is a literary subject facing the future and facing a wider space of time, which should "give people the pleasure of imagination and let people appreciate the possibilities of the future and the universe."
On December 1, 2023, “Jianfa · Three Body Immersive Art Exhibition ” opened in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
The picture shows the model of the three-body warship "Natural Selection".
Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Shen Bohan
For people who want to engage in science fiction writing, Liu Cixin gave his own advice: “As much as possible, broaden your mind. Don ’ t limit yourself to the joys and sorrows of things and individuals around you. You should put your eyes on the scale of human civilization and think about its future and future as an existence in the universe. ”
At the 2023 Chengdu Science Fiction World Congress, “post-90s ” Chinese writer Hai Hai won the“ Hugo Award ” for Best Novel in Time and Space. This honor was awarded to Liu Cixin, who is very young and looks forward to his future development.
Science fiction talent team continues to grow, science fiction creative forces, especially the number of young creative talents is rapidly increasing; young people are more and more interested in science fiction, science fiction film and television literary works, science fiction travel and so on are deeply loved by young people; science fiction industry structure continues to expand from reading, film and television, video to games, cultural tourism and so on.
On April 27, the 8th China Science Fiction Conference opened in Beijing.
The picture shows that children experience VR games in the field of science fiction carnival.
Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Chenlin
The latest report released by the 8th China Science Fiction Conference shows that in 2023, the total revenue of China's science fiction industry reached 113.29 billion yuan, and typical formats such as science fiction reading, science fiction film and television, science fiction games, science fiction travel accelerated, and the science fiction industry ushered in a golden opportunity period.
Supervisor: Wei Tiemin, Liu Chang
Planning: Ding Jing, Qi Rong
Reporter: Yang Shujun, Wang Yihui, Ding Jing, Yang Na
Editor: Liu Chang
Video source: Xinhua News Agency, official microblog of film "Wandering Earth 2", official microblog of TV series "Three Body", Qianku network
Thanks: Beijing Yuanyu Science Fiction Future Technology Research Institute
Xinhua to the outside
Xinhua News Agency Beijing Branch
Economic Reference Newspaper
Co-production
Produced by Chinese Story Workshop
(Editor: Wang Renhong, Li Nanhua)
Public Number ： People 's Network Finance
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China’s science fiction industry has grown rapidly, with major revenues and internationally recognized authors like Wang Jinkang contributing to global conversations. [10].

Title:

Content: Interview with Wang Jinkang, 2024 Hugo Finalist

INTRODUCTION: Eight Light Minutes(8LM) Culture of Chengdu has given permission for File 770 to reprint the series of interviews with Chinese science fiction writers which they have been running this week on Facebook. The first one is a question and answer session with Wang Jinkang, whose novella Seeds of Mercury is a 2024 Hugo Award finalist.

SUPPORTING CHINESE WRITERS SERIES (1): 2024 HUGO AWARD NOMINATION INTERVIEW WITH WANG JINKANG

Translated by Joseph Brant.

Wang Jinkang(王晋康) was born in Nanyang, Henan Province in 1948. He is a senior engineer, and a member of the Chinese Writer’s Association (CWA), The China Popular Science Writing Association (CPSWA), The Committee of Scientific Literature and Art, and the Henan Writers’ Association. Since the publication of his first story, The Return of Adam, in 1993, he has published over 90 short works, and 20 full novels, including Cross, We Together, Escape from The Mother Universe, Parents of Heaven and Earth, and Cosmic Crystal Eggs, totaling over six million words. He has won China’s Galaxy Award 16 times, as well as The Chinese Science Fiction Nebula’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is considered one of Chinese science fiction’s ‘Four Heavenly Kings’, and his emblematic work Seeds of Mercury was shortlisted for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

Hello Mr. Wang! Before we start, I would like to congratulate you on Seeds of Mercury’s shortlisting for 2024’s “Best Novella” Hugo Award. This is news that has excited countless Chinese science fiction fans. Ever since the publication of Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History, readers have commented that your contributions have particularly appealed to them and would like to know more about your life and work. Hopefully, this long-awaited interview will provide some of the insights the sci-fi community has longed for.

Q1Mr. Wang, despite having produced many great works, this is the first time you’ve been shortlisted for the Hugo. How did you feel when you learned that you’d been shortlisted?

Wang Jinkang: Of course I was elated. Although I’ve won many awards in China, in fact the most Galaxy Awards in history, this is the first time I’ve been shortlisted for a Hugo. It felt like 31 years ago, when I first saw The Return of Adam in print, and when I won my First Galaxy Award. I think every author experiences these moments of excitement. It’s excellent that Chinese science fiction has reached a certain level, after years of growth, it’s now more and more visible internationally, which is fantastic. Of course, what we value even more, is these works transcending their era, and surviving the tides of time to reach future generations.

Religion and Science are enemies who love each other.

Q2Mr. Wang, as one of the ‘Four Heavenly Kings’ of Chinese science fiction, you’re already very well known in China, with a creative career spanning over thirty years, with works such as Leopard Man, Ant Life and Survival Experiment and so on. This shortlisted work is such a quintessential piece. However, this interview is not just intended for the Chinese sci-fi fans, but for readers around the world, who may not be familiar with Seeds of Mercury. Could I ask you to introduce it for the benefit of the overseas sci-fi fans?

Wang Jinkang: Seeds of Mercury is a two-threaded story. The first one follows a female scientist named Shawu, who discovers a new formula for life, and creates a fluid metal nano life form. When she dies, she entrusts that formula to Chen Yizhe, a businessman with a pure heart, along with the message “real life cannot be bred in pens. In the Solar System, there happens to be a suitable place for it to breed freely – Mercury”. Chen Yizhe accepts this monumental legacy enthusiastically, using his personal wealth to maintain the laboratory. In order take the next step, of “seeding Mercury”, he must turn to the society around him. Mr Hong, a multi-billionaire with a disagreeable personality but a benevolent soul, decides to liquidate his empire to facilitate the spaceship’s construction. Furthermore, Hong makes another astonishing decision: to relocate to Mercury, have his body frozen in the millennia-old ice caves of the planet’s north pole, to be awakened every 10 million years, to assist the evolution of these micro-lifeforms. In just 15 years, Chen Yizhe sends Hong to Mercury to seed the nano-life into the liquid metal lakes of Mercury, after which Hong settles down in its polar caves. Meanwhile, Hong’s lawyer, and soulmate named Yin, bids her painful farewells from the distant Earth.

The second storyline is set 100 million years later, when the Suola race have evolved on Mercury, their metal bodies adapted to the hundred-degree temperatures of the planet. They are sustained by light (drawing energy directly by photosynthesis). With no sense of hearing, they rely on the flashing of light through two orifices in their abdomen to communicate in binary. The entire Suola race are devout followers of Shawu, venerate the Star Father, the great god Shawu and her earthly incarnation. They have been initiated in science, and after studying their Holy Book, scientist Tu Lala discovers that much scientific knowledge has been disguised and hidden within. From this he deduces that life on Mercury originates from The Blue Planet. He implores the high priest to send an expedition to search for the Holy Site in the depths of the ice, with the excuse of reviving the incarnation of Shawu, as the Book prophesied. The high priest consents, sending a chaplain to supervise the mission. Tu Lala actually locates the Holy Site, and discovers the incarnation of Shawu (Mr Hong), frozen in the ice, along the sacred rites of “how to revive the incarnation of Shawu”.

However, unexpected occurrences, mainly due to the ignorance and blind devotion of the believers, result in Tulala’s unfortunate violent death (as metallic organisms, the Suola can easily resurrect after a sudden death, but those who do are considered an untouchable caste). In order to protect Mr Hong’s body, Tu lala risks the humiliation, but tragically, his student Qi Qiaqia denounces him, exposing his untouchable status, and inciting the crowd to him, During which time, Mr Hong’s body is destroyed in the scorching sunlight. To avoid blame, Qi Qiaqia suddenly declares that the incarnation of Shawu was a false god, which is why the Father Star could destroy it. This narrative is accepted by the devotees, who hail him as their new high priest. In the thousands of years that follow, Suola society descends into darkness, religious cruelly suppressing science, but from among the population comes a new “Sect of Repentance”, apparently founded by an untouchable. Silently they preserve everything related to science, awaiting the next rebirth of Shawu in future millennia.

Q3Seeds of Mercury was first published in 2002, and its appeal still endures, even after all this time. What inspired you to write this story?

Wang Jinkang: The initial inspiration probably came from a sad epiphany I had as a teenager. The human body is too fragile. Our proteins start to coagulate above 80°C, our brain suffers irreversible damage if we don’t breathe for five minutes, our body can’t withstand radiation, and we can die from disease, hunger, dehydration, drowning and freezing… It’s admirable that such a fragile life form has been propagated on for billions of years, but it also makes me apprehensive that humanity would not survive a disaster. Human civilisation is a great achievement, which is why we are proud of it; but it also makes me anxious, worrying that humanity may not survive the next cataclysm. I couldn’t help but imagine, what if a creator, or god of evolution, created a metallic life, invulnerable to fire and flood? Many years later, I combined these youthful imaginings with my subsequent concept of “Templates for Life” and turned it into this novella.

Q4Seeds of Mercury is a piece about the sublime act of Creation, and a reflection on the transitory nature of life. Did you write it with the intention of exploring the contradiction between Science and Religion? Or did that grow naturally out of the creative process? Also, do the sentient beings you write about reflect your own views and positions?

