Sci-fi taking over the world: from Frankenstein to Chinese chasing aliens

Science fiction has come a long way since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in a Swiss villa over 200 years ago. The British author's dark, compelling and cautious tale, written at the end of the First Industrial Revolution, featuring a scientist bringing a sapient creature to life from body parts, captured the squeamishness and fears of a transforming society experimenting with surgery.

Literature lovers will debate this, but many credit Shelley's monstrous work for kick-starting sci-fi, arguing that the genre plays an influential role in expressing the hopes and fears we project into our creations by imaginatively combining the rigors of science with the freedom of fiction.

As we celebrate World Book Day, CGTN Europe plots the rise of science fiction, tries to define this incredible genre, considering both its objectives and how authors in China and Africa are taking sci-fi to new horizons. Pages are turning, it's big business, and it's growing. The sector has jumped by over a half in the UK over the last five years and is now worth $12.31 billion a year in China.

What is Science Fiction?

Oxford Languages defines this genre as fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes. Typical subjects are space and time travel, robots, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, virtual reality, extraterrestrial life and genetic experimentation.

No matter how advanced this science is, the focus is based on real scientific principles, as opposed to involving magic, mythology or the supernatural, which is where the genre can slip into 'fantasy' world. Lines can be as blurry as a Harry Potter wand wave, though. It is perhaps best described by sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke, who opined: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Regardless of the technologies or scientific advances being depicted, sci-fi often speculates about the effects on or consequences for the reality of the world being described. To summarize, sci-fi stories tend to reflect on how science and technology can cause mistakes for individuals or society, used as a metaphor for how they can go or have gone wrong in our own reality.

How did sci-fi evolve?

There seems to be few doubting that the golden age of sci-fi was the 1950s. Stories such The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? emerged on our book shelves. Societal factors in this hugely transformational era were key to the popularity of these books.

New technologies such as jet travel, TV and nuclear weapons meant people were starting to reconsider how their futures were shaping up. Secondly, the Cold War inspired stories about life in a dystopian future, or about aliens invading the Earth. Finally, the rise of science fiction magazines such as Astounding Science Fiction and Galaxy had more people exposed to sci-fi and they began to view it as a serious genre.

Does science fiction still reflect society?

Sci-fi has always dealt with worst-case scenarios when imagining our possible futures, and artificial intelligence and the climate has often formed the backdrop of human struggles.

For a bleak capitalist AI dystopia story about a writer replacing her own body parts with machine parts to be more productive, look no further than I am AI by Chinese-Canadian writer Ai Jiang, or I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (incredibly from 1950) which predicts the moral dangers of robotic development.

More recently, some of the biggest names writing in the genre have tackled the climate crisis and its apocalyptic or dystopian consequences. Examples include Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and Cormac McCarthy's The Road. A new generation of writers now believes it is impossible to write "near future" sci-fi without focusing on the climate emergency. A new sub-genre has emerged called 'cli-fi'. 

Discussing her novel The Coral Bones about Australia's Great Barrier Reef, EJ Swift said: "I think it would be hard to write near future sci-fi that feels plausible without acknowledging climate breakdown in some way, even if it's implicit rather than explicit in how it touches people's lives."

Science fiction writer Adrian Tchaikovsky, famous for his widescreen space opera novels set in distant galaxies, is writing a horror novella on the climate. Julie Crisp, science fiction literary agent, said: "With the very real science and facts of climate change becoming ever more present and felt in our here and now, is it any wonder that more science fiction writers are using their stories to write cautionary tales of a future where humanity will be forced to adapt and change in order to survive?"

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Beyond the West

Saving humanity and exploring new planets is not just an exclusive activity for Americans or Europeans. A new movement has been building momentum for a few years - ranging from Russian science fiction with a history reaching into the 19th Century, to Afrofuturism, a movement rooted in experiences of black oppression. The Chinese market is also bubbling vigorously, particularly thanks to a dark and sizzling series focused on the country's revolutionary history and aliens.

