"Hello, Mr. Obama After reading your " Three-Body ", he liked it very much. Can you post a follow-up work? I'm very anxious!" One day in 2015, an engineer from Niangziguan opened his email in his spare time and found this unread email from the White House in the United States.
When he saw the content of the email, the engineer's first reaction was that someone was a prank, which should be a "viral email", so he immediately deleted the email. Unexpectedly, after a while, he received the same email, but he still chose to ignore it.
Until one day, he suddenly received a call from the foreign affairs department, and the other party made a special trip to discuss the subsequent English manuscripts of the "Three-Body Problem". Only then did he realize that the email he received before was really sent by Obama.
Seeing this, you may have guessed who he is, right? That's right, he is Liu Cixin , which has promoted Chinese science fiction literature to world-class level.
Liu Cixin has gained a large number of fans because of her writing science fiction novels. In addition to Obama, Zuckerberg, Ma Huateng , Lei Jun and other well-known figures are also his fans.
He was originally just an engineer in a power plant, but he used his spare time to write science fiction novels and won the Hugo Award , known as the "Nobel Prize in Science Fiction". How did he achieve his life transformation step by step?
01
1963, Liu Cixin was born in Beijing. Her father was a cadre of Beijing Coal Design Institute and her mother was a demobilized soldier.
When he was 3 years old, the "Cultural Revolution" broke out. Because his uncle once joined the Kuomintang, their whole family was transferred to a coal mine in Yangquan, Shanxi Province. His father worked as a miner and his mother worked as an elementary school teacher. From then on, their family lived in the coal mine.
At that time, life in the coal mine was very monotonous and there was no entertainment, so Liu Cixin secretly found the books collected by her father. It contains famous works such as "Dream of Red Mansions" and "The Complete Works of Shakespeare", but Liu Cixin does not like it.
When Liu Cixin was in the third grade of elementary school, she accidentally found a book called " Travel Notes on the Earth Center " written by Jules Verne in the books collected by her father. This is the first science fiction book he read in his life.
He was immediately attracted by the science fiction content in the book. The stories in the book aroused his infinite imagination of the planet, the interstellar and the universe. He was extremely excited inside. He felt that this book was waiting for him to meet. More than 0 years later, in an interview, he talked about his feelings about the first time he saw this book, and he said: "I feel like I opened the window in a dark room. I feel like I was born to watch science fiction."
This time, the encounter became his lifelong love . has been in love with science fiction since he watched "Travels in the Center of Earth". Later, he found science fiction novels such as "The Divine Comedy of Space" and " BeiDiao " in the books collected by his father.
However, at the time of the Cultural Revolution, these books were easily targeted for criticism. My father was afraid that something would happen because of this, so he warned him many times not to read such books.
At this time, Liu Cixin could not stop sci-fi novels, so he began to secretly continue reading without telling his father.
Later, Liu Cixin would also read some domestic science fiction works. He bought all the science fiction novels published in China every year. In this way, he became one of the earliest science fiction fans in China.
Liu Cixin, in her youth, was spent on reading science fiction novels except studying. And a lot of reading has also laid the foundation for his future science fiction creation.
Einstein once said: "Interest is the best teacher." It was driven by interest that Liu Cixin became obsessed with the science fiction world, and then gradually embarked on the path of science fiction writers.
02
With the increase in reading science fiction books, the pictures about planets, space and the universe in Liu Cixin's mind are becoming more and more three-dimensional. He even outlines various objects in space in his mind and imagines how he feels when touching the stars.
When there are more and more thoughts and feelings in your mind, Liu Cixin really wants to express them. So, when he was in middle school, he began to write science fiction novels and tried to contribute.
Although Liu Cixin kept writing and submitting articles, she also kept receiving rejections, sometimes even like a rock sinking into a sea of stones and didn’t even have to reject them, but he still insisted on writing and submitting articles.
When Liu Cixin first started writing, she chose to start with a novel. His first novel, " Supernova Era ", has undergone several revisions in his creation. But when he sent the manuscript to the publishing house, he got a series of letters of rejection.