Wang Jinkang: I didn’t intend to construct that dichotomy between Science and Religion, but it’s exactly what happened on Earth, so when I created a history for Mercury’s civilisation, those episodes just appeared naturally. Religion and Science are enemies who love each other. European Papacy cruelly persecuted Galileo, Bruno, and other ‘heretics’, and strictly forbade the theory of evolution, but medieval Europe became the birthplace of modern science. When we look back at the history of Civilisation over millennia, you can’t help but sigh that history is full of paradoxes, and that The Creator is always full of mischief, making fun of the theories of Cause and Effect. As to whether this new life carries some of my own views or positions? Of course. Tu Lala is the heir to the human spirit, with his scientific rationality, adventurous spirit, sense of responsibility, fortitude, and self-sacrifice. In the story, when Tu Lala meets the holy body of Shawu Incarnate, and he figures out that the great god was a scientist. Thus, demonstrating that the intellectual spirits of all scientists are inter-relatable, even if they are alien. That is what I believe in my heart.

Today’s AI isn’t quite up to the standard of “Return of Adam”

Q5Mr. Wang, the world has moved on 22 years since the first publication of Seeds of Mercury. What changes do you think have occurred in science fiction writing in the present day, compared to the early years both in terms of the environment, and the core themes?

Wang Jinkang: These 22 years have brought great changes, and it could be said that civilisation has reached a critical point, that we’re on the cusp of drastic changes. However, for the science fiction writer, who is used to seeing the world from a god-like point of view (through the eyes of science) we think in millennia, so 22 years is too short a period to affect the themes of my work. For example, my debut story Return of Adam showed a society where AI had overcome natural humanity, though it had taken on a parasitic approach, augmenting the processing power (IQ) of the human mind to far outstrip the basic brain, and in fact, became the core of human consciousness. The rapid development of AI today, especially the LLM systems, is amazing, even frightening, but in general, today’s AI isn’t quite up to the standards of Return of Adam. Still, I’m saddened that some things I wrote about, which I assumed would be far in the future have come to pass in my lifetime. For example, in 1997, when many Chinese people asserted that AI could never triumph in the field of Weiqi (Go), I was convinced it eventually would, and wrote a scene of an ‘AI beating a human chess master’ in one of my stories, before it actually happened. I just never expected to see it in my lifetime.

Q6Before Liu Cixin appeared, you “held up half the sky” in Chinese Sci-fi. When you first appeared in China’s science fiction circles, you were relatively older, and more experienced. Do you think that maturity allowed your work to appear more rounded?

Wang Jinkang: My life and experiences have been quite unique. I’ve lived through a very special time in China’s history, worked as a rusticated youth, a miner and model maker. I went to university at 30, became a mechanical engineer, wrote literary novels, and only broke into the science fiction world by chance at 45, publishing my first sci-fi story. If anything, my near-fanatical reading of literature at university paved the way for my future writing. At that time, the reforms were already happening in China, and it was opening up to the world. A huge amount of foreign literature was pouring into the country, dazzling readers like me. There may be another special factor, which is, because I was studying engineering, I was standing atop this wall of science and watching this river of literature racing by, I had a sense of detachment. Add to that I only started writing SF decades after experiencing the rise, fall and distilling of the wave of literature. I suppose that’s why my writing style has a poised, bleak, and sombre character.

Q7What sort of stories do you think are expected from the current literary ecosystem? Which sci-fi genres do you expect to take off in the future?

Wang Jinkang: I have always felt that science fiction is unlike any other form of literature. The richness of mainstream literature does not necessarily coincide with the strength of a country. As the aphorisms go, “classics are born from chaos”, and “poets are fortunate when the country is not”. However, the success of science fiction is reliant on enough readers and authors being educated to a certain threshold, and so depends on the country’s economic, scientific, and technological development, which can be proven by the movement of science fiction’s centre from Britain and France to the United States over the last century. Over the past 40 years, China’s overall economic development has been good, and as one of the oldest sci-fi writers in the country, I’ve experienced this first-hand. I feel that as China continues to modernise and converge with the rest of the world, the creative environment of Chinese sci-fi will continue to improve. As for which themes, I feel will start to emerge? It’s expected that artificial intelligence and space themes, with more emphasis on exploring the human condition, are going to be the stories of importance, but other themes will also develop immensely.

Science fiction writers are used to seeing the world from a god-like viewpoint.

Q8 Mr. Wang, science fiction has taken root in China now for around a century, and you have played a pivotal role in the history of science fiction in the country. Irrespective of whether or not you win this Hugo Award, you have influenced a generation of sci-fi fans and creators. How do you view your own Creative Achievements?

Wang Jinkang: I’m flattered, but I only really played a leading and inductive role in the early stages of the so-called “New Generation” of Chinese sci-fi back in the 1990s. I’m content with the two aspects of my writing career, firstly, in forming the genre of Philosophical Science Fiction, which is based on the latest technological advances, and digs deep into the influence it has on alienation, civilisation, and so forth, to discover this genre’s philosophical uniqueness. This genre did not originate in my work, foreign writers including Mr. Arthur C. Clarke have long created excellent works of philosophical sci-fi, but these elements in my work are more concentrated. Furthermore, with regards science fiction as “the most cosmopolitan form of literature”, I consider my work, whilst still cosmopolitan, to be imbued heavily with Chinese styles and themes, which adds a certain flavour to the genre.

Q9Do you feel that science fiction writing is shifting from short-form to long form, and what difficulties do you feel are associated with that?

Wang Jinkang: In my experience there are three main issues faced when moving into the long-form. Firstly, there must be enough knowledge, from the accumulation of experience and information. Secondly, there must be a more mature view of Nature and human society, in their entirety. These are not necessarily the dominant trait of the novel but will play important roles in the story’s development. Thirdly, the ability to comprehend the entirety of the larger story. This ability to grasp the complete story is equally important to mainstream literary writers, but in science fiction, concepts always play a driving role in the whole work and should be logically consistent in themselves.

Q10In your eyes, what is the role of Morality and Ethics in Science Fiction?

Wang Jinkang: Science fiction authors often look at the world from a godlike point of view, and in the eyes of a creator, survival comes first, and morality and ethics are just auxiliary codes established by humans once they reached a certain level of civilisation. They are also conducive to the overall survival of the human race. As Humanity develops, and “co-operation” becomes more central to society, the role of morality and ethics becomes more and more important, but they certainly won’t stay the same, and the rules will certainly have additions and deletions. For example, once technology becomes suitably advance, the ethics of “strict prohibition regarding editing the genes of a human being” are very likely to change.

Q11Throughout your career, which of your stories are you most satisfied with?

Wang Jinkang: Of my short and medium length works, I like Seeds of Mercury’, Bee Keepers and The Song of Life, and of my longer works, I’m most satisfied with Ant’s Life and the Alive Trilogy (Escape From The Mother Universe, Parents of Heaven And Earth, and Cosmic Crystal Eggs).

Thank you, reader, for giving meaning to my life.

Q12Mr. Wang, some sci-fi fans have pointed out you are ‘the oldest non-American writer shortlisted for the Hugo Award’, which is an impressive feat. What are your hopes for the Hugo Awards?

Wang Jinkang: There’s a bit of a special circumstance here, where a story I wrote 22 years ago, was only translated into English last year, and shortlisted according to the translation’s publication date, even though, I’m very happy to hold this “World Record”. I hope it will go further than just being a finalist, but even if it doesn’t, I still consider it a great honour to be shortlisted.

Q13What would you like to say to the readers regarding the inclusion of Seeds of Mercury in the Hugo Awards shortlist, which was voted for by individual sci-fi fans one after another?

Wang Jinkang: I’ve always had a reverence for my readers. The two most common inscriptions I write to fans at signings are “The reader is the god of authors”, and “Thank you reader, for giving meaning to my life”. Out of the millions of publications each year, in a sea of stories, to have any number of people read your work, enjoy it, and keep it in their memory after that relentless tide of time, is a rare blessing. One might even call it a great gift from the readers to the author.

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Other regions have rich traditions and expansions too, from early Arabic speculative works like Avicenna’s The message of Hayy bin Yaqzan to modern Russian postmodernist contributions by authors such as Vladimir Sorokin. [14].

