Global participants join a sci-fi themed music live performance at the 2025 Galaxy Science Fiction Convention on September 20, 2025 in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province. Photo: Courtesy of the organizers

For sci-fi enthusiast Zhai Keyan, China's science fiction convention in Chengdu still captures his attention as it offers a chance to see the development of the genre which formulated his childhood dreams.

"The Galaxy Awards embody the evolving spirit of Chinese science fiction," Zhai told the Global Times.

For 40 years, the Galaxy Awards, initiated by Chinese sci-fi magazine Science Fiction World, have stood as a mirror to the shifting dreams and aspirations of Chinese science fiction. 

In this year's Galaxy Awards, the Best Long Novel prize went to Yang Wanqing's Jintao, or Golden Peach, but more broadly, online literature is being recognized as a new source of vitality for sci-fi. 

As China's sci-fi reaches an ever wider global audience, many writers are asking: where does it go from here?

Prominent among those thinking about this is Han Song, who has won the Galaxy Award seven times. He suggested that while Chinese science fiction has made significant strides, there is still room for improvement.

"Compared with many foreign science fiction works that are able to propose new worlds and worldviews, Chinese science fiction, though it has made progress, is still more about reprocessing, absorbing, and recreating existing materials, hence there is room for further breakthroughs," Han told the Global Times. 

He also calls for young writers to go beyond surface-level fascination with technology and engage deeply with both science and society.

"To truly understand the changes and current state of cutting-edge science and technology, one must go beyond the surface and engage in in-depth study," Han said. 

"It is also essential to gain a deeper understanding of society and human nature. Learning from and emulating outstanding works around the world is a path worth continuing to pursue."

Development matters

Beyond technological imagination, veteran writers also link sci-fi to social and cultural developments.

Wang Jinkang, another veteran whose Galaxy Awards tally is among the highest of Chinese writers, locates China's sci-fi trajectory in relation to national development. 

"The progress of Chinese society is first reflected in the broadening of knowledge, especially as the younger generation's knowledge threshold has risen," Wang told the Global Times. 

"The expansion has widened the scope of both readers and writers of science fiction, forming a fundamental condition for the genre's development."

Wang added that if science fiction were limited to concrete technical ideas, it would mainly be the work of scientists, not the core task of science fiction. 

"Science fiction literature should encompass the stimulation of thought, aesthetic experience as well as social warning," Wang said.

"The development of science fiction is proportional to a country's level of science, economy, and cognition. Unlike pure literature, which can flourish even in times of disaster, science fiction depends on these conditions," Wang said. 
 
Liu Cixin, Hugo Award-winning author of The Three-Body Problem and considered a pioneer blending cosmic imagination with reflections on humanity's fate, acknowledges the challenges for sci-fi literature.

"Technology becomes ubiquitous in everyday life, what once felt miraculous can seem ordinary nowadays," Liu told reporters. 

"In that context, science fiction must find new expressive forms commensurate with living within, not outside, a world already shaped everywhere by technological change."

The discussion has also taken on a regional dimension. South Korean awarding-winning sci-fi writer Kim Bo-young, a guest at the convention, said that Asian sci-fi often adopts a "circular" narrative style, contrasting with the more linear and binary structures common in Western traditions. 

"Western science fiction tends to follow a more linear, binary approach, whereas our Eastern science fiction narratives are more like a circle, which allows us to fill in gaps that Western works do not cover," she told reporters.

A robot at the main hall of the Galaxy Science Fiction Convention Photo: Courtesy of the organizers

International reach

As Chinese sci-fi gains global recognition, questions about international reach and cross-cultural communication come into focus. The Galaxy Award also recognizes the importance of international reach of Chinese sci-fi works. 

The US-based science fiction magazine Clarkesworld won the Best International Communication Award this year, in recognition of its long‐running work in publishing Chinese sci-fi works since 2015.

Neil Clarke, editor-in-chief of the magazine, recalled that the initial success made the program an "easy process."

"It started with the help of Ken Liu [English translator of The Three-Body Problem], who sent us the first couple of translations that we did. That caught some attention," Clarke told the Global Times. 

"We had people clamoring for more, and the whole program started as a result of those initial successes. It's been a very easy process to maintain because the stories have all been fantastic."

Since then, Clarke noted, Chinese stories have become a regular part of the magazine's offerings, not because of where they come from, but because they stand as strong works of science fiction in their own right. 

"Some people try and use these stories as a gateway into the mindset of a country, but that's unnecessary. We publish Chinese stories alongside English-language stories because we feel they're equals," he said. "By spreading them out, we're making a statement of our belief in the value they bring, because they are good science fiction, not because they come from a specific place."

It comes out to be a unique observation for Clarke that though films and TV programs have a bigger audience than literature, sci-fi world has passionate fans for both. "It doesn't matter which one is bigger. Movies and TV count on literature. If you get rid of one, it hurts the other."

Clarke emphasized that the future of the genre will be increasingly international, with barriers of language and perception slowly breaking down.

"The future of science fiction is international. We have a lot of language barriers that need to come down, and they're coming down now," he told the Global Times, before stressing the need for more exchanges like the convention.

"Preconceptions can be removed once people actually have the experience of the convention. We need more cross-communication at a fan-to-fan level, which we have a little, but not nearly enough."