Recently, the science fiction author Jiang Bo's latest work, "Heaven's Sail," has been jointly published by Baguangfen Culture and People's Literature Publishing House.
Cover Image of "Sky Sail"
Image provided by the publisher.
Jiang Bo, a member of the China Science Writers Association, graduated from Tsinghua University in 2003 with a major in Microelectronics. In the same year, he published his first science fiction novel, "The Last Game." Over the past 20 years, Jiang Bo has published over ten full-length science fiction novels and more than sixty short stories.
His masterpiece, the epic science fiction trilogy "Heart of the Galaxy," has won the Galaxy Award and the Chinese Nebula Award, and has been adapted into an animated series of the same name. In 2021, his work "Soul Transference Technique" was adapted into the movie "Soul Chaser," which received widespread acclaim. Based on his novel "Nezha," an animated short film of the same name won over ten awards domestically and internationally. In 2023, his new short story "Hanging by a Thread" was shortlisted for the prestigious Hugo Award.
The story of "Sky Sail" takes place over a hundred years in the future, where China has constructed a planetary-level space station project called "Sky Sail One." However, this attracts the arrival of extraterrestrial spacecraft to Earth, and Chinese aerospace engineer Jiang Xiaoyu and his colleagues become crucial in resolving this crisis. "Sky Sail" vividly depicts futuristic spectacles and exudes the unique sense of unfamiliarity characteristic of science fiction. For example, the novel portrays "Sky Sail One" as a prototype of the famous space energy project "Dyson Sphere," with a main structure spanning three hundred kilometers. "Sky Sail" also depicts how future human society responds to various crises, presenting a panoramic and grand science fiction narrative.
Renowned science fiction writer Liu Cixin commented, "Sky Sail provides rigorous and textured descriptions of future human space technology and imagines grand and transcendent alien civilizations. These two imagined worlds overlap and form a magnificent epic of civilizations encountering and merging."
"Sky Sail" is also a work rich in realistic characters and lifelike atmosphere. The novel values accessibility and is very reader-friendly. After reading it, film critic Zhang Xiaobei remarked, "Sky Sail is a mature work with the potential to break new ground."
At the same time, "Sky Sail" strongly reflects Chinese elements, imagining a story based on the contemporary level of China's aerospace development. The concept of "Sky Sail One" is actually getting closer to us. In this era of rapid advancement in Chinese technology and aerospace, Chinese literature particularly needs its own hymn to China's aerospace endeavors.
