After reading "Depths of Loneliness" 1900 words

After reading "The Depths of Loneliness" 1900 words

It has been a long time since I read a serious science fiction novel.

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When I was in school, I must buy every issue of "Science Fiction World". I bought it from elementary school until I graduated from graduate school. I still have several boxes in the basement of my home. "Science Fiction World" - I hope it hasn't been thrown away by my parents as scrap, stacked together with "Fairy Tale King" and "Scientific American" of the same thickness.

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Of course, I have read far more science fiction novels than "Science Fiction World". I can no longer remember the title of the first book that impressed me deeply. It seems like It's called "World Science Fiction Selection" or something. I still clearly remember that the first novel among them was called "The Head of Professor Dowell", and there was another novel later called "The Galactic Empire Strikes Back - The Conspiracy to Smash the Empire" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth", and there are others that I don't know I remember the story. I read this book on the sofa under the window every day, and I finished reading the whole thick book in one vacation. From then on, my love for science fiction novels became uncontrollable. I read "Dune", "I, Robot", "Foundation", Verne, HG Wells and all of them.

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This preference lasted until I went abroad.

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It has become very inconvenient to buy books after going abroad. When reading, I can read whatever books I can find, and my scope of interest has expanded a lot.

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Looking back, I have not read a science fiction novel seriously for many years. Even when "The Three-Body Problem" was first released, I was not able to read it as soon as possible. Some time ago, Hao Jingfang's "Beijing Folding" won the Hugo Award, the highest award for science fiction novels. With the book discount on JD.com (see "Buying Books"), I bought this copy of "Deep Loneliness".

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This book is a collection of science fiction novels by Hao Jingfang. The first one is the famous "Beijing Folding". To be honest, this novel is mediocre, so I ignored the principle of "no spoilers". The novel writes such a background: Beijing residents are divided into three levels according to their work attributes, and each enjoys a period of 48 hours. They do not see each other. When the "shift change" occurs, the entire city's buildings will fold, and "off duty" "People go back to bed to "sleep", waiting to wake up again. The main line of the story is that a garbage cleaner on the third level "smuggles" to the second and first levels of society to deliver news and earn black commissions for his adopted daughter. Around this main line, the novel also describes the second and first levels. The differences in society and the necessity of folding Beijing - following the ideas of the Chinese language class analysis article - also expose the hypocrisy of the upper class.

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Overall, the story is straightforward and nothing particularly touching. However, the whole story strongly reveals the "reserved" attitude towards Beijing's urban construction. If this was an article for self-entertainment on a blog, it would undoubtedly be a very interesting masterpiece, but as an article for a broad audience, The novel seems a bit frivolous. The novel uses "folding", a technically and ethically unrealistic method, to vividly describe the serious disconnect between the actual life of the temporary migrant workers in Beijing and the lives of Beijing's students and elite population. This is probably the main reason why the novel won the Hugo Award. It can be seen that even the science fiction world, which has always been detached, is inevitably affected by political views.

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In addition, it is difficult to feel the flavor of science fiction in this novel. The idea of ??folding a city is indeed grand and romantic, but it is difficult to make people feel like it. People are convinced, how much does it cost to turn the entire city into this? Secondly, it’s technically unbelievable – unless you’re on a spaceship like Battlestar – but the Beijing described in the article is not a city dominated by cold metal structures. Third, just to allow some people to "have something to do", allowing them to stay awake for only 12 hours within 48 hours is really a weird setting. Can't virtual reality technology be used? Finally, the fold in the article It is difficult for Beijing to communicate with other cities in terms of time, or cities all over the world have become "folded". Therefore, in my opinion, the entire story has constructed such a fragile world system, and its only purpose is to show the extreme phenomenon of Beijing’s current high-rise buildings and basements living in groups. If you insist on whether this style belongs to science fiction, it can barely be adapted from Wells' novel. This master likes to use science fiction novels to discuss politics and philosophy. For example, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" discusses the relationship between humans and animals, and "The Time Machine" discusses capitalists and workers. However, in my opinion, Wells's novels are not Likeable, at least rarely mentioned.

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Although a science fiction novel is not a scientific paper, it must at least be technically able to "muddle through" and be convincing, because generally speaking, the stories of science fiction novels The plot is based on some imaginary science and technology. Only when readers feel that these technological assumptions are tenable can the development of the story be convincing. Otherwise, readers will only doubt the possibility of the story over and over again. This is the case for several novels in "Depths of Loneliness". A seemingly perfunctory technical hypothesis begins to unfold the story, and usually the author also hopes to discuss more profound truths in the story, such as the idea in the second article The moon was shattered by the vibration of the gun, and the energy source of the vibration was actually the musical instruments played by a few people at the foot of the mountain - I think these people must have deep internal skills. There is a short story about the fate of immigrants on Jupiter's moons, which reads like a science fiction novel.

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In this aspect, I have to say that Liu is really amazing, from "Earth Fire" and "Bring My Eyes" to "Ball Lightning" and "Three "Body" all gives people a sense of technical realism. Only such stories can bring spiritual shock to people. Only such science fiction novels can transcend the limitations of mainstream novels and show conflicts and contradictions in a more exaggerated way with the help of new technologies.

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But in any case, judging from the book "Depths of Loneliness", the author's writing style is still quite good, especially for a student majoring in the Department of Physics , having such humanistic music theory knowledge is also admirable. However, if you want to read some very "hard" science fiction novels, "Depths of Loneliness" - or even "Beijing Folding" is not your first choice.