We live in Nanjing, the naming of the night, the embers of the deep sea, and the spiritual traveler have emerged. (Photo courtesy of the organizer)
■ Our reporter Xu Wei
After winning the "Best Network Science Fiction Award" in the 32nd China Science Fiction Galaxy Award, not long ago, the post-95 online writer Tianrui Shuo Fu won the gold medal of the 14th Chinese Science Fiction Xingyun Award for novels in one fell swoop, and won the gold medal of the new star in 2020-2022. Yao Haijun, deputy editor-in-chief of Science Fiction World and chairman of the jury, commented that the novel bridged the gap between online science fiction and traditional science fiction, and expanded the growth space of science fiction sub-themes.
Not only him, but also a group of post-95 s and post-00 s Z generation groups are pouring into the production and dissemination of sci-fi network literature with an accelerated attitude, injecting a lot of young blood into the collision and blending of scientific and technological rationality and humanistic care. Network literature has new soil, new frontier themes of science and technology, and the authors are mostly newcomers … … The triple "new" superposition brings strong new kinetic energy to local science fiction writing.
Science fiction is the first choice for writing online articles after over 70% 00
In recent years, the trend of young and highly educated authors has accelerated, and the Z generation has risen strongly, which has gradually become a new feature of innovation and change in science fiction online literature. According to the data disclosed in "2022 China Science Fiction Network Literature White Paper" and "2022 China Network Literature Development Research Report", there were more than 42,000 starting platform authors who created science fiction network articles last year, and 72% of the authors who chose science fiction themes for the first time in 2022 were after 00; Last year, 42,080 sci-fi works were added, a year-on-year increase of nearly 70%; About 70% of the sci-fi category contracted authors are undergraduate students or above. Whether in creative practice or reading works, sci-fi online texts have become the main channel for young people to get in touch with sci-fi culture.
Talking elbow, sweeping the world, selling newspaper Xiao Langjun, Montenegro old ghost, I eat tomatoes, get down to business, things in the fire, Kong Changqing and other online authors have successively launched new works on science fiction themes, which enrich the content style of science fiction themes from different perspectives. Taking Tian Rui Shuo Fu, a 26-year-old, as an example, the masterpiece "We Live in Nanjing" has been ranked first on the best-selling list in qidian for a long time. It tells the story of the survival of the three-year-old male poplar who accidentally contacted the female Pinellia who lived in the same geographical location in 2040 through the radio. Wei Li, a professor at Nanjing Normal University, commented — — In addition to professional sci-fi settings, wonderful stories and delicate emotions, the works also show a scarce aesthetic style, and finally complete the "new sci-fi" experiment of hardcore sci-fi achieving aesthetic stories.
On the one hand, Tianrui narrator pursues "hard core" — — The famous work "Die on Mars" lists a long list of bibliographic documents, citing the scientific research papers about mission to mars and spacecraft design in the past, which makes many space fans hooked. On the other hand, he also insisted that the hard core of science fiction should also serve the readability of the text. "Technical details are like bricks and tiles of the story structure, which are used to enhance the credibility of the story, rather than becoming a reading obstacle for readers."
Netizens spontaneously "take notes" to activate the community ecology.
It is not difficult to find that young online writers pay more attention to readers’ feedback and interaction. This also reflects from one side that the community ecology of sci-fi network literature is rapidly maturing. Many users showed extraordinary initiative, actively participated in spontaneous popular science interaction, and spontaneously sorted out knowledge points and wrote long "notes" in the discussion area of works with the help of the online platform, that is, the time period chapter evaluation and other forms.
For example, in the comment area of Tianrui’s commentary "We Live in Nanjing", there are radio technology enthusiasts who explain the definition and usage of related professional terms online; In the comment area of Morningstar LL’s "Black Technology System of Xueba", some readers answered questions in detail about "weekly conjecture", "twin prime conjecture" and "corner and valley conjecture", which once triggered a large-scale scientific topic exchange.
Not long ago, the "Top Ten Famous Scenes" in the online text was announced, and the scene "Change Back" in Chapter 212 of Yuan Tong’s novel "Deep Sea embers" was selected. He bluntly said that with the growing science fiction market, there are more professionals who know science fiction, and the readers are crouching tiger, which in turn encourages the author to strive for perfection. "The competition in the leaderboard is fierce, and there are many young authors. After 90 s or even 00 s, net authors emerge. Writing science fiction requires a flexible mind and a new knowledge base. The younger the author, the newer the knowledge base. " Looking forward to it, works such as "Deep Sea embers" can convey the attitude of adhering to an optimistic life to netizens. "It would be better if everyone can read it with a smile and get the courage and enlightenment to face life from the story."
Passing positive energy and feelings of home and country through science fiction is also the vision of the post-95 writers in September sauce. He used to be an overseas treasurer of a large company and worked in Africa for many years. He combined local knowledge, industry knowledge and imagination to complete the serial update of Science and Technology of Great Countries, showing the progress of all aspects of the country through scientific and technological details, and his works reached 17,000.
The "long tail effect" of sci-fi IP has become more and more prominent.
Traditional sci-fi motifs have grown into a series of new fusion writing directions in the context of online literature, covering many sub-categories, such as evolutionary superpower, interstellar civilization, super technology, etc., and enriching the content ecology of sci-fi online texts. According to incomplete statistics, evolutionary superpower, future world and interstellar civilization are the sub-themes with obvious increase in recent three years. In 2022, the number and scale doubled compared with that in 2020, satisfying readers’ diversified reading expectations, while the number of works with existing themes such as ancient martial arts mecha and time travel declined.
"The exploration of sci-fi themes is going deep. The authors are no longer satisfied with the simple application of sci-fi symbols such as mecha and crossing, but more deeply integrate cutting-edge scientific and technological elements such as big data, space exploration, artificial intelligence and biotechnology, as well as the memory of the younger generation and feelings of home and country into their works, showing the social responsibility and cultural responsibility of the new generation of online literature creation teams." Some scholars have mentioned, for example, that the smile of 300 Jin, the author of post-90 s sci-fi net, used biotechnology to create a wise miniature bacterial civilization in My Universe in a Bottle. After 1995, the authors September Sauce, Explosives, etc. incorporated the cutting-edge technologies such as simulators, chips, aero-engines, mechanical exoskeletons, nuclear power, and intelligent brain machines into Great Power Science and Technology and Crossing into the Guardian AI of a Lost Civilization, trying to give the sci-fi theme a brand-new look, which, to a certain extent, constitutes a representative with sci-fi net texts such as Deep Space, Retrospection of the Millennium, Legend of Cyberheroes and Nomenclature of the Night.
Sci-fi network literature such as The Beginning, The Naming of the Night and Forty Thousand Years of the Star Domain have been developed into movies, cartoons, audio books and peripheral derivatives, and the "long tail effect" of sci-fi IP has gradually become prominent. In the new stage of China’s online writing "going out to sea", the works "going out" represented by "The Age of the Earth" and "Supernatural Machinist" are typical samples of sci-fi online writing "telling the story of China well and spreading the voice of China well", which shows the rising overseas influence of China’s sci-fi online literature.