The language/alphabet barrier, as well as the censorship barrier, prevent us from knowing China's Clarke, China's Feynman, China's Tesla maybe.<p>And we've come to reflexively discount anything coming out of China as derivative.<p>Don't forget - China is almost 25% of the human race!<p>What might we in the West be missing out on?
I've just started reading The Three Body Problem (in a Traditional Chinese edition, since I'm more comfortable with that than Simplified). No spoilers please.<p>From my perspective, what little I've read of Chinese speculative fiction (such as a couple of Ni Kuang novels) seems to take a bit of what I call a "golly gee whiz" tone, making a big deal about ideas that would be old hat to most readers of Western SF. What I've read so far of Liu Cixin seems to have a bit of this, but perhaps not as bad; I'll see how I feel after I finish the trilogy.
I think Liu is more inline with Isaac Asimov than Arthur Clarke. Liu is clearly an atheist and intentionally avoid <i>cheap</i> reading gratification achieved by science-religion association.<p>My complaint about Liu: he has a silly admiration towards Stephen Hawking probably due to his obsession with black hole. (but who doesn't?) 200 years later, people might only get to know Stephen Hawking when reading Liu's books.
Reminds me of the wast difference in style, topics and tone between western and Eastern Bloc SCiFi writers.<p>I wonder if Chinese authors also try to criticise regime and socio-political system they live in under the veil of scifi, like Janusz Zajdel in Poland during Russian occupation.
Looks like worth reading, although the themes of the novels covered in the article look pretty much rehashed from other authors like Arthur C. Clarke of course, but also Larry Niven comes to mind.