Jules verne
Herbert George Wells
Hugo Gensbach
john k W. Campbell
"Color Mars" series
Frank Herbert
The Martian Chronicle
Dune
Isaac Asimov
《Base》
J.G. Ballard
The Andromeda Crisis
Total Memories
William Gibson
On November 19, 2021, the 32nd China Science Fiction Galaxy Awards, known as the "Highest Award for Chinese Science Fiction", was promulgated through online live broadcasting, and the blockbuster "Best Novel Award" was won by Xie Yunning's "Crossing saturn's Ring". Fifteen years ago, Liu Cixin also won this highest award with "Supporting Mankind".
Science fiction is a literary style that has emerged with the vigorous development of modern science and technology, and originated in Europe. Science fiction fans once belonged to a small group of people in China, until Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang won the world-class science fiction award "Hugo Award" for two consecutive years, and Chinese science fiction literature began to usher in its own "golden age".
On November 13, when the "Galaxy Award" was about to be awarded, "Favor" invited the winner of the special prize of the 8th Galaxy Award, the science fiction writer Galaxy, who served as the executive director of the China Popular Science Writers Association and the director of the Science Literature and Art Professional Committee, to "Cloud Classroom" to sort out the development and achievements of world science fiction literature for the "favored" members.
Galaxy began translating science fiction works in the 1980s, and has authored more than 20 novels of science fiction such as "Duel on the Internet", and more than 100 short and medium-length science fiction "Take the Heart to Date" and so on. He also wrote science fiction film columns for magazines for 10 years, before publishing "Alien Aliens", "Strange Creatures", "Two Puzzles" and "Warning the Future", covering more than 100 films. Since 2000, Galaxy has edited "China's Annual Science Fiction Novel" (Lijiang Edition) every year, with a special focus on the introduction of young science fiction authors, which has lasted for 20 years.
In Galaxy's view, science fiction is a telescope for us to look at the starry sky, and free and bold imagination and a solid grasp of scientific and technological knowledge are indispensable conditions for exploring the universe planet.
The wife of the poet Shelley created the first true science fiction novel
At the beginning of the lecture, Galaxy told everyone that what he was talking about might be just an index, and that he didn't know how much science fiction was known to readers on the other end of the web," Huxley had asked his teacher before the lecture that he should assume that his audience knew something. His teacher replied, 'Suppose your audience knows nothing.' Didn't I think at first it was rude to the audience? In fact, no, the speaker should start from the most basic content. ”
What is science fiction? Are myths, fairy tales, and martial arts science fiction? Wuxia looks very realistic, but if you really practice according to what Mr. Jin Yong wrote, you will definitely not be able to practice, and you may hurt your body. In the eyes of Westerners, martial arts is our fantasy literature. Is Harry Potter science fiction? There was controversy in the past, but now everyone understands that it belongs to fantasy literature. What is the difference between fantasy and science fiction? Fantasy is based on wizarding culture and spell culture, such as Harry Potter's wish to fly a broom to recite a spell and cast a spell. But if you let a science fiction writer write, he may have to add some circuits, give some currents, etc., although the broom can not fly, but for our science fiction must have a scientific discourse system as the basis, science in science fiction to be self-justifying, can be logical and consistent.
The full name of science fiction is science fiction, called Science Fiction in English, literally translated as "science fiction" in the original text, and there is no word "fantasy". Galaxy explanation Because after the founding of New China, the translation of some Western science fiction works such as Verne was translated from Russian, which is called science fantasy novels in Russian, and we have inherited it.
It is generally believed that the first defined modern science fiction novel was Frankenstein by the poet Shelley's wife, Mary Shelley. In this work, she put science into literature for the first time as a major focus, and before that, literature was concerned with history, politics, love, war, and so on. "Frankenstein" tells the story of a scientist who creates an artificial man, who is incompatible with human society, has many conflicts, and finally ends in tragedy.
At that time, Europe had already been baptized by the Industrial Revolution, and there were already works such as Halle's Anatomy and Lamarck's Philosophy of Animals in biology, so the creation of man in Frankenstein can be said to be a scientific setting, thus establishing a basic paradigm for science fiction, that is, the story must have a fantasy setting based on science.
Conan Doyle is best known for the Sherlock Holmes series, but he actually wrote 29 science fiction works
After Marie Shelley, the "mother of science fiction", two early masters of science fiction emerged in Europe, one was the French novelist Jules Verne, and the other was the British novelist Herbert Georges Wells. The former is full of scientific optimism, believing that science can solve all problems; the latter is called the pessimist of science, believing that science also has its unfavorable side to human beings.
