"They comforted me, and I risked my life to do something for them": the birth of a Hugo Award-winning sci-fi fan magazine

In October 2023, the World Science Fiction Convention will be held in Chengdu, and for many science fiction fans, the annual science fiction convention is their carnival party, and it is not the point who wins the Hugo Award. (Visual China photo)

It had just rained, and drivers who didn't smoke were as hard to find as rare animals. Every time the car stopped, the river had to open the door and smell it, and changed several online car-hailing cars, and finally got on the one with the least smell of smoke. "The smell of smoke is like formaldehyde to me," he said after getting into the car, covering his mouth and nose with his collar.

At the recent World Science Fiction Convention, the Hugo Award was awarded in Chengdu, and the "Zero Gravity" magazine founded by River won the "Best Fanzine Award". The award, which began in 1955 and has been a tradition for nearly 70 years, was presented to Chinese for the first time this year. Attention and traffic poured to the 20-year-old, who politely declined most of the interviews.

Asthma, reflux esophagitis, psoriasis, gastrointestinal peristalsis disorders...... After eight diseases were diagnosed in 2020, life on the river was forced to slow down.

My body is much better than when I was at the worst, but sometimes I can only eat one meal a day, and the standard of the meal is "not sweet, not spicy, not sour, not bitter", and only steamed foods such as steamed dumplings can be eaten. His stomach has difficulty digesting starch, and the skin on the outside of buns and dumplings cannot be eaten. In 2020, hunger disappeared from the body. He had tried to drink only water for a few days, and still did not feel the presence of hunger, only that his stomach would hurt.

Friends he made on the Internet asked him to eat, but he either refused or brought his own bag of buns, and he knew that there were very few things he could eat in the restaurant. Sometimes his friends don't believe it, so he eats half of it and "spits it on them" before the other party realizes it's true.

In the middle of the interview, the river would suddenly close his eyes, pant slightly, his eyelids flutter, and respond to the reporter's wait with silence.

He wrote many gloomy poems, dark clouds floating in the sky, and also associated with physical hardship. "Normal people live on heartbeat, but I thought it was already a nuisance for me. I hope it will stop forever," he said, "and I won't have to see so much in the world and not feel so much physical pain." ”

During his illness, the river swiped millions of pieces of scientific and technological information, eager to find some ways to alleviate the disease. Eventually, Liu Cixin's "Ball Lightning" was pushed to him with some kind of algorithmic logic, and a new world unfolded.

He used to be very interested in physics, but after suffering from gastroesophageal reflux disease, he could only talk about a single physical concept, and no matter how complex his thinking was, his body would be unable to bear the load, "I would be very miserable, and I would not dare to do this anymore."

Unexpectedly, physics knowledge can also perfunctory some stories. In the beginning, he wrote science fiction novels to vent his emotions, and the themes of the novels included conversations with high-dimensional civilizations, wars between planets, and destruction—in short, moments of mystery that were far removed from reality. Novels are all in the form of dialogue, which "cannot be published", "but it is particularly comfortable to think about problems on a cosmic level, and you will get a kind of psychological expression".

In the middle of that year, River started a sci-fi fan magazine called Zero Gravity. Unlike professional magazines like Science Fiction World, Zero Gravity is more like a private place for a bunch of science fiction fans, publishing science fiction novels selected by everyone, attaching valuable reviews, and translating and excerpting science fiction articles that have no copyright risk.

The earliest sci-fi fan magazines in China can be traced back to Nebula in the 1980s. Yao Haijun, the founder of the Chinese Science Fiction Nebula Award, was still working as a lumberjack in Yichun at the time, and he used his spare time to publish "Nebula" in mimeographed form and communicate with science fiction fans across the country. Through Nebula, science fiction fans everywhere have established a "decentralized, allied organization".

Abroad, sci-fi fan magazines have a deeper tradition. Born in 1916, Ackerman organized the world's first science fiction fan circle and participated in the first World Science Fiction Convention.

Some magazines publish work at a level comparable to that of professional magazines, such as the semi-professional magazine Uncanny magazine, which has won multiple Hugo Awards, and Hao Jingfang's "Beijing Folding" was first published on it.