Title:

Content: Chairman of the Board of Directors and Editors
Mohamad Elbaz
Chairman of the Board of Directors and Editors
Mohamad Elbaz
Grandchildren of Tolstoy.
The spiritual heirs of the writer of Russia in his memory
Approximately 270 of Tolstoy ’ s biological descendants are separated by circumstances and life between Russia and European countries, but there are his spiritual descendants who have followed the same path in the field of writing and creativity, and on the anniversary of his passing 114, which falls on November 19, the following report is about his spiritual heirs and grandchildren in the intellectual and creative field.
Translator and academic Dr. Tahsin Razak said that modern Russian literature is very diverse, encompassing not only books that have been written recently, but also the products of literature that was banned in the Soviet era, and the productions of Russian writers abroad.
One of the most interesting cultural phenomena is the trend of postmodernism – a trend not only in literature but also in all humanistic disciplines, postmodernism originated in the West in the late 1960s, active in Russia in the late 20th century and dominated the cultural scene at the beginning of the 21st century, a search for a synthesis between modernity and mass culture, and the destruction of any myths.
Modernism tried to be the new art, which at first denied the old classical art.
Postmodernism did not arise after the trend of modernity, but next to it, and he does not deny everything old, but rather tries to rethink it ironically.
Among the most important contemporary Russian writers who represent the postmodern trend initiated in Russian literature by Venedkt Yeroviev and Andrei Petov are Viktor Belevin, Vladimir Sorokin and Vasily Aksenov. Famous literary awards, such as Russian Poker, the Grand Book Award and the Best Selling Award, have helped put forward sophisticated popular models that represent the continuation of 19th century classical Russian literature and soviet realist literature....
Grandchildren of Tolstoy
Yevgeny Germanovich Vudolazkin (1964) is a Russian writer and literary critic, Doctor of Philosophy of Language. He has published several books in the field of linguistics, ancient Russian literature, ancient Russian language, novel, play, short story, and a collection of novels that have won the highest literary awards in Russia, such as Russian Poker, Grand Book Award, 21st Century Writers of the Year Award, Yasnaya Polyana Award and other awards. Each book published by the author constitutes a high literary event that newspapers and the media are interested in.
Time and memory are Vudolazkin ’ s favorite themes, and he has been dubbed the Russian Emberto Eco by literary circles in Russia and Europe.
Each of his works is a combination of brilliant intellectual manipulation, sobriety of language, and entertaining plot.
For example, Lauros has been translated into 35 languages, and in 2022 a global conference was held at the University of Granada in Spain to discuss the translation of the novel.
Three of the author ’ s novels have been translated into Arabic by Dar al-Mada (“Lauros, ”“ The Pilot, ” and “Brisbane, ” with the fourth novel,“ Mudrar al-Jazeera, ” coming soon).
Yevgeny Nikolaevich (Zakhar) Prilepin (1975) is a novelist, journalist and linguist.
One of the most important literary figures on the Russian scene.
He won the most important literary awards in Russia: Medal and Certificate of Honour of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin (2021) - for his significant contribution to the promotion of culture, Medal of Courage (6 June 2023) - for courage and dedication embodied in the performance of civic and cultural duty, Order of Negoš of the First Class (August 2018, Republic of Serbia) - for work and merits in cultural and spiritual development.
He has won the Russian Poker Award several times, Best Sales of all his works, Best Narrative Book Award, Herzin Award, State Literary Award, Pushkin Award, International Prize of the City of Cassino "Letterature dal fronte" (Italy) 2018, Grand Book Award, Yasnaya Polyana Award, Book of the Year Award, and other major awards. Many master's and doctoral theses have been discussed.
Prilepin has a rare advantage: if he loves something or someone, he knows how to talk about that love in such a way that people who hear or read about that love inevitably develop it.
Prilepin writes like a 21st-century Tolstoy Lev.
The writer ’ s speech and style are devoid of postmodern hocus-pocus, and he flirts with the reader, “modern things ” — in fact, it turns out that this is the author ’ s greatest innovation, the author ’ s works have been translated into many foreign languages, and a book in Arabic has been published by Dar Kalima in the UAE.
Yuri Vasilyevich Boyda (1954) – Russian novelist, editor and journalist, whose novels have won the Grand Book Prize, Russian Poker and other important awards in Russia, both in first place and on the short list.
His works are published in Russian in all countries of the former Soviet Union and have been translated into many languages of the world.
Some of his works have been published in Arabic, most of his works have been directed on the stage or in the cinema, and his works have been written in solid research studies, and many master's and doctoral dissertations.
He is one of the most important contemporary Russian writers.
Leonid Abramovich Josefovich (1947) - Russian novelist, screenwriter and historian.
Author of detective and historical novels.
Doctor of History.
He is the recipient of numerous literary awards in Russia, including the Grand Book Award, the Yasnaya Polyana Award, and Russian Poker.
Books from the most sold in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union.
His work has been translated into many foreign languages.
Many master's and doctoral dissertations have been written about his novels and narrative works.
Many studies of his narrative work have been published in sober literary journals, and his work has taken an interest in the press and the media.
His career has been going on since the 1970s.
He has written a short story, a novel and a long story, and has published more than 25 books.
Six of his works were directed in the cinema and acted on stage.
Vladimir Sorokin is one of the most important writers of fiction, screenplay and theater in Russia, one of the most prominent representatives of conceptual art (sometimes called conceptualism) and postmodern art in Russian literature, author of eleven novels and a large number of short stories, plays and scenarios.
He has won numerous literary awards in Russia and Europe, and has been nominated several times for the International Poker Prize.
His work has been translated into dozens of languages.
Vladimir Sorokin ’ s work in Russia has repeatedly raised topics of public debate, including court litigation.
In 1977 he completed his studies at the Moscow Oil and Gas Institute (Gubkin Institute) with the specialization of engineer-mechanic.
He started working for the magazine "Alternative" and was fired for refusing to join the Union of Communist Youth (Komsomol).
He worked in calligraphy, painting and photography.
His character as a writer was crystallized among writers and illustrators of the Underground movement in Moscow in the 1980s, and in 1985 the Parisian magazine A-J published a selection of six short stories.
In the same year, Sorokin published The Line by Syntaxis (France).
In Russia, The Line was published in Cinema Art magazine in 1992, and Russlett (Moscow) published his short story collection, which was shortlisted for the Poker Prize.
The manuscript of his novel "Four Hearts" was nominated for a poker prize and shortlisted.
Vladimir Sorokin's works are translated into many European languages as well as Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
His novels were published by the best European publishing houses.
Vladimir Sorokin received the People ’ s Poker Award in September 2001, and two months later the Andrei Bailey Award “for outstanding services to Russian literature, ” a recipient of the German Ministry of Culture Award, the Liberty Award in 2005, the Gorky International Award, the Grand Book Award, and the Oliver Henry Award in 2022.
He is a member of the International PEN Club Association.
Sorokin has published several novels, the most important of which is Blue Lard (1999), which became widely popular with its homosexual scenes and prompted the prosecution of Sorokin for publishing pornographic material.
The charge was later dropped.
At the same time, Vladimir Sorokin was harassed by the national youth organization Walking Together.
The incident drew attention to Sorokin and contributed to the increased readership of the novel, and doubled its sales figures.
He wrote several other works such as The Ice Trilogy (2002-2006), Telluria (2013), Manaraga (2017), and Dr. Garin (2021), and composed eleven plays, the most important of which were The Russian Grandmother, Remembrance, Dostoevsky ’ s Journey, Trust, and six film screenplays. In 2005, he wrote the dialogue for the opera "Sons of Rosenthal" on the music of Disyatnikov.
For her part, the translator Rula Adel said: “It is true that the difference is clear between the writings of the golden age of Russian literature or what characterizes the Arab reader without detail as ‘ classical Russian literature ’ and the current contributions to contemporary Russian literature. ”
“This does not prevent the fact that contemporary Russian literature has a clear imprint, such as the writings of Mikhail Shishkin and Gizal Yakhina, which won the Yasnaya Polinaya Literary Prize and is one of the most promising Russian pens of recent times. ”
Adel continued: “Far from what is called the term, (acute literature), a term with which I disagree a little, the Russian literary era is currently moving with a clear influence towards the writing of science fiction literature, and I think this is due to the influence of the current era and technological development and public fears of machines dominating or at least replacing humanity. ”
Adel pointed out that “this trend does not reach the Arab reader very little, and the reason, I think, is related to the reputation of the great Russian literature that researches human souls and the destinies of humanity and the impact of wars and social tragedies, and therefore most of the current publishing houses are interested only in translating what is similar to that biography and reputation. ”
“Although those familiar with classical Russian literature know full well that it contains all kinds of literature, including psychological literature, social literature, crime, Gothic fiction and so on. ”

In India, filmmakers like Shekhar Kapur and S. Shankar have pushed science‑fiction themes into mainstream cinema, reflecting the genre’s wider cultural reach.

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Updated February 19th, 2024 at 14:53 IST

The Best Sci-Fi Directors in Bollywood

Here, we delve into the realm of sci-fi and highlight some of the best directors in Bollywood who have ventured into this fascinating genre.

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The Best Sci-Fi Directors in Bollywood | Image:Republic
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In the vast and dynamic landscape of Indian cinema, Bollywood has often been celebrated for its ability to traverse genres, captivate audiences, and push the boundaries of storytelling. While it's often associated with romantic dramas and high-energy musicals, the realm of science fiction has also found its place on the silver screen, thanks to the visionary directors who dared to explore the unknown. Here, we delve into the realm of sci-fi and highlight some of the best directors in Bollywood who have ventured into this fascinating genre.

1.    Shekhar Kapur: Renowned for his groundbreaking work in films like "Mr. India" (1987) and "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro" (1983), Shekhar Kapur is a visionary director whose foray into science fiction with "Mr. India" left an indelible mark on Indian cinema. The film, blending elements of fantasy and sci-fi, introduced iconic characters like Mogambo and showcased innovative special effects for its time, earning Kapur acclaim as a pioneer in the genre.

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2.    Rakesh Roshan: Rakesh Roshan is a multifaceted filmmaker known for his versatility across genres. While he is celebrated for his work in family dramas and action thrillers, his venture into sci-fi with ‘‘Koi Mil Gaya’’ and the "Krrish" franchise has been monumental. Spanning multiple films, the series follows the journey of a superhero with extraordinary abilities, blending elements of science fiction with Indian mythology to create a unique cinematic universe that has captured the imagination of audiences.

3.    S. Shankar: With a penchant for grandeur and spectacle, S. Shankar is a director renowned for his ambitious vision and technical prowess. His venture into sci-fi with films like "Robot" (2010) and its sequel "2.0" (2018) pushed the boundaries of Indian cinema, featuring cutting-edge visual effects and exploring themes of artificial intelligence and the future of technology. Shankar's ability to seamlessly blend high-concept ideas with mass appeal has solidified his position as a trailblazer in Bollywood sci-fi.

