Status Updates From Broken Stars: Contemporary ...

' "Sci-fi" was one of the keywords tagged by most people's firewalls as useless information, and I simply wanted to toss it over the firewall so that they had to evaluate it anew instead of automatically ignoring it.'

["Science Fiction: Embarrassing No More" — Fei Dao]

'On its most radical side, the new wave of Chinese SF has been thriving on an avant-garde cultural spirit that encourages one to think beyond the conventional ways of perceiving reality and to challenge the commonly accepted ideas about progress, development, economic miracle, and nation and people.'

["A New Continent for China Scholars: Chinese Science Fiction Studies" — Mingwei Song]

'[...] the history of Chinese science fiction has never been a continuous one. It is full of gaps and interruptions caused by politics or the change of cultural paradigms. Only on a few occasions could they get access to earlier authors' work, but they rarely received obvious, substantial influences from them.'

["A New Continent for China Scholars: Chinese Science Fiction Studies" — Mingwei Song]

Names of some famous contemporary Chinese SF writers:

Liu Cixin
Wang Jinkang
Han Song
He Xi
Chen Qiufan
Fei Dao
Baoshu
Zhang Ran
Jiang Bo
A Que
Zhao Haihong
Ling Chen
Chi Hui
Xia Jia
Hao Jingfang
Chen Qian
Tang Fei

In 1900, the Chinese translation of French author Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days was published—it was the first piece of translated foreign SF published in China, translated by Chen Shoupeng and Xue Shaohui from an English translation [...]. Lu Xun [...] also translated several SF novels into Chinese [...].'

[2/2]

'Science fiction as we know it today first came to China in the late Qing Dynasty. Chinese intellectuals like Lu Xun and Liang Qichao emphasized the importance of SF as a tool to help the country prosper.

[1]

'After locating the most joyful days of their lives, they edited them together into a highlight reel that they looped over and over in what little time they had left. It was the best way to squeeze the most out of the end of life, so they could die with smiles on their faces.'

["A History of Future Illnesses" — Chen Qiufan]

'My old job was all about creating need, encouraging people to pursue things that didn't matter for their lives, and then I used the money they gave in exchange to purchase illusions others had created for me. Round after round, we never seemed to tire of the game.'

["Coming of the Light" — Chen Qiufan]

' "Let's find a famous and respected monk to consecrate this app—'bring light into it'—so that every picture it takes becomes a charm to ward off evil. We'll create a sharing economy of blessings." '

["Coming of the Light" — Chen Qiufan]

'Are my thoughts really my thoughts? Will others discover the unvarnished monologue going through my mind? Is the image others have of me consistent with my real self? Even though the brain box is capable of preserving only the last five minutes, the sensation of being monitored is ever-present, inescapable.'

["The Brain Box" — Regina Kanyu Wang]

' "[...] Most people fill the notepad from front to back. Every page after today is blank. It's possible to recall the past, but impossible to know the future." She flipped the notepad over so that the stiff backing was on top. "I'm different. I fill my notepad from the back to the front. My memories are filled with the future. [...]" '

["Reflection" — Gu Shi]

'Soon, the capital was filled with representatives from philosophy start-ups and development think-tanks. They lined up before the palace with demos of their best games, hoping to impress the emperor.'


["The First Emperor's Games" – Ma Boyong]

'Technique and intelligence will let you see through the world, explain it, look down upon it, but they will never make you a true master of literature. You have to let go yourself, join yourself to the world without resistance or hate; use love, admiration and respect to observe all living things, including humanity.'


[The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Laba Porridge – Anna Wu]

' "Hey! What are you doing! Don't leave me there!" Wang Lu yelled wildly. "Tell your master I know physics and chemistry and mechanical engineering! I can build you a steampunk Song Empire! Hey, wait! Don't go! Don't go..."'


["The Snow of Jinyang" — Zhang Ren]

'Chuanyue is an enormously popular Chinese genre similar to time travel, but with its own distinct tropes. Typically, the protagonist is from the modern day and travels into the historical past [...]. Their anachronistic knowledge and upbringing sets them apart from others and allows them to break the status quo.'

["The Snow of Jinyang" – Zhang Ren]

'Days in the Xuanren Ward never lacked for the din of price-haggling, bet-placing, and bed frames creak-creaking'

["The Snow of Jinyang" – Zhang Ran]

'If you return home, will you truly qualify as the unprecedented, peerless, one-and-only, unparalleled, unsurpassed, irreplaceable, unreproducible, history-defying, future-mocking master of bullshit?'

["The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales" — Fei Dao]

'Reporter: [...] Prior to this incident, Homeward Bound was not licenced by the relevant authorities. You were selling tickets illegally, weren't you?
Li: The transportation market is dominated by inefficient monopolies. We had no choice but to push the regulatory framework to Uberize space-time to better serve the people.'

["The New Year Train" – Hao Jingfang]

' "Hope has always existed and always will," he said solemnly. "But hope is not the future because time does not have an inevitable direction. Hope is now: in existence itself, in nothingness. The truth of nothingness is freedom.'

["What has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear" — Baoshu]

'You'd never see such a beautiful sky anywhere else in the world: a crystalline welkin crisscrossed by countless tiny cracks. Everything in the heavens was broken into a mosaic by these lines. From an overcast day to the scarlet clouds of dawn, patches of color gently expanded and percolated, their edges blurring against the dreamlike firmamant.'

["Under the Dangling Sky" — Cheng Jingbo]

'[...] please remember this: if you are ever famous or enjoy success, don't keep too low a profile.'

["Salinger and the Koreans" — Han Song]

'The submarines came from all over China. Besides our city, rumors described pods in other cities and other rivers as well. Every sea, lake, canal and trench seemed to have its own sub colonies.'

["Submarines" – Han Song]

' "Don't cry. Open your eyes. The stars and planets are no longer what they were, but the world remains the same. Nothing has changed. The stars do not speak; they don't tell the future. The future, the past, the present—none of it has anything to do with your shitty stars. [...]"
The stars did not speak; the stars did not tell the future; the stars were powerless.'

["Broken Stars" – Tang Fei]

'I'm sorry, I can't tell you... Though loneliness is the human condition, still we must conduct our lives with grace and strive for joy. It's time.'

["Moonlight" – Liu Cixin]