My biggest feeling about the 1991 version of "Supernova Era" is: I felt a very strong sense of reality in the 1991 version - even though it was written in the style of a science fiction novel.

Why do you say that? This starts with the "death line" set by Liu Cixin in the novel - the age of 12. I have read many reviews of this book - both the 1991 and 2002 editions - but few have mentioned this age. But I think the key to understanding Liu Cixin's novel, especially its 1991 version, is the design of this age line. Once we understand why he set the age of death at 12 years old, we can figure out what he wanted to express.

According to the content of the txt text circulating on the Internet, the completion date of this book is October 2, 1991. A novel of this length takes about one to two years to write. Coupled with the time required for conception, it can be generally believed that Liu Cixin began to conceive of this novel between 1989 and 1990. There is a rule when writing novels, especially novels: before starting to write, you must first set a time background in real society for the plot of the novel, otherwise you will not be able to start. Generally speaking, novel authors use their own time point as the starting point of the plot of the novel, no matter what era or world they write about in the novel. Then we can think that when Liu Cixin wrote this novel, the prototype of the group of children he described was the Chinese children who were around 12 years old when he first conceived it, that is, between 1989 and 1990.

Children of this age have a very important characteristic of the times: they are the first generation of only children in China.

If you read "Supernova Era" carefully, you will find a phenomenon: all the children who appear, especially the more important ones, have no brothers and sisters. They are all only children. This is a very important reminder left to us by Mr. Liu Cixin: This book is a text about an only child. This is why I said that I felt a very strong sense of reality in the 1991 version: it expressed in the form of science fiction a very fashionable social hot issue in the 1980s - the anxiety of only children.

The so-called "only child anxiety" is a term coined by me, which generally refers to the public opinion about all worries about only children in the 1980s and 1990s - when the first generation of only children were growing up. , for example, these children are "little emperors" and "little princesses" who cannot endure hardship, have poor communication skills, and are weak without the protection of their parents, etc.

We might as well read a passage from the 1991 edition of "Supernova Era":

Huahua looked up and saw that the serial number of the red line connecting Shenyang was 49682, so he Type R49682 on the keyboard and press the Enter key. The cry of a little girl sounded in the hall. She sounded like she was only three or four years old.

"Woooo, hey, wooooooo, hey..."

"I am Beijing, what's wrong with you?!"

"I'm hungry , Hungry, woo woo..."

"Where are you?"

"At home... home, woo woo..."

"Mom and dad Didn’t you leave anything to eat?”

“Oh, no.”

Xiao Meng, who has never spoken to the outside world, is like a little aunt to the invisible one. The little girl said: "Good boy, don't cry. Look for it, huh?"

"Look...can't find it."

"Nonsense! You have a phone number at home. , Can we have nothing to eat?" Huahua said loudly.

"Oh my God, you will scare her!" Xiao Meng covered the phone and glared at Huahua, then said to the little girl: "Good boy, go to the kitchen and look for it, you will definitely find it." There’s something to eat.”

There was no sound from the microphone, and Huahua was anxious to connect to the communication port with other serial numbers, but Xiao Meng insisted on waiting. After a while, the little girl came back crying again.

"Woo, woo, locked, woo, the door is locked..."

"Then... think about it, where does your mother give it to you every morning before going to kindergarten? Get food? "

"We eat pancakes in the morning in kindergarten."

"Well... what about Sunday?"

"Mom gets food from the kitchen. Woohoo..."

"It's terrible! Do you get it from the kitchen every day?"

"Sometimes I eat instant noodles."

"That's right. Do you know where the instant noodles are?"

"Yes."

"Great, bring it quickly!"

There was no sound on the phone again. There was almost a hissing sound, "I brought it, hungry, oooo..." the little girl said.

"Eat!" Huahua said impatiently.

“The bag... the bag cannot be opened.

"

"Hey, you're so stupid, bite a corner and pull it down with your hands! ”

“Oh my God, can she bite?” ! She might be getting her teeth changed now! "Just when Xiao Meng was about to tell her how to open the instant noodle bag, there was a hissing sound from the microphone, followed by the sound of chewing instant noodles.

"No, don't eat it like that, look. Look where the thermos bottle is..."

The little girl ignored Xiao Meng's voice and just ate her food.

——"Supernova Era" 1991 2018 edition of "Take Over the World"

In this passage, Mr. Liu Cixin vividly portrays a three-year-old girl who is helpless and at a loss after losing the protection of her parents just through dialogue. To a large extent, this was the general impression of only children in society at that time, that is, in the 1980s and 1990s, and the flood in "Two Hours to the End of the Age" at the beginning of "Take Over the World". The call from the Information Building clearly showed us: there is not one such child, but a group. This girl represents not only herself, but all children!

"Supernova Era" "The concerns about only children expressed in the 1991 edition do not stop there. In the following story, we read that Chinese children were having fun while American and Japanese children were training hard to prepare for invasion. For those who have experienced that era, such worries are not unfamiliar - do you still remember "The Contest in the Summer Camp" two years later?

However, Mr. Liu Cixin back then was not like Sun Yunxiao. Pessimistic. In the following plot, he told us how Chinese children woke up and formed an army to resist the invasion of Japanese, American, and Russian children. In my opinion, this is not so much an expectation as an expectation. .

However, as a 12-year-old in 1989 and a member of the first generation of only children in China, I can reassure Mr. Liu that we have not disappointed you. ! Hope it will be adopted.