Chinese science fiction?

[AA Institute]

Hi,

I am very curious to learn if science fiction is something that features in Chinese art and literature? Are there any books or movies that someone could point me to?

Thanx for any help.

[Xiao Kui]

Chinese science fiction definitely exists, but I don't know much abt it. I believe zhwj is the resident expert, so hopefully he will see this post and educate you.

[atitarev]

I am interested too, I like sci-fi and I like Chinese. I would be interested to read something online (easier to look up characters).

Interesting how science fictions terms are coined in Chinese - terraforming, aliens, etc. They are hard to find in dictionaries too.

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According to Wikipedia "terraforming" 外星环境地球化 Wài xīng huánjìng dìqiú huà, a long word, isn't it?

Here's the alien (E.T.): 外星人

[kudra]

According to Wikipedia "terraforming" 外星环境地球化 Wài xīng huánjìng dìqiú huà, a long word, isn't it?

If you terraform a planet (or pluto ) in our own solar system, is it still 外星? Or adoes 外星 refer to a star outside of earth (which would be all stars)?

[student]

Hopefully zhwj will reply directly but in the meantime I've found his site

http://zhwj.livejournal.com/

to be very useful, particularly the index,

http://zhwj.livejournal.com/1420.html

[zhwj]

That site hasn't been updated in over a year....

There are really no SF movies to speak of - none that you'll be able to find outside of a library, at any rate. And it seems that for the past few years there's been an annual announcement of "China's first SF TV series," but the closest they've gotten have been unwatchable technothrillers.

For literature, the current top author is probably Liu Cixin (刘慈欣). His 中国太阳 and 思想者 are well-known and fairly representative. The first is a quasi-realist look at a laborer in the not-so-distant future, and there's quite a bit of nationalism wrapped up in it. The second is more character-oriented, less science and more whimsy. (My own opinion: I think much of his stuff is a neat idea padded out to story length. He can be a bit saccharine at times, too) He currently has a VR/timetravel/something story being serialized in Science Fiction World (科幻世界) (I missed the first two installments, so I'm sort of lost), that I imagine will be out in a bound edition (and then scanned in) fairly soon.

My favorite SF author is Han Song, a journalist who really writes well. 逃出忧山 is a nice head-trip, but most of his stuff is pretty imaginative. 长城 is an interesting speculative piece and a quick read to boot.

If you're interested in getting a more thorough view of Chinese SF history, then 飞向人马座 by Zheng Wenguang (郑文光) and 珊瑚岛上的死光 by Tong Enzheng (童恩正) are nice examples of the post-CR SF explosion (the latter was turned into a movie in 1982 or so - good luck finding it).

And if you're really into curiosities, then Chen Qiufan, a young SF writer, recently wrote a short story using old-style literary Chinese: 甯川洞记.

Some online libraries:

SFWorld.cn - listed by stories. There's also an index of award-winners.

ChinaSF - nice comprehensive site. Forum-style navigation.

Most of the names I've mentioned above can be found easily by searching Baidu.

And now, my mission complete, I must be off to the next online forum in need of an intro to Chinese SF!

[atitarev]

Zhwj thanks!

I'll explore your links.

Kudra, I think it won't change since 外星 is not an alien star but an alien planet in this context.

[ShakeSpace]

Considering that the word "terraforming" does not really involve any constraint about the location of the planet, I'd say 地表改建 would be a better translation. But 地表改建 could be ambiguous for 改建 does not indicate the role of 地表. It could mean "reforming the earth surface" or "reforming into earth-like surface".

And as of 外星 i guess it can be literally translated as "extraterrestrial", or this is how the word 外星 came into Chinese

[hughitt1]

Heya,

in 科幻小說 (science fiction), 倪匡 is probably the most popular Chinese author.. alot of my Chinese friends have read his novels. He has alot of books though- "藍血人", and "茫點" are both supposed to be pretty good. There are chinese forums discussing novels, so you may want to check there as well.

Take care,

Keith