"If you look at all the magazines, most of the science fiction writers are science fiction fans, love science fiction since childhood, and then willing to devote themselves to Xi, write science fiction, and finally become professional science fiction writers. Science fiction scholar Sanfeng observed that Liu Cixin, Han Song, Yao Haijun, and Wu Yan, the backbone of Chinese science fiction, were the first to come out of science fiction fans.

"Zero Gravity", which has been maintained for three years, is also just a group of simple sci-fi enthusiasts behind it. For the founder River, this group of sci-fi fans provided the most important comfort in their lives, truly catching this young man who was once isolated from the crowd.

"Zero Gravity" won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Magazine at the 81st World Science Fiction Convention. (Photo provided by the interviewee)

"The whale surfaced to change his breath"

Before 2020, the river did not feel that its life was any different from that of ordinary people.

He was in high school in a city in Hubei at the time, and his biggest trouble in life was acid reflux, which was difficult to cure. Acid reflux corrodes from the stomach along the esophagus, throat, mouth and teeth. The teeth are most sensitive to this colorless gastric juice, and every time they vomit, "the teeth are numb".

The disease pulled him into another track, and he didn't dare to exercise vigorously because he was originally very energetic. He became afraid to communicate with people and cut off contact with his former best friends. "Because you can't predict whether you will vomit acid in the next second, whether it will scare people, my friend allowed me to do this. He said.

For many days, during class, the pain was so painful that my whole body crawled down, and I pressed my hands on the table to endure until I got out of class, and fled to the toilet to vomit. Tell your family that you don't get it seriously. "If it's uncomfortable, you can endure it for a day and get some sleep. "He gets this feedback.

In September 2020, the pain in the body became more and more severe, and it was necessary to take nutritional injections, stomach protection drugs and acid reflux drugs in the hospital to maintain it. When he was about to enter his third year of high school, he had to be hospitalized and take a leave of absence.

That year, because of the epidemic, people met, befriended, chatted, and quarreled on the Internet. The river entering these lively crowds began with a fortuitous search. "Science Fiction" related groups, he found two reliable organizations "Science Fiction" and "Liu Cixin Book Friends Hut". Since then, there has been an additional young man in the group with the screen name "Cosmic Death".

MVA studied for a Ph.D. in science and engineering at a 985 university and was a member of the "science fiction" group. The group members blow water every day and talk about topics such as superconductivity and nuclear fusion. In his opinion, although "a lot of the time everyone is discussing problems with half understanding", he has maintained a reciprocal posture as much as possible and does not force others or exert pressure.

The spark of thought often bursts out in the group. For example, if someone has a whim: one day you wake up and you find yourself in prison, but you don't remember what happened before, and you find an opportunity to escape, is your escape justified?

One day, when everyone was discussing the topic of AI, a group friend said: "I sometimes fantasize that there is a personality who takes me to class and work, and I am responsible for eating, sleeping, and playing games." Another group member replied: "Later, you split into a personality to eat, sleep and play games for you, and your life is only going to work and school." The third group member answered: "Your working personality also thinks so, and he also splits out a personality to help him go to work, and then he plays games, infinite nesting dolls." ”

MVA said that in real life, everyone is a screw in the big system, it is difficult to have the opportunity to think about some grand topics, and often feel lonely with no one to communicate. Talking about science fiction is like "a whale comes to the surface to change its breath".

The river watched everyone's speeches, and always spoke in the group late at night. Later, MVA learned that because of his illness, the river always kept awake at night.

At first, it was difficult for the river to even ask a complete question, and many times he just "wailed" in the group - saying something unstructured, with no logic between the words, and some exclamation points added to express his emotions, "You feel that this person is in pain, but you can't tell where he is in pain." MVA recalled. Later, the river changed its online name to "River of Sorrows".