Liu Cixin did not give up because of this, but began to look for the reasons why the work was not published. He found science fiction publications that have been published on the market, carefully analyzed and studied what kind of works readers really wanted.
After in-depth analysis and research, he found that readers of science fiction journals at that time preferred short stories, and novels were not favored in the market.
So he began to devote himself to the creation of short stories. Sure enough, his first short story, " Bring Her Eyes ", was published soon.
"Bring Her Eyes" won Liu Cixin his first Galaxy Award , opening the "History of the Gods" of the "Eight consecutive awards", and was also selected as the People's Education Press seventh grade Chinese textbook.
As Johnson once said: "H's great works are not achieved by strength, but by persistence. ." If Liu Cixin gave up writing after being rejected for the first time, then there will be no subsequent masterpieces such as " Wandering Earth " and "Three-Body Problem" will be released.
It is really difficult to stick to one thing, especially when encountering difficulties, it is even more difficult to stick to it. However, when you persist, there will be unexpected results.
03
1985, Liu Cixin graduated from university. He was assigned to a power plant in Yangquan Niangziguan, Shanxi Province and became a computer engineer.
In that era, the spare time of power plant employees was very monotonous, and most people either played poker or mahjong after work.
At the beginning, Liu Cixin will also participate in playing mahjong. But he always lost, the worst time he lost a month's salary. From then on, he decided not to waste his time playing mahjong. Instead, I regained my hobby when I was in school and started reading and writing science fiction novels.
In the days to come, he spent one-third of his life writing, and could write a book of 360,000 words a year.
During his 30 years working in a power plant, he has published a total of 13 novels. His first two well-known masterpieces, " Spherical Lightning ", "Supernova Era", "The Wandering Earth" and "The Three-Body Problem", were all created during this period.
In 2009, Niangzizhao power plant was shut down due to environmental protection issues. Just when everyone was worried about their livelihood, Liu Cixin was transferred to the local literary and artistic creation laboratory to start a full-time working model of engaging in literary creation and research.
This is entirely due to the many works he published during his tenure, which made him famous. At this point, Liu Cixin finally transformed her hobbies for so many years into a career and became a true professional science fiction writer.
As the saying goes, "Work harder will bring you rewards." On the road of life, as long as you have worked hard, sowed, and watered, then harvesting is a matter of time.
04
Liu Cixin once said: "Mainstream literature describes the world that God has created, while science fiction literature creates the world like God and then describes it."
Most people believe that science fiction is fabricated out of thin air by imagination and has no practical value. Therefore, many people now only value knowledge and ignore the meaning of imagination.
In fact, many new inventions begin with imagination. For example, the future clothing of human beings described by Liu Cixin in "The Three-Body Problem" can display images like computer monitor . Now, Professor Peng Huisheng of of Fudan University has led the team to successfully develop a fabric display.
is a coincidence. In "The Three-Body Problem", Liu Cixin describes a character named Yun Tianming . She took out her brain to freeze when she died, and finally resurrected through the Three-Body Problem .
In 2015, the editorial member of "Three-Body Problem" Du Hong died of pancreatic cancer . Before her death, she chose to freeze her brain and wait for 50 years to resurrect when medical technology develops.
Liu Cixin Through his words, people's curiosity about the unknown and their imagination of the future. Then, this imagination will gradually become a reality through technological means.
Seeing that science fiction has been turned into reality one by one, do you still think that science fiction is far from our lives?
Author: Yilu Xiangqian
Instructor: Angel
References:
1. Celebrity Biography Monthly 2019.2.13 "Liu Cixin: The story of the universe can never be told in my life"
2. Shangguan News 2022.10.9 "Three-Body Science Fiction Becomes Reality! Professor Fudan invented the "monitor worn on the body" that can also charge the phone》
3.Xiaoxiang Morning News 2022.8.2 "People Interview | What do you like to talk about when Liu Cixin is not talking about science fiction? 》