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4.    Shailender Vyas:  Known as “The Christopher Nolan” of India, Shailender Vyas has made significant contributions to the sci-fi genre in Bollywood. His series "JL50" marked a significant departure from conventional Bollywood narratives, showcasing Shailender Vyas' willingness to challenge the status quo. His ability to blend genres and explore unconventional themes demonstrates a refreshing perspective within the sci-fi landscape. Vyas' contribution to the genre serves as a reminder of the importance of creative risk-taking in pushing cinematic boundaries.

5.    Vipul Amrutlal Shah: Vipul Amrutlal Shah is a director known for his diverse filmography, spanning genres from romantic comedies to action thrillers. His venture into sci-fi with "Action Replayy" (2010) offered a quirky twist on time travel, featuring a blend of retro aesthetics and futuristic concepts. While the film received mixed reviews, Shah's willingness to experiment within the sci-fi genre deserves recognition.

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6.    Anubhav Sinha: Anubhav Sinha has carved a niche for himself with socially relevant and thought-provoking cinema. While his filmography predominantly includes dramas and thrillers, his sci-fi venture "Ra.One" (2011) showcased his ambition to push the boundaries of storytelling. The film, featuring cutting-edge visual effects and exploring themes of virtual reality and gaming, marked a significant milestone in Bollywood's exploration of the sci-fi genre.

In conclusion, the realm of science fiction in Bollywood continues to evolve, thanks to the creative vision and innovation of directors like Shekhar Kapur, Rakesh Roshan, S. Shankar, Shailender Vyas, Vipul Amrutlal Shah, and Anubhav Sinha. Through their pioneering efforts, they have expanded the horizons of Indian cinema, captivating audiences with tales that transcend time and space, and leaving an indelible mark on the genre for generations to come.

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Published February 19th, 2024 at 14:53 IST

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New technologies have introduced fresh subjects and tools for storytelling, with virtual reality and artificial intelligence opening additional narrative frontiers and ethical debates. [49].

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"Wandering Earth" author to see AI Liu Cixin: one day will replace the writer
The China Science Fiction Conference "Science and Technology Drive the High-Quality Development of Science Fiction Industry" forum was held recently, and many scientists and researchers in the field of science fiction discussed "how to help the development of science fiction industry through scientific and technological hard power."
Among them, Liu Cixin, China ’ s most influential science fiction writer and author of works such as “Three Bodies ” and“ Wandering Earth ”, believes that “sooner or later, AI) can replace science fiction writers or other writers. ”
Recently, the use of ChatGPT to write attracted widespread attention, artificial intelligence will not replace writers as a hot topic. Liu Cixin said: "The development of technology should be said to be a good thing, I do not think that the development of any technology is pure disaster and evil, it will open a door of hope for mankind, so that we can have more opportunities to create a better future."
The same is true of artificial intelligence, and its breakthroughs are of great significance to us. ”
Liu Cixin believes that science fiction literature, like other narrative literature, has been in decline around the world, "sooner or later, artificial intelligence can replace science fiction writers or other writers."
He said that people often say that artificial intelligence has no human soul, feelings, this is just self-comfort.
People's own soul, feelings, but also a lot of neuron cells connected into complex systems emerge, why can't artificial intelligence do this?
Wang Yuanzhuo, a researcher at the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Big Data Research Institute, said that at present, the "strong artificial intelligence" that many people fear will not come soon, "ChatGPT's performance is not so amazing, and its output has a great price behind it."
He believes that "technological development will indeed replace some professions, such as coachmen."
But artificial intelligence will not replace a large number of posts in a short period of time, because there are too many problems that are not perfect, even if it is only the "last kilometer", there is no way for artificial intelligence to truly become a full-time holder of a post. "
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Contemporary authors and projects also emphasize interdisciplinarity and collaboration between science and literature, exemplified by initiatives like the Dartmouth Speculative Fiction Project.

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Content: Dartmouth Speculative Fiction Project considers next steps for the genre

The project brings together authors and Dartmouth professors to collaborate on new speculative fiction work rooted in scientific research on campus.

by Sophie Chadha | 53 minutes ago

From April 13 to 16, speculative fiction authors from around the country came to Hanover to participate in the Dartmouth Speculative Fiction Project, a series of events which included interdisciplinary activities between visiting authors and Dartmouth faculty, as well as readings and panel discussions open to the public. The project aimed to foster collaboration between authors and Dartmouth faculty – with a focus on designing stories rooted in scientific research – and addressed the present and future of the speculative fiction genre.

The project was co-organized by engineering professor Solomon Diamond, English professor Rebecca Clark, the Design Initiative at Dartmouth program manager Paula Olson, Hugo award-winning speculative fiction editor Liz Gorinsky and author and former visiting film and media studies professor Sharang Biswas Th’13.

According to Hugo and Nebula awards finalist Nibedita Sen, speculative fiction is a general term that provokes valuable questions.

“The term ‘speculative fiction’ … works as an umbrella term: It is fiction which imagines things that do not currently exist, things that may come into being through science or through magic,” Sen said. “It could be advancement, or it could be, ‘What if we went backwards? What if we stepped to the side?’ It could be a different dimension, a different timestream.”

In a Q&A panel on April 15, some authors touched on the exchange of knowledge that occurs between scientific researchers and speculative fiction writers. Author K.M. Szpara said he believes the future of speculative fiction will become increasingly interdisciplinary and collaborative.

Nebula award-winning author Sam J. Miller  said we should reframe one stereotype about fiction — that it is dismissive of reality’s problems — and instead view its creation of a world without societal problems as proof of the possibility that our society could exist without them.

“It is as simple as, ‘ … And then the housing crisis is over … And then all the people standing in the way of progress are gone.’” Miller said.

Calvin George ’24, who attended the Q&A, said he was intrigued by Miller’s concept of speculative fiction as a tool for social change.

“It was really interesting to hear from these authors [about] how imagining worlds where a huge problem like climate change is gone can actually help us solve those problems by giving us a sense of hope that they are not absolute or inevitable,” George said.

Sen said she views fiction as an important lens through which we can better understand the reality of our problems.

“A lot of people view escapism as a form of writing that is less than, but I don't believe in that. Like Tolkien said: Is it not a prisoner's duty to try to escape? Fiction is the spoonful of sugar that helps the truth go down,” Sen said.

Sen said this belief manifested in her own writing following the results of the 2016 presidential election, when she pivoted into the realm of horror as a form of catharsis.

“[In 2016,] people like me were being viewed as monsters, so I decided, ‘Well, I will show you what a monster really is,’” Sen said.

Looking to the future of speculative fiction, teacher, linguist and author Rob Cameron points to the genre’s growth over the past few decades from a niche, isolated faction of enthusiasts to a universal mode of entertainment.

“With the popularization of science fiction through film, especially Marvel, ‘geek culture’ has become much more expansive — you do not have to be a geek to enjoy it,” Cameron said. “At the same time, authors’ expectations of their readers have changed with these new mediums: Are people really going to sit down and read this book? This kind of thinking sparks novel ideas like ‘choose your own adventure’ narratives, comic books, video games and more.”

According to Biswas, the Speculative Fiction Project came to life when pitched the idea of centering speculative fiction around scholarship at Dartmouth to Diamond. When selecting the authors for the panel, Biswas shared that the organizers primarily aimed to represent diversity in both background and writing experience.

“If you’re claiming to do a project that looks at the future of humanity, you need to represent diverse perspectives,” he said.

Biswas added that if the project were to happen again, he hopes it can bring together an even more diverse group of people with more funding.

“In the future, with better channels of funding, we hope to have more geographic diversity and be able to bring in international authors,” Biswas said.

The Speculative Fiction Project will continue as authors workshop their stories with their research partners. These works of fiction will be presented at a Dartmouth symposium in June and will subsequently be synthesized into an anthology in Lightspeed Magazine next year.

According to Clark, students will be invited to submit their own stories and up to four of them will be chosen and featured in the professional collection.

Women and authors of color have profoundly reshaped science fiction, with figures such as Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, N.K. Jemisin, and Nnedi Okorafor expanding themes of identity, power, culture, and social justice.

What is considered a major breakthrough in science fiction publication?

Who wrote "Binti," a Hugo-award-winning African futuristic science fiction horror story?

N.K. Jemisin’s work uses macro and micro worldbuilding to interrogate cultural conflict and power, urging readers to envision better futures.

Chinese women writers have rapidly gained visibility, publishing multiple anthologies, focusing on distinctive female experiences, and benefiting from the internet’s reduction of traditional barriers to entry.

