2023 should have been an opportunity for the Chinese SF scene to have had a showcase
to the world; without going into details, I think it's fair to say that, at the very
least, things didn't go as trouble-free as might have been hoped.
However the dramas of early 2024 should not be allowed to detract from the
awesome work that was done in Chinese SF, especially by fans. This rough-and-ready list
is my personal attempt to try to highlight some of that work, which hopefully can be
recognized in less controversial circumstances in 2024.
Notes and caveats
Any of these recommendations that tagged with * is
either someone I've
corresponded or worked with, or a project which I've worked on, or contributed to,
and so I can't claim that those are unbiased recommendations.
Links are generally to Chinese language pages/sites unless otherwise stated.
An exception are Twitter links, which will generally be comprised of English language posts.
My Chinese language skills are way too poor to be able to read the majority of
real-world content without either a lot of effort or (far more likely) resorting to
machine translation. As such, any writing that is particularly clever in a literary
way is likely to pass completely over my head; I'm evaluating stuff on a very
basic level. (This is why the writing I cover here is more on the news/factual side
than criticism/reviews.)
Further to the previous point, my dependence on machine translation means that my
understanding of materials that I only possess in a physical form -
i.e. all the non-fiction works I list - is at a very shallow and surface level; not
much better than “I liked looking at all the pretty pictures”, to be brutally frank.
As such, feel perfectly free to discount any of my observations on those grounds alone.
This document only covers work published in 2023.
Any of the individual essays that I've linked are presumably eligible for
“related work”; I've not highlighted them in the non-fiction section
due to (a) space, and (b) generally preferring longer-form material to be recognized
in such categories.
At the risk of sidetracking away from the core purpose of what this page is supposed
to be about, I'll briefly mention a topic that other people have raised.
([1],
[2],
[3],
[4])
Please don't nominate me for any awards, as
I have stated that I will decline them.
Instead, rather than “wasting” your nomination, please consider any
“spare slots”
to the individuals or works listed here.
Release history
Date
Version
Comment
2024-03-03
0.1
Initial public release, but with many errors, omissions and rough edges that I
intend to correct over the coming days.
2024-03-04
0.2
Minor grammar and markup fixes; a bit more text on one of the recommendations;
added links for things that I couldn't find in the initial release.
2024-03-05
0.3
A couple of people have pointed out that Arthur Liu is in fact eligible for the
2024 Hugos. I have corrected his entry.
2024-03-06
0.4
Reformatted the quick links at the top of the document; fleshed out some of the
entries and added some more; added extra information to help filling out certain
fields on the Glasgow 2024 nomination form.
2024-03-07
0.5
Added Journey Planet and a couple of others that I don't know much about
personally;
added more links for SF Light Year, RiverFlow, Zionius and Wu Miao.
2024-03-08
1.0
Final version? Belatedly added an intro; tidied some other stuff up; added a
couple more links.
SF Light Year's Weibo account is (IMHO) the first place to look
if you want to know what's happening in the Chinese SF scene, and/or if you want to
know what happenings in international SF are being discussed in China.
Without his posts, the Chengdu Worldcon coverage I wrote up for
File 770
would have been much sparser and less well-informed.
Many English language comments on File 770; future updates of this page will link
directly to some examples
Zimozi Natsuco is perhaps the most active fan on Anglophone websites and social media
in terms of publicizing the numerous issues regarding the Chengdu Worldcon, some
of which have received far less attention from Western fandom than they deserve.
Besides that though, he has been the main force behind the
Zhejiang University SF Society newsletter,
which is an excellent resource for news on the SF scene both within China and
internationally.
Arthur Liu (aka
HeavenDuke (天爵; Tiānjué)
aka Yang Feng (杨枫; Yáng Fēng))
*
Initially I was under the impression that Arthur was ineligible for the 2024 Hugos
due to his membership of
the 2024 Hugo Awards
Eligibility Research Team,
and per WSFS rule 3.13. However, it a couple of people have since pointed out that
rule 3.13 applies only to the Hugo Award administration subcommittee, which
per the
nomination ballot page is a much smaller group of people:
Exclusions
The Glasgow 2024 Committee has irrevocably delegated all Hugo Administration authority
to a subcommittee. Therefore, Kat Jones [*], Cassidy, Nicholas Whyte, Kathryn Duval, and
Laura Martins are ineligible for 2024 Hugo Awards.
