Sci-fi reflects China's progress

Liu Cixin's book The Three-Body Problem was published in 2008 and subsequently won top international honors, such as the Xingyun (Nebula) Awards for Global Chinese Science Fiction and the Hugo Award for science fiction. Since Liu's work, the genre has attracted more writers and readers in China.

Science fiction was introduced in the country at the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Han Song, an author, told Xinhua News Agency that there have been three waves of science fiction since the Qing era.

In 1902, scholar Liang Qichao created the first Chinese sci-fi work, Xinzhongguo Weilaiji (The Future of New China), in which he outlined the blueprint of a splendid country, thanks to a 60-year self-strengthening political reform. Sharing with Liang the belief that science fiction can serve as an effective vehicle of enlightenment that might thoroughly reform China, writer Lu Xun translated Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.