Like a river mussel, he spits out the sand and gravel from his body one by one. It was almost a month before many people began to understand what had happened to the young man. They were impressed by a poem posted by the river in the group, which MVA remembers about the roughly: "I feel like a polluted river, filled with garbage, flowing slowly forward like a lot of silt." ”

In the evening of an interview with Southern Weekly, he once again reflected on those experiences: his parents divorced at an early age, and his grandparents raised him. After the ninth grade, his father returned from abroad, and he felt the pressure of education. His family did not pay much attention to his physical condition, and in the seventh and eighth grades, he bought a lot of literary publications, but he did not know that he was allergic to dust mites produced by piling up paper. Until he finally fell ill in 2020.

"The river basically encounters all kinds of problems that people can encounter when they are young, from their own to the outside. MVA told Southern Weekly.

"Kiss" and "hug", the people in the group comforted the river. "Most of the time it's just because a lot of people are gathered in a smaller environment, creating an illusory sense of warmth. A group friend said.

But River said that before, his worldview was black and white, "either contact with you or not", and in the science fiction fan group, he experienced a feeling that he had never felt before: "Someone will come to understand you, comfort you, and tell you some common sense of life." ”

"In those two years, I couldn't communicate with people normally every day, and I couldn't take care of myself to a certain extent, and my daily spiritual support was to communicate with a group of science fiction fans on the Internet," he said, "If he can give me some comfort, I can do something for him with my life." For a young man who is Xi to self-isolation, the kindness and comfort of these strangers is almost incredible.

Science fiction was forced to be the only thing he could do throughout his youth

When Kasahara paid attention to the river, he noticed that he often spoke at night, speculating that it was a "helpless person who tossed and turned in a hospital bed in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep on his mobile phone." After contact, the river always "returns the news in seconds", but it is not good at politeness, Xi is used to speaking directly, even if there is a request for others, he never understands vanity and wrongdoing.

Physical hardship makes the river occasionally lament that his life is imminent. When Kasawara was in college, a friend committed suicide by jumping off a building, and he thought that life was serious, and he opened his heart to talk to the river once, "I would hope that he would try not to think that his life was about to end."

At that time, the outside world was in a panic, the physical space was almost canceled, and everyone was "living online". In MVA's parlance, people in the group often "go crazy", such as saying to someone in the group in a weird and abrupt way, "I like you so much", or "when am I going to climb the street". The river also learned from the gourd painting, and MVA laughed that it was she who "polluted" the river.

What is more orderly is the "Weighing Cup" science fiction essay organized by someone, which was later renamed "Zero Gravity Cup", which has been going on. The scale of the essay collection is not large, for enthusiasts to practice writing, communication, and mutual comment. Although not a famous work, some novels can occasionally be selected for Science Fiction World.

There are often brain-opening ideas in the group. After the nuclear contamination incident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, someone suddenly asked in the group: Are there any microorganisms that can use radiation energy as a source of energy for survival? Kasahara, a biology student, knows that the answer is yes. He thought of the news of gene-edited babies a few years ago, and quickly conceived a story about a girl who had been injected with a certain microorganism as a result of human experiments, which gave her the ability to resist radiation, and that a social form similar to a nuclear wasteland might emerge in the future.

Kasawara feels that science fiction fans are somewhat dissatisfied with reality, "The essence of watching swordsmen is to miss the martial arts feelings of the past, and the essence of people who look at fantasy is to look forward and hope that the future will be better."

After the first time he posted the science fiction novel he had written to the group, he was so nervous that he could barely breathe, and he described it as "shaking his body for a long time." Until now, he has been reluctant to make these novel Xi and his own poems public.

He said that he hadn't even read 100 science fiction novels, and that he didn't get involved in them every time they talked about specific science fiction works. He decided that he was not strictly a "science fiction fan", but a "science fiction fan".

So, he found another way to do something for his friends. At first, someone in the group mentioned it, and the river was heartfelt. He searched through the public information of Chinese science fiction fans and found that there is almost no special research in China, "Why did I care so much about my science fiction fan group, as if it did not account for a trace of words in the narrative of the entire Chinese science fiction history, and seemed to have disappeared?"

