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Imagination in Chinese Science Fiction
WU Yan
Front. Lit. Stud. China. 2020, 14 (2): 161-180.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s010-009-020-0008-2
Imagination is the lifeline of science fiction. In the 20th century, Chinese science fiction has produced the three distinct imagination modes of desire, possibility, and principles, conveyed through at least five expression techniques in neologisms, verisimilitude, temporal disjunction, situational extremes, and metaphorization. Although imagination is critical to the creation of science fiction, there are polarized views about its nature. A necessary task for the future development of Chinese science fiction is challenging false conceptions of imagination so as to establish more imagination modes.
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Contributions and Misunderstandings: Zheng Wenguang and “Science Fiction Realism”
JIANG Zhenyu
Front. Lit. Stud. China. 2020, 14 (2): 202-227.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s010-009-020-0010-3
Zheng Wenguang described the concept of “science fiction realism” in 1981 as a form of misreading, aiming at exploring social problems. Personally, he was rethinking and developing a series of his own writing ideas since the 1950s. As for the science fiction community, it was a powerful challenge to the idea that “science fiction is a part of popular science,” which had existed for almost five decades. As soon as Zheng’s idea was put forward, it quickly received a warm response from Jin Tao and Wei Yahua, etc. The works, such as “The Moonlight Island” (Yueguangdao) and “Destiny Nightclub” (Mingyun yezonghui), broke down the narrow boundaries of contemporary popular science discourse. “Science fiction realism” should be understood to mean “realistic science fiction.” However, from a theoretical perspective, all kinds of writings in this period not only narrowed and vulgarized the understanding of “realism,” especially as they ignored heated discussions of this concept, but also blurred the core and boundary of the “science fiction” genre and even dissolved its autonomy to a certain extent. Zheng and his proponents’ explorations are Chinese science fiction authors’ beneficial attempts to construct local traditions. They reflect a profound anxiety towards reality and a strong desire for self-identification among a generation of science fiction authors. The core point they observe reappears in various guises across the development of the science fiction genre in the following decades. The basic conceptions they are trying to convey have also become important resources for the development of Chinese science fiction literary theory.
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Between History and Fiction: The Possibility of Historical Science Fiction—Narrative Device and Conceptual Experiment in Qian Lifang’s Mandate of Heaven (Tianming )
FAN Yilun
Front. Lit. Stud. China. 2020, 14 (2): 330-355.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s010-009-020-0015-8
From inventing cutting-edge technology to designing ideal society, science fiction has always been considered as a literature of future. With the introduction of historical dimension, can science fiction provide us a new perspective to speculate on the future? In 2004, Qian Lifang’s debut novel The Will of Heaven (Tianyi), known as the representative of contemporary Chinese “historical science fiction” won both reputation and market. Her second novel Mandate of Heaven (Tianming) was published seven years later. Compared to the tremendous success of the former, it has received less attention. In existing scholarship, neither The Will of Heaven nor Mandate of Heaven has never been studied and analysed in depth whereas the concept of “historical science fiction” remains ambiguous. Taking Mandate of Heaven as an example, this paper will first discuss the generic problem of “historical science fiction” by comparing it with “alternate history.” Based on this, it continues to exam how the science fiction element is incorporated into Qian’s narrative with the aid of “time travel” and “multiverse” as narrative device. Finally, the paper will examine the conceptual experiment of “Mandate of Heaven” embodied by three characters in the book, comparing different views on the compatibility between free will and determinism. The paper concludes that “historical science fiction” is a re-invention of history. Its value lies not in defining a new genre, but in the possibility offered to readers to reflect on the dialectical relationship between fiction and history.
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9 articles
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