"Chinese science fiction readers can say that no one has not read Verne, especially his "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" should be the largest version of the book in China, French literature, children's literature, science fiction literature, all kinds of books will be included. Many of Wells's works describe things that have not yet been technically conquered. His 'time machine' can't do it, and the 'invisible man' can't do it. These two masters have written about the moon, Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon", Wells's "The First People to the Moon", and the famous director Mérieux based on these two works to shoot the world's first science fiction film "Journey to the Moon". ”
Judging from the works, Verne and Wells are undoubtedly the founders of the science fiction genre. Some of Verne's science fantasies really became a reality in the 20th century, such as "around the world in eighty days", human landings on the moon, large submarines, etc., he deserves the reputation of "the father of science fiction". Several major mainstream topics in 20th-century science fiction, such as "time travel", "aliens", "dystopias", etc., were pioneered by Wells. Science fiction is widely known and established as a serious literary genre, and it has to be said that it is due to these two masters.
Led by two masters, science fiction literature at the time was largely concentrated in Europe, such as British writer Stevenson's Treasure Island and Dr. Jack and Mr. Hyde, Conan Doyle's The Lost World, and Czech writer Karel Chapek's Russum's Universal Robot Company.
Galaxy says Chinese readers are familiar with Conan Doyle because of his Sherlock Holmes series, but he actually wrote 29 science fiction works. His Lost World describes a closed world with a lot of dinosaurs, which had a great influence on the later Jurassic Park. Russum's Universal Robot Company is the earliest absurd drama, and more importantly, Chapec proposed the concept of robots here. "Russum's Universal Robot Company" is referred to as R.U.R.R, and one of the Rs refers to the robot Robot. "Originally there was no word robot in English, but Chopek coined The Robot based on the words 'laborer' and 'servant' in Czech and Polish, and through this drama the word robot entered the major language families."
The literary variety that has existed for nearly a hundred years has finally been named
Most of the early writers of science fiction involved multiple genres, such as Conan Doyle and Stevenson, who also did not develop a clear understanding of science fiction. Since then, two important figures in the science fiction world, Hugo and Campbell, have single-handedly ushered in the golden age of science fiction, and the power of science fiction has shifted from Europe to the United States.
"Hugo and Campbell are both well-known Editors of Science Fiction magazines in the United States, and they also write about themselves, but their main achievement is to give science fiction a relatively clear definition, and to cultivate a large number of young science fiction writers, and Asimov is one of them."
In 1926, Hugo founded the world's first professional science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. In the first issue of the magazine, Hugo named sci-fi, a literary variety that had been around for nearly a hundred years, Scienti Fiction, a name that evolved into the ultimate Science Fiction. Hugo believes that works like Verne and Wells are Scienti Fiction, which is both novel and romantic, with scientific basis and predictive prospects. In 1953, the Hugo Award, the World Science Fiction Award, named after him, was born in recognition of his outstanding contribution.
Hugo believes that science fiction must have a scientific basis, emphasizing the knowledge content of the novel itself. Some people think that his definition is harsh, that science fiction should still be literary, and Aldis even accused Hugo of "the most serious disaster to science fiction to date" in "The Carnival of Billions of Years: A History of Western Science Fiction". Galaxy said that European writers have always advocated the literaryization of science fiction, and Americans feel that science fiction should be popularized and popularized, and to this day there is a controversy about how science fiction literature should be.
The transition of science fiction from Europe to the United States ushered in a golden age
The Golden Age has produced a large number of science fiction writers and science fiction works, and the recent hit "Dune" is one of the masterpieces of this period. According to Galaxy, the author Frank Herbert was originally going to create scientific documentary literature, but when he studied the desert, he had a strong feeling, and he created a story with a grand sense of wonder, "Dune".
