Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great honor to receive Clarke Award for Imaging in Service to Society Award.
This award is a reward for imagination, which is a kind of power that seems to belong to God, and its significance is far beyond our imagination. Some historians have said that the reason why human beings can surpass other species on the earth to establish civilization is mainly because they can create things in their own brains that do not exist in reality. In the future, when artificial intelligence has more intelligence than human beings, imagination may be the only advantage we have for them.
Science fiction is a literature based on imagination, and the first one that impressed me was Arthur Clarke's work. In addition to Jules Verne and George Wells, Clarke's works are the first western modern science fiction to enter China. In the early 1980s, China published his 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous With Rama. At that time, the Cultural Revolution had just ended, the old life and beliefs had collapsed, and the new ones had not been established. Like other young people, I was confused. These two books activated my imagination for the first time. My mind suddenly opened up and I felt like a stream flowing into the sea. The night after reading 2001: A Space Odyssey, I went out to look at the sky. At that time, the sky in China was not polluted much, and I could see the Milky Way. In my eyes, the sky was completely different from the past. For the first time, I had a sense of awe for the grandeur and mystery of the universe, which was a religious feeling. Later, I read Rendezvous With Rama, and I marveled at how to use imagination to build a lifelike imaginary world. It was these feelings Clarke brought me that made me become a science fiction writer later.
Now, more than 30 years later, I gradually find that our generation born in China in the 1960s is probably the luckiest person in human history, because no generation before us has witnessed such great changes in the world around us, the world we live in now, The world of our childhood is already two different worlds, and this change is still accelerating. China is a country full of a sense of the future. China's future may be full of challenges and crises, but it has never been as attractive as it is now. This has provided fertile soil for science fiction and made it receive unprecedented attention in China. As a science fiction novelist born in China for 60 years, it is lucky among the lucky.
The purpose of my original creation of science fiction is to escape from the dull life and use my imagination to touch the magical time and space that I can never reach. But later, I found that the world around us has become more and more like science fiction, and this process is still accelerating rapidly. The future is like the heavy rain in midsummer, which will come to us before we can open our umbrellas. At the same time, I was dismayed to find that when science fiction becomes reality, no one will feel magical, and they will soon become a part of life. So I have to let my imagination go farther into time and space to find the magic of science fiction. Science fiction will become a part of ordinary life at a faster and faster speed. As a science fiction writer, I think our responsibility is to write them before things become ordinary.
On the other hand, the world is developing in the opposite direction to Clarke's prediction. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, in the past 2001, mankind has established a magnificent city in space, a permanent colony on the moon, and a huge nuclear powered spacecraft has sailed to Saturn. In reality, in 2018, no one will ever land on the moon. The longest distance of human navigation in space is two hours of high-speed trains passing through my city. At the same time, information technology is developing at an unimaginable speed. The network covers the whole world. In the increasingly comfortable comfort nest created by IT, people gradually lose interest in space. They are more willing to experience virtual space in VR than real space exploration, which is full of difficulties. It's like a saying: "You only gave me FACEBOOK when you said the stars and the sea."
This reality is also reflected in science fiction, Clarke's magnificent imagination of space has gradually faded away, and people's eyes have been drawn back from the starry sky. Today's science fiction novels more imagine human life in the network utopia or dystopia, and pay more attention to various problems encountered in reality. The imagination of science fiction has changed from Clarke's broad and profound imagination to Cyberpunk's narrow and introverted imagination.
As a science fiction writer, I have been trying to continue Clarke's imagination. I believe that the boundless space is still the best destination and destination of human imagination. I have been describing the grand and magical universe, interstellar exploration, and life and civilization in the distant world. Although among today's science fiction writers, this will seem childish, or even out of step with the times. Just like Clarke's epitaph: "He never grew up, but never stopped growing".
Different from people's common misconceptions, science fiction is not about predicting the future. It just arranges the various possibilities of the future, like a pile of imagination pebbles, for people to enjoy and play with. Science fiction cannot tell us which of these countless possible futures will become a reality. This is not its task, nor is it beyond its ability.
But one thing is certain: in the long run, in the countless possible future, no matter what prosperity the earth has achieved, the future without space navigation will be bleak.
I look forward to the day when, like those sci-fi novels that once described the information age, the sci-fi novels that describe space travel will become commonplace. At that time, Mars and the asteroid belt were boring places, where countless people made a living; Jupiter and its many moons have become tourist attractions, and the only obstacle preventing people from going there is the high price.
But even at this time, the universe is still a big unimaginable existence, and the nearest star is still far away. The vast starry sky can always carry our infinite imagination.
Thank you.
