FOUR short stories written by China’s most popular sci-fi writer have been published in the March edition of People’s Literature, China’s flagship literary magazine, indicating that sci-fi literature was reentering the mainstream.

    One of the four Liu Cixin stories, “Micro Era,” tells of nature creating smaller people to preserve energy after a global catastrophe.

    Li Jingze, chief editor of People’s Literature, said that he found the sci-fi works to be “good for Chinese readers.”

    The magazine first published the sci-fi story “Death Ray on Coral Island” at the beginning of China’s reform and opening up in 1978, starting a new period of science fiction developing without many of the previous restrictions.

    But in 1983, the Chinese Government came up with the slogan “resisting spiritual pollution,” and after that science fiction was publicly derided.

    However China has recently been more lenient towards science fiction and the publishing of the four sci-fi stories in People’s Literature indicated that sci-fi literature was entering the mainstream, Liu said.

    The author appealed for sci-fi writers to create works for the general public, not the elites.

    Liu started to publish his “Three-Body” trilogy in 2008, namely “Three-Body,” “Dark Forest” and “Dead End,” attracting much attention on the Chinese mainland.

    His Dark Forest theory suggests that humans should not attempt to contact extraterrestrials, something that the famous theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking agrees about.

    In November 2011, the trilogy won best saga novel at the second Xingyun Awards, the only international award for Chinese-language science fiction.