Renditions nos. 77 & 78 (Spring & Autumn 2012)
Chinese Science Fiction: Late Qing and the Contemporary
This issue showcases representative work of Chinese science fiction from the late Qing and the contemporary. As a popular genre, science fiction has energized modern Chinese literature by evoking a whole array of sensations ranging from the grotesque to the sublime, from the Utopian to the apocalyptic, and from the human to the post-human. It mingles nationalism with fantasy, envelopes politics in scientific discourse, and delivers sharp social criticism with an acute awareness of probabilities and possibilities. Science fiction today both echoes and complicates the late Qing writers' vision of China's future and the transformation of our species and universe, and this special issue aims to contextualize a comparative reading of some important Sci fi writings from these two epochs and the similar expectations and anxieties they bring to Chinese readers.