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Cultural warp and weft
Science fiction: the rise of Chinese women writers
While the space for feminist expression in China has shrunk further over the past decade, there ’ s good news from this week ’ s World Science Fiction Conference in Chengdu: Chinese female writers are thriving in the science fiction world, making them one of the most striking trends in the genre.
The rise of Chinese female writers in science fiction has become one of the most striking trends in the genre, according to participants at this week's World Science Fiction Conference in Chengdu.
The World Science Fiction Conference, the world ’ s oldest and most influential science fiction event, was held in China for the first time this year and attracted a large number of local fans, both male and female.
China remains a relatively socially conservative country, and under President Xi Jinping, the space for feminist expression has narrowed further over the past decade.
But author and editor Regina Kanyu Wang, who was nominated for two prestigious Hugo Awards at the World Science Fiction Conference this year, said the number of women writers in science fiction has soared in recent years.
She said more and more women are now realizing that "it's not just nerdy, nerdy science-fiction novels like Liu Cixin [author of the three-body series] that can be published, or can be considered science fiction." Liu Cixin is great, and we all like him.
But there's a lot more to it than Liu Cixin's style. "
The good news, says Wang, is that once women start to become writers, they don ’ t feel they ’ re being treated unequally.
The market and readers need a new perspective, she said.
The 81st World Science Fiction Conference will be held in Chengdu from October 18 to 22.
"Now, many Chinese female science fiction writers focus on issues that women face that men may not feel," Zhou Danxue, a literary scholar at XJCC Liverpool University, told AFP. "These writers can reflect unique female experiences in their own way."
Wang said that in the past two years, four anthologies of Chinese fantasy novels written only by female or non-binary authors have been published, which is a major breakthrough.
There wasn ’ t even an all-female science fiction writer ’ s portfolio before that.
Before the 1990s, there were very few female science fiction writers.
An article in the collection "The Way Spring Comes", which Wang Kanyu participated in compiling, pointed out that the Internet is a training base for women and queer talents.
Author Ni Xueting explained that the widespread use of the Internet “not only brought a new sense of community to people, but also … removed many barriers to writing based on industry and social stereotypes, especially for non-male writers. ”
Chen Qiufan, one of China ’ s leading science fiction writers, told AFP that the genre had traditionally not received special attention and was seen as “written and read by boys. ”
He said there was now a "wider and more diverse audience", estimating that his readers were split equally between men and women.
Chinese women writers begin to make their mark in science fiction
Monet, a 21-year-old woman who visited the science fiction convention on Friday, said she sometimes felt isolated among her own fan base.
“It ’ s hard to share my interests with people who don ’ t understand me.
They ask, "Why does a girl like science fiction?"
She is optimistic about these changes in attitude, pointing out that there are a lot of interested primary and secondary school students at the conference site.
“I think interest in Chinese science fiction has to be nurtured from an early age, ” she says.“ We didn ’ t have that opportunity when we were young … I really envy them, to be honest. ”
(AFP)
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Queer literature has also grown in visibility and scope, with LGBTQIA+ writers introducing diverse, nuanced narratives that challenge genre norms.

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Content: Queer literature worldwide has seen immense shifts that are hard to articulate. Owing to multiple factors, including resistance movements, literary works by LGBTQIA+ writers are increasingly getting published, gaining visibility, and winning accolades. While it can’t be denied that queerbaiting and profiteering have influenced the newfound inclination of publishing houses to commission a book by a queer writer or two every year, their sheer presence and publication frequency signal a huge change.

Over a decade ago, when I found a recent edition of Ruth Vanita’s and Saleem Kidwai’s pathbreaking book Same-Sex Love in India: A Literary History at Amrit Book Co in New Delhi’s Connaught Place, or Akhil Katyal’s The Doubleness of Sexuality: Idioms of Same-Sex Desire in Modern India in May Day Bookstore, Shadipur, New Delhi, there was no dedicated “LGBTQIA+” shelf in bookstores. A few works by queer writers could be found in the “women’s or gender studies” or “academic books” section.

This has changed, and so have the narratives.

The shifting of tides

Though Vanita, Kidwai, and Katyal’s books were introductory texts for me, it was only when I read John Burbidge’s The Boatman: A Memoir of Same-Sex Love, that I truly felt an instant connection with the story. In a foreign land, the author was experiencing many ways to express his newfound desires. Along with the description of the 1980s’ and 1990s’ India, he captures how queerness was peppered across locations in India’s major cities.

While Burbidge’s record is urban-centred, Maya Sharma’s focus has been on unearthing stories from the un- and underprivileged parts of India, particularly Gujarat. Her book Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India broke new ground in feminist discourse. In her latest, Footprints of a Queer History: Life-Stories from Gujarat, she shares long and revealing narratives of the specific experiences of lesbians and transmen. Her works continue to remind us why it’s more important than ever to keep our ears to the ground, because unseeing and avoiding queer experiences from non-mainstream cultures severely impacts queer-feminist discourse.

The world over, the evidence of what happens when histories are forgotten is apparent. Memoirs like American artist and author David Wojnarowicz’s Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration and Modern Nature: Journals 1989-1990 by English writer and filmmaker Derek Jarman come to mind. Their eerie resemblance with the mismanagement during the peak of the coronavirus outbreak is not only heart-breaking but also a reminder to excavate the past to re-inform the contemporary world of the undocumented and forgotten.

Olivia Laing has been doing it for a long time. But it’s the younger scholar Kit Heyam’s work Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender that attracted much attention last year. Much like in Mark Gevisser’s The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers, the focus of the book is not on one particular region but on an aspect, which happens to be the queerness that was lost on people of the time when heteronormative systems were challenged world over. The famous “impersonators” or traditional Islamic singers or the Hijra community in South Asia are but a few of the people Heyam cites in their book to make the point.

Queering Tribal Folktales from East and Northeast India by Kaustav Chakraborty runs along the same lines. It notes how oral stories, mainly from four cultures – Toto, Rabha, Lepcha, and Limbu – were inherently queer. The researcher, who studied the various tribal folklore and tales from the eastern and north-eastern parts of India, constructs a “counter-discourse of an indigenous queer” in this book. And in doing this, he not only shares a queer reading of the oral traditions, but also questions the obvious heteronormative understanding of these stories, which according to him was a spin-off. These tales were anything but cis-het in nature, he concludes.

Can queer futures be foretold?

This is the central argument of two books that unknowingly cover the universal. They articulate queer anxieties, traumas, joys, and experiences by studying them from a particular angle. While Adam Zmith’s Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures does it by keeping amyl nitrite at the centre, Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin does so by centralising the experiences queer people have at a site that’s more often than not threatened by extinction: the gay bar.

Zmith describes the origins of amyl nitrite and captures through it how the chemical came to be associated with the formation of gay subcultures and identities back in the day, and further argues how the futures of queer and nonbinary bodies can be determined from a “forty-five second” high from sniffing poppers. Atherton Lin, on the other hand, in his exceptional account, notes the formation of a sense of “community” through the “fleeting, gently pervy interactions” and “unaccountable version of agency” in the many experiences he meticulously describes and dissects with the abandon of a theorist in his book. It is interesting how such vastly different works approach the formation of the experiences that fundamentally unite them.

Zoë Playdon’s The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: The Transgender Trial that Threatened to Upend the British Establishment is yet another investigative project. Ask yourself: What would the world be like if a major development, say, the knowledge of the production of vaccination against a virus, was concealed from the public? The hiding of Ewan Forbes’s file that noted his gender-reaffirmation surgery was one such event. Classified files were unearthed and a journey to reconstruct a purposely hidden figure underwent in the writing of this remarkable work that points to an opportunity lost – that its public knowledge may have done the job of the fourth wave of trans-feminism in the earlier waves itself.

Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me (Bloomsbury, 2017) by Bill Hayes, on the other hand, is an inward-looking book. It explores the aloneness, loneliness, and grief-stricken state the author found himself to be in when he reached New York only to fall in love with one of the iconic writers, neurologist Oliver Sacks. While the latter talked little of his sexual identity and barely discussed his sexuality in his memoir On the Move: A Life (Knopf, 2015) except for how strongly his mother reacted to learning his queerness, through Hayes’s book we get a glimpse of the sort of intimacy Sacks desired in his life that came late to him. And when life appeared promising for both, Sacks was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.

But from loss, Hayes extracted wisdom. He developed an understanding of why we go on despite loss, failures, and disappointments, and documents it in the book through different artists and vantage points. A genre-defying book in every sense of the way, it is a must-read for every queer writer in my view.

While Insomniac City had photographs and diary entries along with prose, Sunil Gupta’s Wish You Were Here: Memories of a Gay Life, exposed itself to me as a collection that presented vulnerability so uniquely that it was heartbreaking to sift through the book. Before Gupta’s book, I hadn’t come across any documentation of the queer scene of the 1980s from the migrant, diasporic viewpoint. And besides that, the thriving sociality and intimacy he’s able to inject into his creative work led me towards his other works too.

Be it eclectic works like the ones listed above or soul-baring memoirs by popular figures like Onir, A Revathi, and Akkai Padmashali were inspiring, informative, and inventive, I cannot help but argue that nothing like Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi has ever been written. Born to a Nigerian father and Tamil mother, Emezi describes themselves as an Igbo spirit.

In this sense, the memoir challenges the very aspect of the memoir – the personal, for there’s no such thing there. In other words, this self, this homebody doesn’t exist. From this outrageous entry point to taking its readers through body image issues and dysphoria, becoming an overnight success to living unapologetically in a sprawling bungalow, Emezi’s book is not only genre- but world-bending. Their work is a reminder of what happens when the axis of study is twisted, inverted, or changed.

Shapeshifting in fiction

Works of fiction are not far behind when it comes to being a shapeshifter. A few examples include Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar, translated from the Marathi by Jerry Pinto, which serves as a reminder of how effectively women’s and queer people’s bodies have forever been policed. Their desires are hypersexualised, and their movements are heavily monitored, forcing them to meet societal expectations and fit in.

Barring the similarity with the 1968 Italian movie Teorema by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the story is unique in the way it lays bare the hypocrisy of a traditional Indian household. In the sense that the owners’ daughter is forbidden from interacting with the male tenant, but their boy can visit him at odd hours because queerness doesn’t naturally seep into their everyday to be vigilant about. A relationship between two men, if any, is harmless to them, but a daughter must not even think of hanging out with a man. As it happens, the tenant gets intimate with both of them. The way the book uncovers and weaves the desires into the narrative makes it unlike any other book that has been published in recent times.

