Renowned sci-fi author Jiang Bo recently released his latest work, "Sky Sails," in a collaboration between Bguang Fenwenhua and People's Literature Publishing House.
Jiang Bo is the Executive Director of the China Popular Science Writers Association and a 2003 graduate from Tsinghua University with a degree in microelectronics. He published his first science fiction novel, The Last Game, that same year. Over his 20-year career, Jiang Bo has published over 10 full-length science fiction novels and over 60 short and medium-length stories.
Jiang Bo's most famous work, the three-part science fiction epic Heart of the Galaxy, won the Galaxy Award and the Chinese SF Nebula Award and was later adapted into an animated show of the same name. The movie Soul, adapted from his novel Moving Soul, was released in 2021 to wide acclaim. His short animation Nezha, adapted from his novel, won over a dozen awards in China and internationally. He was nominated for the Hugo Award, the most prestigious prize in science fiction, for his recent short story Hanging by a Thread.
The story of Haze of Stars unfolds over a hundred years from now when the Chinese government builds a planetary space station called "Haze I." This attracts extraterrestrial visitors to Earth, and Chinese astronaut Jiang Xiaoyu and his team must save the day. Haze of Stars is incredibly vivid in its description of science fiction settings, delivering the sort of alien sensations unique to the genre. For example, the novel's plan to collect sunlight in space with "Haze I" is a prototype for the famous "Dyson sphere" space energy system, with its structure stretching over three hundred kilometers. Haze of Stars also explores how future human society responds to different kinds of crises, a sweeping science fiction epic in its full grandeur.
As the famous science fiction writer Liu Cixin commented, "Haze of Stars portrays future human space technology with rigor and texture while offering an expansive imagination for extraterrestrial civilizations. The combination of these imaginative worlds creates an epic of civilizations meeting and merging."
Haze of Stars is a work that stays close to the lived world and realistic characters. The novel places great importance on user-friendliness, and it is easily accessible to everyday readers. Film critic Zhang Xiaobai said after finishing it, "Haze of Stars is a mature work with the potential to break boundaries."
At the same time, the Chinese flavor in Haze of Stars is strong, a story set within the context of contemporary Chinese aerospace development. The concept for "Haze I" is something that we may actually see in our future. In this era of rapid advancement for Chinese science and technology and aerospace engineering, Chinese literature needs its own anthem to Chinese space exploration.