Robert Heinlein is passionate about the story of the future of mankind, and his series of works has been written from the 1950s and 1960s to the 25th century, standing in the distant future to review the current era and build human history in the future, known as the "Future History Series". Galaxy told everyone that the title of his lecture, "Enough Time for You to Love", is a novel of the same name from Heinlein, "When I liked science fiction, science fiction literature was not as hot as it is now, and we were a small group of people who seemed to be more isolated." But we have a belief that if we persist, there will be good times, and now it proves that this is true. ”
Galaxy said that the subject of Mars has always been highly regarded in the science fiction world, and Bradbury, another writer of the Golden Age, was particularly obsessed with Mars. "In the 1980s, our country published a book called "Selected Readings of Contemporary American Short Stories", a total of 10 articles, the first two of which were Bradbury's science fiction novels. One of them, "August 2002: Encounters," is from his Martian Chronicles. His works are very literary, but unfortunately he has not won the Hugo Award or the Nebula Award in his lifetime. ”
Bradbury's Chronicle of Mars is a collection of more than a dozen short stories that together construct a panorama of a Martian society. He hypothesized that the Martian civilization had fallen into decline before the human landing, and that humanity was facing a ruin, and that the two civilizations had missed each other. Bradbury's poetic description of a passing civilization is impressive. In fact, he is not highly educated, has not studied in college, has been studying in the library, and is very influenced by literature such as poetry. ”
Robinson, another American writer known as the "New Martian Constructor," created the "Color Mars" series. He described the whole process of human development of Mars over the centuries - when humans first arrived, Mars maintained its original appearance, a desolate, a red Mars; in order to be habitable, humans needed to introduce vegetation, carry out atmospheric modification, and red Mars became green Mars; and then humans introduced a lot of water, so that Mars appeared as a blue water ball in space like Earth, and green Mars turned into blue Mars. Galaxy described Robinson's imagination as magnificent.
Asimov changed the way millions of people think about the world
Known as the "Father of Robots", Asimov was an important exponent of the Golden Age, writing nearly 500 books in his lifetime, covering many fields such as natural sciences, social sciences, and literature and art. The reason why Asimov is called the "father of robots" is because he proposed the "three laws of robotics", which is regarded as the cornerstone of modern robotics.
Galaxy shared a small story: once the science fiction editor Campbell fell ill, Asimov went to visit, the two people talked about why the previous robots finally embarked on the road of rebellion against humans and harm to society, and discussed whether they could create a set of codes of conduct and ethics for robots, so that robots can get along better with humans. Thus was born the "Three Laws of Robotics" – the first law: robots must not harm humans, nor should they stand idly by while people are harmed. Second Law: Robots must obey human commands, but must not violate the first law. Third Law: Robots must protect themselves, but must not violate the first and second laws.
Asimov believes that robots are the most perfect and idealized people, and all his robot series comply with the "Three Laws of Robotics", aiming to build an interaction and commonality between "carbon and iron civilizations", the so-called "carbon" refers to humans, and "iron" refers to robots. However, "Two Hundred Years Old Man" is an exception, the robot in the novel has a problem when it leaves the factory, especially wants to become a human, it makes various attempts, such as replacing the body with organic, with soft skin, but humans still do not agree to let it become human, because people will die, and robots can live forever, unless it gives up immortality. Unexpectedly, the robot agreed and chose to die at the age of 200.
Why does this robot want to be human so much? It turned out that he was responsible for taking care of a pair of sisters as soon as he left the factory, Miss Big miss and Miss Little Miss, and when they were all dead, he took care of Little Miss's granddaughter and watched her grow old. The robot lamented the change in life, and finally died hand in hand with the granddaughter of the little miss, gaining human rights. In Galaxy's view, this is a sci-fi version of Pinocchio.
Asimov also pioneered a famous science fiction series called the Base Series, which inspired him after reading The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
He assumed that in the future, humanity would already be spread across 250,000 planets, with a population of 1,000 to the 6th power, and in this context, a social psychologist named Sheldon predicted that the vast galactic empire civilization would collapse, and once it collapsed, the entire universe would fall into a dark period of thirty thousand years. Sheldon believed that in order to preserve the fire of civilization, two bases should be established, one to retain the natural sciences and the other to retain the humanities, and with the seeds of civilization, they could be quickly restored, shortening thirty thousand years to one thousand years. Unexpectedly, as soon as his voice fell, the Galactic Empire collapsed, and humanity faded like a tide..." Galaxy said that Asimov's idea of building a vast cosmic system had a profound impact on later science fiction writers.
In addition, Asimov has many wonderful ideas, such as how humans sail in the universe, he envisions the use of freezing methods to freeze astronauts, and thinks about how to study photonic rockets and solar wind rockets for the infinite acceleration of rockets.