One cannot not mention Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters when it comes to highlighting unique works. Peters’s book is funny, full of trans joy, fights, and nastiness, but it’s also a reminder of how several forms of oppression interact with each other and present themselves in front of a select group of people in a way that further disenfranchises them.

Then, Selby Wynn Schwartz’s Booker longlisted novel After Sappho is an immensely innovative book as well. It appears to be a collection of vignettes of the most iconic feminists of the past two centuries, but it weaves their stories in a manner that exposes the sexist publishing industry, remarks about women’s, in particular of lesbians and bisexual women’s, exclusion, and notes how a world that thrived on their labour was constructed, and in more ways than one challenges what a novel can or should be.

Laurie Hashim’s historical fiction A Paradise of Illusions was a tale waiting to be told. For a long time now the Eurocentric telling of World War II narratives has dominated the literary sphere. But in Hashim’s multicultural setting, queerness not only comes out as natural but also as an inevitable part of the lives of the very people that inhabited this diverse region in which the story is set in. The classic way in which she tells this story would remind many of Dickens and Austen.

Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s work My Father’s Garden is an interesting, non-urban depiction of same-sex love and desire. It’s stunning how powerfully and effortlessly the book propels in its first part like an adrenaline rush someone experiences in an act of intimacy. Jerry Pinto’s documentation of the same-sex desires in men’s washrooms of specific railway stations in Murder in Mahim and capturing the existential crisis a teenager faces growing up queer in Mumbai in The Education of Yuri are examples of how queer narratives from India have moved from the “same-sex couple having fun until one of them marries a cishet woman” to a nuanced understanding of everyday queerness.

Be it How Many Countries Does the Indus Cross or Like Blood on the Bitten Tongue: Delhi Poems, a collection illustrated by Vishwajyoti Ghosh, when it comes to poetry, I find Akhil Katyal’s imagery consumable and his liminal prose precise enough to capture a moment of intimacy, loss, aloneness, and nostalgia as if it could only be experienced through his verses. But like me, many queer people would say they live that experience many times over reading his works.

A queer-affirmative shift

It’s interesting that many works increasingly weave in a character or two who’s queer. How much of this is necessary, or is forced into the narrative, can be easily judged. In Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors by Aravind Jayan, The Anatomy of Loss by Arjun Raj Gaind, and Manjhi’s Mayhem by Tanuj Solanki this happens rather organically. Or perhaps purposely in a way that seems central to the story. And much to the disappointment of my queer friends and allies, I believe that any writer should freely write whatever they want to write about.

The only thing that must be kept in mind is what Shehan Karunatilaka noted in an interview with me for Deccan Herald – that “you do it with empathy, respect, and skill. The idea of fiction is to inhabit the minds of other beings, for both the reader and the writer. But if you do it lazily or offensively, you should be ready for the flak.” In that sense, it’d be a disservice to not include and celebrate the above books, and Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida and Tomb of Sand, written by Geetanjali Shree as Ret Samadhi in Hindi and translated by Daisy Rockwell in this queer-affirmative shift. It’s noteworthy that both put South Asian narratives on the global map, created a stir by kickstarting meaningful conversations that compel the publishing industry to look towards the global south, and, of course, won major awards – the former won the Booker Prize, and the latter won the International Booker Prize and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.

The many hues of queer literature

What excites me most, however, is not these awards or the visibility that queer works are attracting, but the immensely talented writers writing queer-themed books for young readers. Works like Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow, written by Benjamin Dean and illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat, Ritu weds Chandni, written and illustrated by Ameya Narvankar, The Many Colours of Anshu by Anshumaan Sathe, and My Paati’s Saris written by Jyoti Ranjan Gopal and illustrated by Art Twink, make me want to be a kid again and have the privilege to encounter, read, and celebrate these books. Each one is a reminder of how inherently gendered the upbringing of children is, and how wonderful and liberating experiences can be for them if their worldview is not restricted by categories and boxing of any kind.

There’s an increasing need for works like Trying to Grow by Firdaus Kanga to challenge the ableist mindset; The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan, which reintroduces the questions of pornography and sleeping with your students; Love and Reparation: A Theatrical Response to the Section 377 Litigation in India by Danish Sheikh, which presents a done-to-death subject interestingly; Girlhood: Essays by Melissa Febos, which makes even critical assessments appear effortless and accessible; or the sci-fi novel Machinehood by SB Divya, where even bots are either nonbinary or genderfluid. It’s paramount that LGBTQIA+ writers be supported by grants and the will to invest in their stories for stipulated and standard heteronormative structures to be shaken up by exciting books.

Awards and institutions have helped consolidate both canon and diversity, with the Hugo Awards promoting landmark works such as Dune and The Left Hand of Darkness and the Xingyun Awards recognizing a broad range of Chinese science fiction, including translations. [37].

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Content: 15th Annual Xingyun Awards for Chinese Science Fiction Finalists

The finalists for the 15th annual Xingyun Awards for Chinese science fiction have been announced by the World Chinese Science Fiction Association. Winners will be revealed at a ceremony to be held in Chengdu, Sichuan, China on May 18, 2024.

BEST NOVEL 2023

  • Gods of the Earth: Return of the Dead, by Fenxing Chengzi (Shenzhen Publishing House; Science and Fantasy Growth Foundation)
  • The City in the Well, by Liu Yang (People’s Literature Publishing House)
  • Cosmo Wings, by Jiang Bo (People’s Literature Publishing House; 8-Light Minutes Culture)
  • The Age of God Making, by Yan Xi (Sichuan University Press; Science Fiction World)

BEST NOVELLA 2023

  • “The Fleeting Gravity of Words”, by Zhou Wen (Visiting the Stars: Chinese Stories of Flying to the Outer Space)
  • “The Solar System on Set: The Teahouse at the End of the Universe”, by Shuang Chimu (Shanghai Literature, No. 4 2023)
  • “Our Martians”, by Bao Shu (Visiting the Stars: Chinese Stories of Flying to the Outer Space)
  • “The Salt Bridge”, by Liang Ling (Lighting up Mars: Collection of Winning Stories from the 6th Lenghu Awards)

BEST SHORT STORY 2023

  • “Lake Breezes that Brush Over the Palace of Moon”, by Wanxiang Fengnian (Visiting the Stars: Chinese Stories of Flying to the Outer Space)
  • “A Window with a View”, by Bao Shu (Non-Exist SF, January 24 2023)
  • “Let the White Deer Roam”, by Cheng Jingbo (Science Fiction World, November 2023)
  • “City of Choice”, by Gu Shi (Beijing Literature, July 2023)

BEST TRANSLATED WORK 2023

  • Babel, by R.F. Kuang, translated by Chen Yang (CITIC Press)
  • The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi, translated by Gen Hui (New Star Press)
  • SF Soul: Autobiography of Komatsu Sakyo, by Komatsu Sakyo, translated by Meng Qingshu (Sichuan Science & Technology Press; Science Fiction World)
  • Escape from the Future, by Kobayashi Yasumi, translated by Ding Dingchong (Yilin Press)

BEST NON-FICTION 2023

  • Unlocking the Future: The Urban Imagination in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction, by Luo Xiaoming (Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House)
  • Gazing at the Stars: My Personal Encounter with Chinese Science Fiction, by Yang Xiao (Sichuan People’s Publishing House; Science Fiction World)
  • “Impressions of Chinese SF Practitioners on Foreign SF Culture: A Brief Analysis of the History of Introducing Foreign SF Culture”, by RiverFlow (Zero-Gravity SF, No. 12)
  • Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History, Vol.1-Vol.3, edited by Yang Feng (Chengdu Times Publishing House; 8-Light Minutes Culture)

BEST REVIEW 2023

  • “From the Valleys to the Stars: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Speculative Anthropology”, by Jiang Weihe (The Beijing News, September 22 2023)
  • “The Curve of Human Destiny and the Poetics of Humanity: Reading ‘Last and First Men’”, by Shuang Chimu (Imagining Science: Reading SF Literature Classics)
  • “A Specter of the Anthropocene is Haunting: A Review of Mark Bould’s ‘The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture’”, by Lyu Guangzhao (Science Writing Review, Issue 1 2023)
  • “‘Journey to the West’: An Atypical Segment of the Science Fiction Community”, by Xi Xia (Literature Press Wechat Official Account, April 4 2023)

BEST NEW WRITER 2021-2023

  • Lu Hang*
  • Qi Ran*
  • Wang Cencen*
  • Wang Xiaohai**

(*Finalists in their 3rd year of eligibility, **Finalist in his 1st year of eligibility)

[Thanks to Feng Zhang and the World Chinese Science Fiction Association for the story.]

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Classic cornerstones for a book club include Frankenstein, The Time Machine, Dune, Ender’s Game, and The Left Hand of Darkness. [4][14][59].