Step forward writers Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang. Liu, in particular, has been described as the "most important author" of this new generation. His book The Three-Body Problem, first released in 2006, is credited with pushing Chinese science fiction into the mainstream and is about to hit Netflix in an eight-part series.

The story involves aliens and a "mind-boggling journey spanning continents and timelines," from the 1960s Cultural Revolution in China to Oxford in the UK and the UN headquarters in New York. In 2014 the book was translated into English and a year later won a Hugo Award, the Oscars of science fiction. Liu was the first Chinese sci-fi writer to win the award. He's also lifted the Galaxy Award, China's most prestigious literary sci-fi award, nine times.

The Three-Body Problem and its two sequels have sold over eight million copies worldwide, with former U.S. president Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg big fans. There was even a 'Three-Body' Global Fan Conference in Chengdu last October. An expert announced: "The Three-Body Problem has become a cross-generational cultural symbol."

Liu has confessed that Hollywood is the reason for getting into science fiction, but recognizes the pace of incredible societal change in his home country and its effect on the genre. "China's developing really fast, and people are confronting opportunities and challenges that make them think about the future in a wildly imaginative and speculative way," he said. "When China's pace of development slows, its science fiction will change."

Artificial intelligence is the 60-year-old Beijing-born author's top concern. He believes AI will mean his generation of writers will be the last to create novels based "purely on their own thinking, without the aid of artificial intelligence." He's also staying positive, despite the technological doom and gloom.

"As a sci-fi writer, I'm optimistic about our future," he adds. "The resources in our solar system alone can feed about 100,000 planet Earths. Our future is potentially limitless – even within our current neighborhood." 

Afro inspiration

Not only is science fiction big business, it's increasingly a booming global business. The Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor's Binti is a stand-out performer for the concept of Afrofuturism. Her 2015 book depicts an African tribe modeled on the Namibian Himba people 1,000 years into the future. Another author making great strides focused on African roots is Tade Thompson - the latest in a long line of medical doctors to become a writer.

Born in London, UK in the 1970s, Thompson grew up in Nigeria, returning to the UK in 1998, studying medicine and social anthropology in both countries, before becoming a full-time hospital psychiatrist.

In 2019, he won the Arthur C Clarke award, the UK's most prestigious prize for sci-fi novels, for Rosewater, part of a trilogy set in a mid-2060s Nigeria about alien animals. "If you're writing science-fiction, often people are expecting astronomy and space ships. I'm more interested in the human being who has to go up in a rocket. What really interests me are human emotions," he said.

New technologies, threats, fears and conflicts mean new inspiration and sources of stories for sci-fi. Harry Potter book publisher Bloomsbury is certainly benefitng, thanks to its stable of high-flying authors such as Sarah J Maas. Shares in the company climbed seven percent in February, with the fantasy and sci-fi genre growing by over 50 per cent in the UK in the last five years, according to book publishing data provider Nielsen Bookscan. 

UK booksellers will hope for a repeat of the flurry of business that followed last year's World Book Day when it provided a 30 percent jump in book sales.  

Chinese markets have been similarly buoyant.  According to the 2023 China Science Fiction Industry report, the total revenue of China's science fiction industry reached $12.31 billion for the year, indicating a huge bounce following a lull during the COVID pandemic. Another sign that China is increasingly becoming a magnet for sci-fi forces was shown last October when Chengdu Science Fiction Museum hosted the prestigious World Science Fiction Convention.

As Chinese author Liu prepares to watch The Three-Body Problem on Netflix 16 years after his book was published, it would appear there's plenty going on in the world to keep our sci-fi creators busy and to satisfy a global audience increasingly curious with alternative universes and narratives. 

Liu says: "Earth is pretty messed up. If we don't get into space, soon we're not going to have anywhere to live at all." 

If you can't afford a rocket, then maybe it's best to read about it.

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