Ken Liu (Photo : www.kseniaanske.com)
Winners of the 2014 Xingyun (Nebula) Award for Global Chinese Science Fiction were announced in Beijing on Nov. 2, Sunday, Xinhuanet reported.
Arranged by the science website Guokr.com, the annual event was attended by more than 2,000 sci-fi writers and readers not only from China but also from other countries. It is regarded as a vital way to promote science in China while sci-fi has yet to become mainstream in the country.
The science-fiction conference was launched in 2010 and is still the only international awards for Chinese language sci-fi writers. It was organized by the Chengdu-based World Chinese Science Fiction Association.
Among the winning stories this year are "Ruins of Time," "Smart Life" and "The Three-Body Problem."
The best saga novel prize was awarded to "Ruins of Time" by Baoshu from mainland China. The novel revolves around a tragic experiment that distorted time, causing everything in the world except some people's memories to return to a set point in time every 20 hours.
Winning the best short story prize is "Smart Life" written by Ping Zongqi from Taiwan, while American Chinese writer Ken Liu was awarded the special contribution prize for his Chinese-to-English translation works that include the bestselling trilogy "The Three-Body Problem."
Also winning the same prize in 2010, Liu explained that the title was borrowed from physics. The story is about a civilization in another star system facing extinction and opts to conquer the Earth to save itself.
"The 'Three-Body Problem' points to the complexity of our environment. The book refers to a three-star system. The movement of these bodies can't be predicted. So in this solar system, civilization lives in a very uncertain state," Liu told Wall Street Journal.
According to Liu, science-fiction readers know that the three-body problem phenomenon is not fantasy. He added that his favorite writers include Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.
The first book in "The Three-Body Problem" is set to be published in English for the first time in the United States by Tor Books.