Title:

Content: My channel
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Li Lanlei ’ s “fear of imprisonment for 6 months ” is in crisis, and Wang Lihong ’ s divorce lawsuit is exposed.
Home prices rise with interest rate median home selling price 361,700 yuan... up 14%
Hugo ’ s Soul – Hugo Award, the highest honor in contemporary science fiction
A crazy idea from a science fiction novel has come true.
How can they give up this feeling of being in heaven? Of course they want to go on to heaven.
Heaven appeared in Chicago for the second time in 1940 and Denver for the third time in 1941.
However, the Second World War broke out and their annual extravaganza was interrupted.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the vast majority of science fiction fans enlisted in the military, and only a few stayed home.
Those who stay will send science fiction magazines to their comrades on the front lines, because the comrades who hide in the trenches must rely on them to protect their souls.
In 1945, a crazy idea in science fiction came true, two atomic bombs exploded in Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Japan, ending the war, bringing peace back, and, of course, heaven. In 1946, the Fourth World Science Fiction Conference reopened in Los Angeles.
At science fiction conventions, sometimes science fiction fans vote for their best novel or short story.
At the Eleventh Congress in 1953, a rocket-shaped trophy was presented to the winner, but it was only a temporary initiative that did not continue the following year.
It was not until the Thirteenth Congress in 1955 that the people decided to make the award a permanent ceremony, and the award was named The Science Fiction Achievement Award, but it was still called the Hugo Award in private in honor of Gensbach ’ s contributions.
In 1958, the Hugo Award became the official name.
And so the Hugo Award was born.
Nearly 70% of the awards were awarded.
Canadian author Jo Walton is the winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for fiction.
Starting in 2010, she spent three years reading the novels that won awards and were shortlisted in the 42-year period from 1959 to 2000, and published them on the science fiction website, and in-depth discussions with the science fiction community, which caused widespread response.
In 2018, she published An Informal History of the Hugos.
She said she expanded her reading range to include the finalists because she was curious to see if the winning entries were actually the best ones of the year.
She concluded that twenty-five of those forty-two years were indeed well chosen, equivalent to 69% of the winning entries.
In addition, why stop at the year 2000? She gives two reasons.
First, she has published her own work since 2000 and was shortlisted for the John Campbell Memorial Award in 2001, so she cannot include her work in the evaluation in order to remain detached and objective.
The second and most important reason is that the work must stand the test of time.
Since she started writing the column in 2010, a ten-year interval is a reasonable time frame.
For example, if a novel published in 2000 is not out of print by 2010, it can barely stand the test of time.
It takes time to see the works from the depth of history.
Finally, she said that because she also won the Hugo Award in 2012, deeply shocked, coupled with reading 250 novels and writing a column for three years, she is more convinced that the Hugo Award is indeed of extraordinary significance, indeed the most important literary award in science fiction.
The Ideal Science Fiction Reading Guide
So, for readers in Taiwan, what does the Hugo Award mean?
Compared to English-speaking countries, Taiwan's science fiction publishing is much cooler, however, with the efforts of many publishers, Taiwanese readers can still get access to some classic works in the history of science fiction.
Therefore, the Hugo Award can still be an ideal reading guide.
For example, the 1966 award-winning Dune is a classic in the history of science fiction.
The film based on this novel has been popular around the world since its recent release, which has sparked a rush to read the original novel.
Successful film and television adaptations do help drive readers ’ interest in science fiction reading.
Similarly, the 2016 Oscar-nominated film “Arrival ” is also based on classic science fiction.
The success of the film has made Chiang Feng-nan, one of the most prominent Taiwanese-American writers of the time, a household name.
His two collections of novels, The Story of Your Life and The Breath, won four Hugo Awards in 2002, 2008, 2009 and 2011.
And the 1966 Hugo Award "Best Science Fiction Series" of the "Base" series (Chinese translation fantasy base publication) is the history of science fiction super classic, the impact on the future generations is unparalleled.
A television series based on the novel is also popular.
The 1970 award winning "Left Hand of Darkness" and the 1976 award winning "Nothing" are representative works of the life of the female writer Esula Le Guen, who is familiar to Taiwanese readers.
The 2002 award for American Gods is the work of Neil Gaiman, a leading contemporary fantasy writer, and his award is the most successful example of a Hugo Award-compatible fantasy genre.
The publication of classic science fiction novels in Taiwan still has a long way to go. (Part II)
Fiction Finalists
The last one.
Sea Star Anti-Epidemic Soup
The next one.
I used to be a fellow traveler.
Extended reading
Super-popular
More >

What is considered the first true science fiction novel of the modern era, which foreshadowed genetic tinkering?

Contemporary and global selections that broaden perspective include The Three-Body Problem, Binti, The Fifth Season, Parable of the Sower, All Systems Red, and This Is How You Lose the Time War. [4][6][1].

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Content: Riot Headline 10 Exciting Books to Read this Summer
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The Most Read Books of the 2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge (So Far)

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Always books. Never boring.

We’re almost halfway through 2024, if you can believe it, which means taking a good hard look at our reading goals for the year. Are you on track to complete them? Or do you need to change pace? One of the most popular reading challenges is on Goodreads, which just asks you how many books you plan to read this year. At this halfway point, Goodreads has put together a list of the books that have been added to users’ 2024 Goodreads challenges the most so far.

The Goodreads list has 108 books separated into nine different categories: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Romance, Young Adult, and General Nonfiction. Each category is arranged by popularity.

If you’ve been keeping up with our weekly The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week feature, some of these titles will look very familiar to you. Others, though, are classics, like Frankenstein by Mary Shelley — or older releases, like Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Here’s a selection of the most read books of the 2024 Goodreads reading challenge (so far).

Fiction

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Historical Fiction

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

Fantasy

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Babel by R. F. Kuang

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

Science Fiction

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Find all 108 of the most read book at Goodreads.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.

Anthologies like The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 can efficiently surface new authors and underrepresented voices for group discussion.

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Content: Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 ToC Released

Series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Hugh Howey have released their selections for the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023.

From the large number of stories that series editor John Joseph Adams screened for this year’s collection, he picked the 80 best pieces (forty science fiction and forty fantasy) to submit to editor Hugh Howey for a blind reading, so that the prestige of the venues or author bylines were not a factor. (The ones Adams designated as notable are shown in a table at the link). Howey then selected 20 for publication (ten science fiction, ten fantasy.)

The book will be released on October 22, 2024.

Here is the Table of Contents with the 20 stories they thought the best.

2024 TABLE OF CONTENTS

FANTASY

  • The Ankle-Snatcher by Grady Hendrix
    from Creature Feature (Amazon Original Stories)
  • Bari and the Resurrection Flower by Hana Lee
    from Fantasy Magazine
  • The Blade and Bloodwright by Sloane Leong
    from Lightspeed
  • Bruised-Eye Dusk by Jonathan Louis Duckworth
    from Beneath Ceaseless Skies
  • Disassembling Light by Kel Coleman
    from Beneath Ceaseless Skies
  • Eye & Tooth by Rebecca Roanhorse
    from Out There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele & John Joseph Adams
  • How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub by P. Djeli Clark
    from Uncanny
  • If Someone You Love Has Become a Vurdalak by Sam J. Miller
    from The Dark
  • John Hollowback and the Witch by Amal El-Mohtar
    from The Book of Witches edited by Jonathan Strahan
  • Resurrection Highway by A.R. Capetta
    from Sunday Morning Transport

SCIENCE FICTION

  • Calypso’s Guest by Andrew Sean Greer
    from Amazon Original Stories
  • Emotional Resonance by V.M. Ayala
    from Escape Pod
  • Falling Bodies by Rebecca Roanhorse
    from The Far Reaches edited by John Joseph Adams (Amazon Original Stories)
  • Form 8774-D by Alex Irvine
    from Reactor
    The Four Last Things by Christopher Rowe
    from Asimov’s
  • How It Unfolds by James S.A. Corey
    from The Far Reaches edited by John Joseph Adams (Amazon Original Stories)
  • The Long Game by Ann Leckie
    from The Far Reaches edited by John Joseph Adams (Amazon Original Stories)
  • Once Upon a Time at the Oakmont by P.A. Cornell
    from Fantasy Magazine
  • Window Boy by Thomas Ha
    from Clarkesworld
  • Zeta-Epsilon by Isabel J. Kim
    from Clarkesworld

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For deliberate inclusivity, seek non‑American writers, mix established and emerging authors, and use diverse‑book frameworks to ensure a wide range of voices and experiences.

Title:

Content: Stack Overflow: 2022 Reading Resolutions

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Happy New Year!

Hope springs eternal, at least when it comes to readers and our books. When we discover new (or new-to-us) titles on social media or through podcasts or simply browsing the shelves in a bookstore, we get all excited about a new experience we’ll get to have … just as soon as we get through that other stack of unfinished books sitting in the corner (or on the nightstand, or covering the floors…).

I like to take a bit of time at the beginning of each new year to stop, take stock of what I’ve been reading for the past year, and jot down some hopes and goals for the new year. Sometimes that’s a number of books I hope to read—yes, that can be an arbitrary measurement, but setting a goal like that is one way to encourage a daily reading habit. Sometimes that’s a particular genre I hope to read more. Or it could be some specific titles that I’ve had on my list, and I’ve decided this is the year I’m finally going to tackle it.

Here, the GeekDad and GeekMom writers share our reading resolutions for 2022—may your year be filled with good books!

Jonathan H. Liu

One of my hopes this year is to stay ahead of my book pile—not just by reading, but also by being more selective about what I keep. I won’t lie: it’s so much fun when publishers send me new books. They’re good at their jobs, too—each book usually comes with a letter from the publicist describing the book in a way that makes me think it’ll be my next favorite book. But I’ve been doing this for over a decade now, and it’s time to admit that I simply can’t read everything I’m sent, let alone books that I pick up myself because I’ve heard about them from somewhere else. (And anyway, if I did somehow magically get through my entire pile, there’s always more on the way.) So I have to be more selective, and be okay with reading a fraction of these books and letting go of the rest.