In July 2020, the first issue of Zero Gravity was published. It took only one day for the river to be typeset out in word. The column is not fine, excerpts of science fiction news, group friend discussions, etc. But a sci-fi fan magazine took a small step for it.

Foreign sci-fi fan magazines are very diverse, and the content is not fixed, often depending on the interests of the founder. For example, some people love to read science fiction reviews, so they compile a book of "XX Science Fiction Review", and some people find that science fiction poetry rarely publishes, so they specialize in science fiction poetry fan magazines, and pay for the manuscript out of their own pockets.

"Some people do it more artistically and make the typography very cool; there are also all kinds of information collection and find some science fiction anecdotes; and some people just want to send out the creations of their brothers for their own amusement, and they like to watch it or not. Everything. Science fiction translator Jin Xueni told Southern Weekly.

For the river, running a magazine was initially a relief. Kasawara speculates that a lot of the work of organizing materials is mechanical and time-consuming, "because it doesn't require you to concentrate on abstract thinking, and it can distract a lot of physical problems."

In the fall of 2021, Hehe, who had just returned to school, was hospitalized again. The hospital is like a cage, surrounded by old people. The work of Zero Gravity has not stopped, and most of the time the river has to lie down, hold up the phone above his head, or use the computer on his stomach. He described that time, "I was tired of sitting and sleeping, I woke up in pain again, and I woke up in pain and sat again."

Occasionally, some of his friends objected to his input. At that time, they felt that he was putting a lot of energy into science fiction, and they probably wanted to persuade him to be a little more restrained, and wanted to do well in his body and studies. Science fiction writer Wang Kanyu said.

Kasahara also has hidden concerns, "In fact, many friends like us will have other things they want to be busy with besides science fiction, but for him, science fiction has been forced to become the only thing he can do in his entire youth." ”

The Zero Gravity newspaper has been running for three years and has published 13 issues so far. (Photo provided by the interviewee)

Salvage the collective memory of "fun and useless".

In 2022, he was successfully admitted to university. In August of that year, on the thirtieth day of his fourth hospitalization, his psoriasis was half healed, and his body did not feel like "pierced by 10,000 bullets" as before. Walking slowly is not a problem, "so that you don't get up and fall down."

His physical condition is still difficult to support all of his school life. He couldn't concentrate on getting through two classes and needed to spend a lot of time in his dorm every day. In comparison, the average day spent on Zero Gravity is an extravagant 2 hours, and the river still feels too little.

She is a Ph.D. student at Yale University and has translated science fiction novels. In the middle of the night in China, when the river rushed to produce the "Zero Gravity News", the two had a ride and chatted. Sometimes the river sends him long essays, or new data tables when researching a sci-fi fan group. She also replies instantly, "a bit like the companionship of a distant place across time zones".

The speed of publication of the Zero Gravity newspaper is not fixed, and it is possible to wait for months, half a year, or even a year. After its publication, the PDF version of "Zero Gravity" was circulated among science fiction fans, and if someone needed a paper version to keep, he would help print it out, and occasionally post some printing fees himself.

He did a special issue of "Inaugural Words", which excerpted some of the inaugural words of science fiction magazines in the golden age of science fiction in the United States in the 20th century, and showed readers the possible ways to play science fan magazines. Some people say that the river is doing science fiction as a career.

Kasawara observes that for work, rivers have their own set of rules. In the group, the river often updates the progress of the work, makes some transactional reports, and then @ interested people in the group. "He wants people to care about him through the work he does, not directly (because of illness)."

"In this era, it is not uncommon for people to have a difficult life, many people have become indifferent, and in addition to his difficult life, he puts some of his sustenance on life to do science fiction. This is exactly what everyone in this group wants to see, so they will have an extra good impression of him and hope that he is better. Kasahara told Southern Weekly.

There are two issues of Zero Gravity, and River collects stories between science fiction fans and science fiction. In those experiences, he felt a deep loneliness: science fiction fans usually came into contact with science fiction before college, felt excited in the science fiction world, wanted to share and discuss with others, but found that there was no science fiction fan around him. "It's a kind of loneliness. River said that participating in or founding a science fiction club in college has become an obsession for many people.