As such, I'm very happy to correct my error and point out that Arthur is indeed
an eligible and very worthy candidate for nomination!
[* - Kat Jones is no longer a Hugo Administrator for Glasgow 2024, but remains ineligible
due to her former involvement]
Note that Arthur Liu uses the pseudonym Yang Feng (杨枫) for some of his writing, but
is not the same person as the Yang Feng who is the CEO of 8 Light Minutes Culture, and
author of Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History.
Arthur was also co-editor of Journey Planet, issue 70,
which was published in January 2023, and was the second of a pair of issues covering
Chinese science fiction.
An English-language translation by Stefan Harvey of
“A Brief History of Science Fiction Societies in Chinese Universities”
appears in
Journey Planet issue 70
“A Brief History of the Development of Chinese SF Fanzines”
is another English-language translation, this time by Ana Padilla Fornieles,
and appears in
the same issue of Journey Planet
RiverFlow is of course the co-editor of
Zero Gravity Newspaper,
and whilst he has written a number of the articles in that zine, he also had writing
in 2023 that appeared in other venues.
Monthly lists and analyses of comics and graphic novels published in China:
August,
October,
November
Xerosoul's Weibo contains lots of posts about upcoming SFF publications in China,
including comics and manga.
Every month they publish a roundup of all the books and comics released that month,
with statistics of how many books each publisher issued, how many works were translated,
etc.
They also published
a big end-of-year roundup
summarizing everything released in 2023,
but that wasn't online until January 7th, and so can't be considered as
writing from 2023.
Whilst this information may be of minimal interest to non-Chinese readers, it is clearly
an invaluable source of information for those who are.
Zionius primarily writes about Tolkien and ASoIaF topics, but I'm pretty much only
a reader of science fiction, so our specific interests don't really intersect that
much.
However, I have been aware of their research and online activities for a while, and in
particular, I found it notable that they seem to be quite active and influential
in those fandoms
in the Anglosphere.
(Example)
Fanzines
News and Newspapers Summary on Science Fiction
(科幻新闻和报纸摘要; Kēhuàn Xīnwén hé Bàozhǐ Zhāiyào)
*
Whilst nominally “just” a zine/newsletter for
the SF society at Zhejiang University,
this
newsletter covered many topics around the SF scene, both within China and internationally.
I would consider it easily the equal of many more-widely known news sources in the Anglosphere.
The two 2022 issues of Zero Gravity Newspaper were obviously
publicly recognized for their quality,
but given the tainted nature of those awards,
I feel that it would be nice if they were acclaimed in a context that doesn't have a
proverbial asterisk next to it.
Truth be told, as I write this, I've only seen four of the five issues that were
published in 2023 - and I have some material in issue 13, so can hardly be considered an
unbiased observer - but with each of those issues coming in at well over a hundred pages,
the amount of effort that was put into them is clear.
In particular, the pair of issues that were released for the Worldcon are an astonishing
insight into the SF cultures from many, many countries around the world.
Journey Planet is a well-known zine in the Anglosphere, and put out nine issues during
2023 covering a variety of topics, but this entry is to highlight issue 70, which was
the second of two issues covering Chinese SF.
That 115 page issue contains eleven bilingual articles. Amongst the many listed
contributors are Arthur Liu as a co-editor
and RiverFlow as an assistant editor.
Cartoon of Hugo winner RiverFlow by Wu Miao, taken from Zero Gravity Newspaper issue 15Cartoon of Hugo finalist Regina Kanyu Wang by Wu Miao, taken from Zero Gravity Newspaper issue 15Cartoon of Kormo/Kemeng and Glasgow 2024 by Wu Miao, taken from Zero Gravity Newspaper issue 14Cartoon of SF Light Year by Wu Miao, originally taken from Weibo, but later reprinted in Zero Gravity Newspaper issue 14
Wu Miao is a professional artist, but this recommendation is for their fan art produced
at the Chengdu Worldcon, and reprinted (in part?) in Zero Gravity Newspaper issues 14-16.
