Hugo Award winner: I’m just writing for the beer money
The Three-Body Problem, a science-fiction book of the Santi trilogy by Chinese author Liu Cixin, is making waves on the internet


Liu Cixin, author of The Three-Body Problem, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel Photo: CFP
By Ruan Fan2:01PM BST 31 Aug 2015

The Three-Body Problem, a science-fiction book of the Santi trilogy by Chinese author Liu Cixin, has caused a big splash on the internet after it was announced winner of the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel on 23 August.
The topic has been read about more than 8.6 million times on the social media site Sina Weibo, and generated a discussion that involved 190 thousand participants within 10 hours of the news release.

Netizens praised the novel, saying the book deserved the award. “I read the first two books of the Santi series when I was in junior school, I didn’t have money to buy it so I read it in the Xinhua Bookstore. I’m so happy that Chinese science fiction has finally been recognised by the world,” wrote Sina Weibo user Wukelili.

Zhang Yiyun, a Chinese psychologist with more than four million followers, reposted the news and suggested embracing a bigger vision of the universe. “If we spend our limited life in daily hustle and bustle and turn a blind eye to the macro or micro worlds, it’s like we never stepped out of our houses in the spiritual world,” she quoted from the work.

But not all who commented were so thrilled about the award. One Weibo user, Faye_Venus, said that she does not think the book is that special, and it was “only that we couldn't find a better one in China”.

The book, widely recognised for its brilliant imagination, successfully combined the exceedingly ephemeral with hard reality, all the while focusing on revealing the essence and aesthetics of science. It is a distinctly Chinese style of science fiction.
Liu said in an interview with Sina news: “The Three-Body trilogy is my best work, but there are still places I wish I were able to revise.” He said that the book could not have won on a world stage without the good translation of Ken Liu.

As for why he is so dedicated to writing science-fiction novels, Liu Cixin said in an interview last year with the Chinese online edition of The New York Times that he is just like the American science-fiction novelist Robert A. Heinlein, writing for his “beer money”. He said: “I'm nothing like the characters in my book. [They] are totally idealists, but I’m just an ordinary man.”
Liu added that that if he had to choose to be one of his characters, he would go for Luo Ji, who “leads a care-free life, yet when responsibility falls on him he can shoulder it as well”.

He said that he was not too optimistic about raising the Chinese audience's enthusiasm for science-fiction with The Three-Body Problem alone, although he thinks it is important to have imagination for “others”, or alien civilisations.
Liu said: “If I were to recommend books for President Xi Jinping, I would choose 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. Santi is too long.”

He added: “Don't assume that I’m kidding. A country, as well as a ruling party, should have imagination, for ‘others’.”
Liu is the most prolific and popular science-fiction writer in China, an eight-time winner of the Galaxy Award (the Chinese equivalent of the Hugo) and a winner of the Nebula Award. Before becoming a writer, he worked as an engineer at a power plant in Yangquan, Shanxi.

Sumber Berita