River did a lot of archaeological work for university science fiction clubs, searching for past science fiction organizations, magazines, and media, and creating a folder on the computer to fill in and organize the information collected.

Kasawara remembers that in college, a junior girl once told him that he came to the Science Fiction Association to see more weirdos. "The temperament of the science fiction club is to have a sense of alienation from the entire group of college students, and maybe this circle is more suitable for people with small social and limited social skills. He said.

Wang Kanyu's first experience of the science fiction community also came from the university, she was studying at Fudan University at the time, she was very "socially afraid", the school's science fiction club was filled with "unreliable and more fun atmosphere", the person in charge lost everyone's contact information at the beginning, and finally held a simple meeting on the lawn.

At that time, Chinese science fiction had not yet been favored by commercial capital, and around 2013, the science fiction circle was not large, and there was no clear barrier between writers and readers, science fiction fans drank and skewered with Liu Cixin, "Everyone knows everyone, everyone is everyone's friend." Wang Kanyu said.

Wang Kanyu feels that the work of the river "salvaged these interesting and useless memories of this generation of college science fiction members...... mirrors the ecology of our entire sci-fi fan over the years".

These are memories that the river never had, and his university did not have a science fiction club.

Times have changed, and what Kasahara now feels more deeply is the depression of the college science fiction club. "People will appreciate the archaeological work that River has done, but on the one hand it seems that he doesn't really understand what the current situation is," and sometimes the idea is "idealistic".

During that time, the river special forces ran to the science fiction associations of various colleges and universities across the country to meet with science fiction fans who were familiar with the Internet. He admits that the situation is not as good as it could have been envisioned.

Mitutoyo has been engaged in the collation and research of science fiction history, because of a request for information, the river got to know him. At first, he didn't believe that he could sort out the history of college science fiction clubs, "Chinese science fiction clubs are more chaotic than science fiction fan magazines in the history of Chinese science fiction, like grasshoppers living and dying, this club has just been established for less than two years, because people left and died again, or lived again after two years."

After sorting, Mitutoyo realized that such work was valuable, for example, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics had held several "Original Star" fantasy essay contests, and they found that science fiction writers such as Chen Qiufan and Xia Ji originally came out of here.

"It is a groundbreaking, unprecedented work, and his contribution must be irreplaceable. Sanfeng said frankly that although from the perspective of scholars, this input-output ratio is not high.

River believes that if one understands his starting point, one will not doubt his steadfastness in these efforts. "My personal interest is to sort it out, and if someone says it's good, I'm happy and I'll keep doing it."

Many sci-fi fans' initial experience of the sci-fi community comes from the sci-fi community of the university, and the river has done a lot of archaeological work on the sci-fi community of the university. (Photo provided by the interviewee)

"Such a message of goodwill knows no age or borders"

In 2023, MVA finally saw the river. The young man in front of him was much stronger than he had imagined, and the level of exhaustion gave the impression that he was just "I didn't sleep well last night". Face to face, the river showed some inexplicable happiness, they chatted about the "crazy talk" in the group offline, like a code, and the river laughed so much that he "couldn't walk".

"Personally, I think it's that funny? He laughs there all the time, but I can't bear to interrupt him when I see him laughing so happily." MVA looked deep and sensed the weakness of this young man. He walked slowly, gasping for breath, and when he ate, he fell asleep from exhaustion at the table.

MVA used to imagine the river as a "tenacious fighter", and the experience of hardship became a full-body armor. But the real river in front of him is more like a person sitting in his study, passionate about the things he cares about and interested in.

In October, he went to Chengdu to attend the World Science Fiction Convention, and he was not aware of his popularity among science fiction fans before he arrived. In the previous year's "Zero Gravity News", he specially compiled a special issue of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention, found some science fiction practitioners to do roundtable interviews, and also compiled important reviews of previous sessions. Many people have seen this issue.