So how do I decide which ones? Well, I hope to have a mix of books from authors I’ve enjoyed in the past—including continuing some series—and trying out writers that are new to me. I’ve got one shelf of sci-fi from non-American writers (Cuban, Chinese, Southeast Asian, and others) that I’m hoping to explore. I feel like I didn’t really read much middle grade fiction in 2021, but my youngest is now in that age range and so perhaps I can experience some of these books with her. We also still enjoy picture books, but I can see that we may be on the tail end of reading them regularly, so my own coverage has decreased—I should make some passes over the stacks I have and decide what we really want to keep and which we can bear to let go of.

A few specific titles on my list: I just started Noumenon Ultra by Marina J. Lostetter, the third book in a series about far-reaching space travel and evolving humanity. I’m looking forward to City Spies: Forbidden City by James Ponti, continuing a middle grade series about a team of secret agent kids. And I’ve got a copy of Mike Chen’s latest novel, Light Years From Home, which is maybe about alien abductions (but, knowing Mike Chen, it’s really about family). It’s also well past time to dig into these middle grade “Rick Riordan Presents” books written by various authors, inspired by the folklore and legends from their own cultures—they look great, but I just haven’t actually sat down to read them yet.

Mariana Ruiz

Turns out I do have some reading resolutions, beside reading everything under my shelf and on my computer (one can dream).

This year I wanted to emphasize diverse voices in YA, that means more diverse books by different authors from the US and abroad. I am following We Need Diverse Books for that and have started collaborating with World Kid Lit, especially because my main job focuses in Bolivian Children’s and YA literature and there is not a single title yet translated into English!

Representation, reviews and shout-outs for translated/diverse voices is very important, so hopefully I will get to point books to you all in that direction.

Jenny Bristol

Following the pattern of the past two years, I hope and plan to read at least 22 books in 2022. I’m in the middle of a couple of books—Emma by Jane Austen and On Writing Well by William Zinsser—but have many others planned. Maybe this will be the year that I finally read Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series. And Rory and I can get to Persuasion after we finish Emma. I’d also like to read the third book in Matt Haig’s A Boy Called Christmas series if our library ever gets it, my grandfather’s A Guide to Creative Writing, and perhaps even dive into some of Shannon Hale‘s books that I haven’t read yet. This year will also include some household purging, so I hope to find some books that I’ll be happy to part with once I read them. Maybe some of those will be a part of my final 2022 list. I’m looking forward to all of these reads!

Dakster Sullivan

I’m not sure how many books I should set for 2022 or if I should set a number at all. Numbers are good because they help us see the overall picture but does it really tell us how well we are doing? I mean, I’m having some health issues right now, and honestly, just reading one book in a month feels like an accomplishment. So, this year, I think I’ll take a break from saying I’ll complete X books this year and just be happy with whatever I can do. I’ll continue to track my reading for fun but not because I’m pushing myself to obtain a badge in Goodreads. I will say that I plan to expand past just paperbacks and listen to more books in my car on my drive to work and back. I also plan to carry a book with me everywhere so I always have something to occupy my mind (theme parks included).

Robin Brooks

I feel like I should keep my resolutions modest this year. No grand reading schemes that will fail by the end of January. I hit a nice groove with my reading in the latter half of 2021, so I want to keep on in the same vein. I will endeavor to read 50/50 review books/purchased books. This gives a nice balance between reading the new and exciting and catching up on the countless that I have missed out on.

One resolution that I want to bring into my life more generally, in part so I can find more time to read, is to cut down on my social media use. I find I lose great chunks of time reading what people I broadly agree with are saying about people I vehemently disagree with. It might give me fleeting moments of feeling like I’m “a good guy,” but ultimately it’s exhausting and a waste of time that could be put to better use.

It’s a tricky balance as also I find out about great books and games, and interact with my own gaming community on various platforms. I don’t want to lose all that, but I need to develop some willpower not to read what people are saying about Boris Johnson.

This is not exactly a resolution, maybe a piece of wishful thinking. Towards the end of 2021, I read a review of a book by Nobel prizewinner, Olga Tokarczuk. The Books of Jacob. Described as “The Nobel Prize–winner’s richest, most sweeping and ambitious novel yet follows the comet-like rise and fall of a mysterious, messianic religious leader as he blazes his way across eighteenth-century Europe,” it sounds like the sort of book I would love to read. The review was filled with superlatives, and I’d love to give it a go. It’s also 912 pages.

I love the idea of large books. Deep and immersive. Something to lose yourself in for days on end. In practice, I buy them and they sit on the shelf as I can’t find time to fit them into my reading schedule. Perhaps I should start with something smaller? A resolution, then, to read one book by Olga Tokarczuk.

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Reading diverse books deepens cultural understanding and addresses longstanding representation gaps, helping a club reflect the genre’s evolving breadth. [62].

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Content: Children's

10 Picture Books You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of by Creators of Color

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Prepare yourself for an unapologetically diverse book list! All the books on this list are written by authors of color, many are illustrated by artists of color, and most feature characters of color. #sorrynotsorry

In all seriousness, creators of color need and deserve our support. The publishing industry is challenging to break into, and that difficulty is compounded for authors and illustrators with marginalized identities. Furthermore, authors of color are often paid less than their white counterparts.

Children’s books are among the most important genres in need of diversification. Children from diverse racial backgrounds need to see themselves reflected in books. Conversely, children from dominant cultures need to see others represented in various and multifaceted ways. Unfortunately, books about and especially written by people of color still do not reflect our population.

I am proud to write for an organization that is intentional about highlighting marginalized writers. All people deserve to tell their own stories and have those stories heard. For too long, the powerful have shaped the narratives about marginalized populations. I’m hopeful that our efforts at Book Riot are helping to right that wrong.

A surprising, but super cool, side effect of writing for Book Riot is that people share books with me all the time. Often, I receive under-the-radar gems that I would never have found on my own. Thus, I figured readers might appreciate the opportunity to check out some of these lesser known titles.

10 Picture Books You (Probably) Missed

Christopher Changes His Name by Itah Sadu and Roy Condy

While most of the books on this list are relatively new, I decided to start with this hidden gem. I discovered this book when I was planning a teaching unit about names and I’ve loved it ever since. Throughout this humorous tale, young Christopher keeps changing his name after being inspired by historical and cultural icons. Ultimately, he realizes how special he is, just as he is.

Always Anjali by Sheetal Sheth and Jessica Blank

With a name like Mikkaka, I empathize with characters like Anjali. While Christopher changes his name because it’s too common, Anjali has the opposite problem. When she gets a new bike, she can’t find her name among the novelty license plates. Additionally, kids begin to make fun of her name. Ultimately, however, Anjali learns to appreciate her name and celebrate her culture.

Phenomenal AOC by Anika Aldamuy Denise and Loris Lora

This picture book biography is a beautifully illustrated account of congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s journey to politics. It chronicles AOC’s rise from a child in the Bronx to becoming the youngest congress member in United States’ history. Rich with references to her Puerto Rican heritage, this book is an inspirational look at the life of a truly phenomenal woman.

Three Bunny Sisters by Raveena, Diya, and Amisha Duggal

Three human sisters under the age of 13 wrote this cute story to inspire others. With an impressive resumé of charity work, the Duggal sisters are all about giving back. Thus, the bunnies in their book learn how to help other bunnies in need.

One Hundred Percent Me by Renee Macalino Rutledge and Anita Prades

What are you? Where are you from? Most children of immigrants hear questions like this daily. The multiracial main character in this picture book definitely does. However, rather than letting other people define her, she proclaims that she is 100% herself.

Wutaryoo by Nilah Magruder

Similarly, the creature at the center of this picture book is one-of-a-kind. There are no other animals like her. She searches the world for answers, finding adventure along the way.

The Kite of Dreams by Pilar López Ávila, Paula Merlán, and Concha Pasamar

Children across the world play with kites. In this story, we see children from various countries playing and dreaming. The kites carry their dreams high into the sky. This book offers a glimpse into many different cultures. If you enjoy this one, you may also like López Ávila’s With a Butterfly’s Wings.

Super Satya Saves the Day by Raakhee Mirchandani and Tim Palin

When Satya wears the cape her super mama made for her, she feels unstoppable. However, when she has to face a day without her super apparel, she is worried it won’t go well. This is an adorable story about facing your fears and being your true self.

The Color of Your Skin by Desirée Acevedo and Silvia Álvarez

When Vega’s classmate asks to borrow her “skin-colored” colored pencil, Vega wonders whose skin he means. She thinks of all the people she knows and the range of colors that match them. This is a very cute exploration of racism in everyday language and it’s handle beautifully and in an age-appropriate way.

I Am Ruby Bridges by Ruby Bridges and Nikkolas Smith

For decades, we’ve been telling and retelling the story of Ruby Bridges. As a civil rights icon, young Ruby was the first Black child to attend her local all-white elementary school. Now, Ruby Bridges tells that story in her own words, through the eyes of her 6-year-old self. This is undoubtedly a must-read.

Zigglebee by Lana Bailey

Okay, so this one is a bonus and an exception. It’s not a picture book yet. The young author, Lana Bailey, composed five stories within the book’s pages, leaving space for readers to illustrate. Lana’s twin sister, Laila, has Jacobsen syndrome and is nonverbal. However, Lana learned that Laila enjoyed interacting with her through art and storytelling. Her book invites readers to connect and create, using our imaginations.

Overall, science fiction has evolved from the social critiques of Wells and the speculative origins of Shelley to a global, interdisciplinary, and increasingly inclusive conversation shaped by technological change and diverse creators. [11][3][4][6][41].

What is considered the first true science fiction novel of the modern era, which foreshadowed genetic tinkering?