"But even at the speed of light, the gap in distance is still insurmountable." Asimov felt that the reason why the earth revolved around the sun was that first, it could not get rid of gravity, and second, we needed the energy of the sun. If one day human technology can free a planet from the sun's gravitational pull and get its own energy and no longer rely on the sun, then we can completely leave the solar system and drift away. At this point, speed is not important, because we are self-contained systems and can live endlessly. It is no longer a passive wandering, but an active journey through the entire universe. ”
Then Asimov asks the question: Why are we doing this? Then he replied to himself: Why don't we do this? Galaxy sighed: "In the past, I couldn't walk, but why can't I go now?" The universe is so big, I want to see it. After Asimov's death, some people commented that his work had delighted millions of people and changed their view of the world as a whole. ”
The New Wave movement brought literature back to science fiction
Since 1965, the science fiction community has set off a new wave movement that lasted for 10 years, proposing the return of science fiction to the literary body, which is another large-scale trend of science fiction literature creation after the "Golden Age". Although a number of famous science fiction works have appeared since the 19th century, science fiction has not had a high status in mainstream literary society. In order to change this situation, a large number of science fiction authors have introduced mainstream literary carriers such as prose, poetry, heroic epics, and mythological stories into science fiction novels, diluting the storyline and increasing the description of the environment, psychology and feelings.
The British science fiction writer Ballard, who wrote the "World of Destruction" trilogy, was a leading figure in the New Wave era. Galaxy introduced Ballard was born in Shanghai, his father was an engineer stationed in Shanghai, and his boyhood experienced the full-scale invasion of China by the Japanese army. When the Japanese army captured Shanghai, he was separated from his family and sent to an international refugee camp in Zhejiang. Later, he wrote a work called "Empire of the Sun", which was adapted by Spielberg into a movie about a young boy in a concentration camp. This experience had a great influence on his creation of the 'World of Destruction' trilogy. ”
He argues that science fiction should say no to space, interstellar voyages, alien creatures and galactic warfare and a collection of these concepts. He eschewed traditional sci-fi genres such as space travel, time travel, aliens, and superpowers, and instead wrote about the decadence and disaster of the near future "five minutes later." "The big changes that are going to happen in the near future are not on the moon or Mars, but on Earth; what people need to explore is inner space, not outer space," Ballard said. The only truly alien planet is Earth. ”
Aldis, winner of the first Short Story Award at the Nebula Awards established during the New Wave movement, also believes that science fiction should not only write about aliens, but also about us humans, "His work is full of intentionality, metaphor, satire and stream of consciousness." ”
The tug-of-war between literature and science has never stopped
The tug-of-war between literature and science has never stopped. After the New Wave movement, there was another return to science and technology in the field of science fiction literature. The American science fiction writer William Gibson's Neuromancer, published in 1984, describes the age of the web and the age of data-based survival. He later wrote Conte Jerro and Mona Lisa Speed, which together make up the Matrix trilogy. Because of the success of Neuromancer, William Gibson created a new sci-fi genre known as cyberpunk. "Cyberpunk" is a combination of "cybernetics, neuromechanics" and "punk", and the plot of "cyberpunk" usually revolves around the contradictions between hackers, artificial intelligence, and large enterprises, set in a dystopian earth in the near future. The Matrix's "all information is demanding to be released," or information sharing, is the most important slogan of this type of work.
Galaxy said that the epidemic is raging in today's world, but as early as 1969, there was a particularly scientific viral science fiction "Andromeda Crisis". "It looks like a tech paper with a lot of molecular formulas and diagrams in it that a lot of people say they don't understand." The author, Michael Clayton, of Harvard Medical School, wrote many works under a pseudonym that were not well known, and wrote "The Andromeda Crisis" under his real name. Perhaps he later realized this 'unintelligible' problem, so he wrote Jurassic Park. ”
During this period, there was also a batch of works by the American writer Philip Dick that were later adapted into familiar films. The science fiction classic movie "Blade Runner" is adapted from one of his famous short stories, "Will Bionic People Dream of Electronic Sheep", which tells the game between natural people and bionic people, thinking and exploring human nature and ethics. Dick, a legendary writer, died before Blade Runner was released at the age of 58. He was poor and destitute, and he did not dare to borrow books because he could not afford the fines of the library, and he could only buy dog food if he could not afford meat. Schwarzenegger's "Total Memory", Tom Cruise's "Minority Report", Wu Yusen's "Memory Rift" and so on are all adapted from his works. ”
Galaxy concluded that after the "cyberpunk" genre, European and American science fiction literature showed a trend of diversified development, such as feminist science fiction. In fact, the development of science fiction literature has always had a "bundled" relationship with science, and when science and technology develop, science fiction will flourish, which is confirmed by the popularity of science fiction in Europe and the United States in the 1980s and the beginning of attention in China today.
Text/Reporter Yan Jing