A small sampling of that art is shown below, but see those issues of Zero Gravity for many
more.
Note that although the issues of Zero Gravity that these artworks appear in were not
published until February 2024, some or all were published online around the time
of the Chengdu Worldcon, or shortly thereafter - see the Weibo links above.
Cartoon of Hugo winner Ling Shizhen by Gong Keke, taken from Zero Gravity Newspaper issue 16Cartoon of Hugo finalist Lu Ban by Gong Keke, taken from Zero Gravity Newspaper issue 16
Their bio on their Weibo profile says that they are a a contract artist for SF World, but
here I'm highlighting the caricatures/cartoons they drew of various well-known figures
in the Chinese SF scene. A couple are shown here, but see the linked issue of Zero Gravity
Newspaper for the full (?) set of eleven.
Note that although the issue of Zero Gravity that these artworks appear in was not
published until February 2024, I believe that they were available online around the time
of the Chengdu Worldcon, or shortly thereafter. For example, the illustration of
SF Light Year was used as his Weibo avatar image for a short while after the Worldcon -
see the aforementioned Weibo post.
Non-Fiction
Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History - Volumes 2 and 3
(中国科幻口述史：第二卷, 第三卷; Zhōngguó Kēhuàn Kǒushù Shǐ: Dì èr Juǎn / Dì Sān Juǎn)
The concept behind these two volumes should be relatively familiar to Western audiences,
as the first volume of this trilogy
was a 2023 Hugo Best Related Work finalist, and
the 2023 Hugo Voter Packet
included both the full Chinese text
and a short English language extract.
Please note that the photos shown here are slightly misleading regarding the content
of these volumes; the chapters have short English language introductions, but the vast
bulk of the text is in Chinese.
Imagining Science: Excerpts from Classics of Science Fiction Literature
(想象科学：科幻文学经典撷英; Xiǎngxiàng Kēxué: Kēhuàn Wénxué Jīngdiǎn Xié Yīng)
The (machine translated) title is a bit misleading;
the chapters in this book aren't excerpts
from classic works of SF, but essays about those works by a number of notable figures in
Chinese SF, including Cixin Liu, Han Song, Chen Quifan/Stanley Chen and many others.
Others
I suppose The Wandering Earth II
is a high profile Chinese SF film? However I've not seen it - I did pick up the
Blu-Ray a few weeks ago, but haven't yet watched it.
I wasn't that keen on the first film -
it's not exactly what I'd consider a faithful translation of the original story -
but I understand the sequel is quite a bit better?
The CCTV/Tencent adaptation of
The Three-Body Problem falls into a similar bucket - I very briefly skimmed through
a few episodes when they were first uploaded to YouTube, but never actually properly
watched any of them. (And it seems that most of them have now been taken down, due to
the series being picked up by a US pay-to-watch streaming service?)
I'm acutely aware that my recommendations are rather bloke-ish; as far as I know,
only the ones that aren&t male or by a man are
Gong Keke and
Chinese SF: An Oral History.
Here are some other writers whose work I'm not massively familiar with
personally, but are probably worth your attention:
FemslashAmateur - they did some amazing work work in 2022 that would have deserved
recognition in last year's awards, although I suspect it might have been
magically marked as "ineligible" for reasons. I'm not aware of them doing similar
work in 2023, for reasons outside of their control.
wait
Chi Hui - more of a pro than a fan writer I guess, but made some very interesting
posts post-Chengdu Worldcon about whether there's
a “Chinese SF industry” or just a “Cixin Liu industry”,
plus other topics that I won't go into as I
don't understand or the full context and history.
There are other writers, zines, etc that I don't know much about, but I'll
provide brief notes here about them for the curious:
42 History (四十二史, Sìshí'èr Shǐ) is a fanzine that I know very little
about -
I think because it mainly exists on WeChat/Weixin, which I don' have access to; -
but I see it get referenced quite a bit.
Zhong Tianxin (钟天心, Zhōng Tiānxīn) writes regular updates about writing
competitions, which I understand are a much bigger deal in the Chinese SF scene than
in the Anglosphere. Here is a
February 2024 post
on the subject.
Weibo.