The World Science Fiction Convention held every year, in Jin Xueni's view, is like a "five-day carnival" for science fiction fans, and who wins the Hugo Award is not the main event. It is not surprising to meet a great writer like George Martin at the conference, and he is often seen hanging out, calling a dozen or so new and old friends to his room every night to eat potato chips and drink.

"Everyone came in, some people were cosplaying, some people were setting up stalls to sell things, and everyone was very happy to meet friends who might only meet once a year because of this, many of whom may have been old and have been reading, writing, and participating in science fiction. She said.

Wang Kanyu once went to Helsinki to attend the Finnish Science Fiction Convention, met one or two local science fiction fans, and then went to Europe for exchanges, and when the other party heard that it was a science fiction fan from China, he directly asked her to borrow it to live at home, "because you have a common hobby, he can directly hand over the key to the house."

It was in 2013, and Wang Kanyu said that this trip changed the trajectory of her life ten years ago, "because of the cherishing and gratitude for such a sci-fi family, I will always insist on doing sci-fi."

"This kind of goodwill is conveyed regardless of age or borders," she told Southern Weekly, "and that's why rivers are exposed to this goodwill in the context of today's China." ”

He (back row, third from right) and many science fiction fans and netizens gathered at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chengdu. (Photo provided by the interviewee)

In Chengdu, due to the long distance and the smell inside the venue, the river entered the hospital three times. At one forum, he couldn't hold up for 10 minutes to speak. A conference on the theme of "Science Fiction Historical Research" originally wanted to ask him to talk about the archaeology of science fiction societies, but it had to be canceled.

On the night of the Hugo Awards, he stayed in the venue for a full hour, and when the presenters read out "Zero Gravity Newspaper," many people cried and kept shouting his name. After stepping down, River put down the trophy and went to the infirmary to receive oxygen, and later fell asleep during the conversation.

Everyone hugged him to the hospital, and sci-fi fans came and went, taking turns to visit. Someone helped him pay for his medical bills.

Still, seven days in Chengdu made him happy. Meet familiar and unfamiliar netizens, and exchange each other's publications with the editors-in-chief of foreign science fiction magazines. "Isn't that what the World Science Fiction Convention is all about?" River wrote in a retrospective.

After winning the prize, the story of the river circulated on the Internet. Someone in the comment area said that this is a classmate I haven't seen for many years. Everyone ridiculed: "After ten years of living in the countryside, once you became famous, friends for decades appeared." ”

Unwilling to exaggerate these experiences and be taken as inspirational examples, he repeatedly confirmed to Southern Weekend, "Can it be less positive?" During the chat, he candidly talked about his physical ailments, but from time to time he was wary of whether he had gone too far, "You see this thing is back to the body." That's the end of the conversation.

Back at school, the school leaders offered to set up a science fiction association in his name, and River would ask everyone in the group, and everyone would teach him how to deal with it.

Kasawara uses the term "resocialization" to describe the process of integrating River into the sci-fi fan group, and the friendship he gained in the virtual world has brought him a real impact on River, accompanying him through difficult times, recuperating his body, and completing his studies, making up for the lack of adolescence. But he worries that the river still lacks elders who can help him in reality, and "everyone still hopes that he can finally return to reality."

MVA believes that people need to "transcend" and "expand their influence in the hope that they can leave more traces in this world". In the science fiction community, after this transcendence is satisfied, ordinary people can advance and retreat freely, life belongs to life, and the Internet belongs to the Internet, but the river is not.

"I don't make friends in reality. The river said firmly.

Many people are worried about what he will do in the future. Sanfeng thought that maybe the river could be like Yao Haijun, engaged in science fiction-related work.

But River values the value of the work at hand, "I don't want long articles of value to be scattered all over the place, and then the platform goes out of business, and then it is empty." I can save a little is a little. He calmly said that he did not think about anything further ahead.

After saying goodbye to his friends in Chengdu, the river returned to Hubei. He jotted down what sci-fi blogger Lightyear said to him: "We still have a long way to go, we have to take care of our bodies, we all have to be well." ”

(Kasawara and MVA are screen names in the article)

Southern Weekly reporter Pan Xuan

Editor-in-charge: Li Muyan