先生们、女士们，晚上好，
很荣幸获得Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society Award。
这个奖项是对想象力的奖励，而想象力是人类所拥有的一种似乎只应属于神的能力，它存在的意义也远超出我们的想象。有历史学家说过，人类之所以能够超越地球上的其它物种建立文明，主要是因为他们能够在自己的大脑中创造出现实中不存在的东西。在未来，当人工智能拥有超过人类的智力时，想象力也许是我们对于它们所拥有的唯一优势。
科幻小说是基于想象力的文学，而最早给我留下深刻印象的是Arthur . Clarke的作品。除了Jules Verne和George Wells外， Clarke的作品是最早进入中国的西方现代科幻小说。在上世纪八十年代初，中国出版了他的《2001:A Space Odyssey》和《Rendezvous With Rama》。当时文革刚刚结束，旧的生活和信仰已经崩塌，新的还没有建立起来，我和其他年轻人一样，心中一片迷茫。这两本书第一次激活了我想象力，思想豁然开阔许多，有小溪流进大海的感觉。读完《2001:A Space Odyssey》的那天深夜，我走出家门仰望星空，那时的中国的天空还没有太多的污染，能够看到银河，在我的眼中，星空与过去完全不一样了，我第一次对宇宙的宏大与神秘产生了敬畏感，这是一种宗教般的感觉。而后来读到的《Rendezvous With Rama》,也让我惊叹如何可以用想象力构造一个栩栩如生的想象世界。正是Clarke带给我的这些感受，让我后来成为一名科幻作家。
现在，三十多年过去了，我渐渐发现，我们这一代在上世纪六十年代出生于中国的人，很可能是人类历史上最幸运的人，因为之前没有任何一代人，像我们这样目睹周围的世界发生了如此巨大的变化，我们现在生活的世界，与我们童年的世界已经完全是两个不同的世界，而这种变化还在加速发生着。中国是一个充满着未来感的国度，中国的未来可能充满着挑战和危机，但从来没有像现在这样具有吸引力，这就给科幻小说提供了肥沃的土壤，使其在中国受到了空前的关注，作为一个在六十年代出生在中国的科幻小说家，则是幸运中的幸运。
我最初创作科幻小说的目的，是为了逃离平淡的生活，用想象力去接触那些我永远无法到达的神奇时空。但后来我发现，周围的世界变得越来越像科幻小说了，这种进程还在飞快地加速，未来像盛夏的大雨，在我们还不及撑开伞时就扑面而来。同时我也沮丧地发现，当科幻变为现实时，没人会感到神奇，它们很快会成为生活中的一部分。所以我只有让想象力前进到更为遥远的时间和空间中去寻找科幻的神奇，科幻小说将以越来越快的速度变成平淡生活的一部分，作为一名科幻作家，我想我们的责任就是在事情变的平淡之前把它们写出来。
但另一方面，世界却向着与Clarke的预言相反的方向发展。在《2001:A Space Odyssey》中，在已经过去的2001年，人类已经在太空中建立起壮丽的城市，在月球上建立起永久性的殖民地，巨大的核动力飞船已经航行到土星。而在现实中的2018年，再也没有人登上月球，人类在太空中航行的最远的距离，也就是途经我所在的城市的高速列车两个小时的里程。与此同时，信息技术却以超乎想象的速度发展，网络覆盖了整个世界，在IT所营造的越来越舒适的安乐窝中，人们对太空渐渐失去了兴趣，相对于充满艰险的真实的太空探索，他们更愿意在VR中体验虚拟的太空。这像有一句话说的：“说好的星辰大海，你却只给了我FACEBOOK。”（注：这句话应该有英语的原文，但我查不到。）
这样的现实也反映在科幻小说中，Clarke对太空的瑰丽想象已经渐渐远去，人们的目光从星空收回，现在的科幻小说，更多地想象人类在网络乌托邦或反乌托邦中的生活，更多地关注现实中所遇到的各种问题，科幻的想象力由Clarke的广阔和深远，变成Cyberpunk的狭窄和内向。
作为科幻作家，我一直在努力延续着Clarke的想象，我相信，无垠的太空仍然是人类想象力最好的去向和归宿，我一直在描写宇宙的宏大神奇，描写星际探险，描写遥远世界中的生命和文明，尽管在现在的科幻作家中，这样会显得有些幼稚，甚至显得跟不上时代。正如Clarke的墓志铭：“他从未长大，但从未停止成长”。
与人们常有的误解不同，科幻小说并不是在预测未来，它只是把未来的各种可能性排列出来，就像一堆想象力的鹅卵石，摆在那里供人们欣赏和把玩。这无数个可能的未来哪一个会成为现实，科幻小说并不能告诉我们，这不是它的任务，也超出了它的能力。
但有一点可以确定：从长远的时间尺度来看，在这无数可能的未来中，不管地球达到了怎样的繁荣，那些没有太空航行的未来都是暗淡的。
我期待有那么一天，像那些曾经描写过信息时代的科幻小说一样，描写太空航行的科幻小说也变的平淡无奇了，那时的火星和小行星带都是乏味的地方，有无数的人在那里谋生；木星和它众多的卫星已成为旅游胜地，阻止人们去那里的唯一障碍就是昂贵的价格。
但即使在这个时候，宇宙仍是一个大的无法想象的存在，距我们最近的恒星仍然遥不可及。浩瀚的星空永远能够承载我们无穷的想象力。
谢谢大家。
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good evening!
It’s my great honor to receive the Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society. Thank you.
This award is a reward for imagination, a capability that should have been exclusive to God but we, as human beings, luckily have. And the meaning of the existence of imagination is far beyond our imagination. A historian used to say that the main reason why human beings have been able to surpass other species on earth and build civilizations is that we are able to create something in our heads that does not exist in reality. In the future, when artificial intelligence becomes smarter than us, imagination may be the only advantage we have over AI.
Science fiction is a literary genre based on imagination. And the first sci-fi works the impressed me were those by Arthur C. Clarke. Together with Jules Verne and George Wells, Arthur Clarke was among the first Western modern sci-fi writers to enter China. In the early 1980s, the two novels??2001: A Space Odyssey??and??Rendezvous With Rama??were published in my country. At that time, the Cultural Revolution just came to an end. While the old life and faith had collapsed, the new ones had not yet been established. Like other young people, I felt lost during that period. These two books, for the first time, however, brought my imagination to life. My mind opened up like never before. I felt like a narrow stream finally embracing the sea. At midnight when I finished reading??2001: A Space Odyssey, I walked out of the house and stared at the starry sky. I was able to see the galaxy, thanks to the unpolluted sky of China back then. That night, in my eyes, the starry sky looked nothing like before. For the first time in my life, I was awed by the magnitude and mystery of our universe. That feeling was religious. Later on,??Rendezvous With Rama stunned me by showing how imagination could build a lifelike, fantastic world. It was Arthur Clarke who brought me such feelings, and that brought me here as a sci-fi writer.
Today, more than 30 years later, it gradually dawns on me that people like me, who were born in the 1960s in China, are probably the luckiest people in human history. No generation is like us, no generation has been able to witness such tremendous changes in the world around us. The world we are living in today is completely different from that of our childhood. And such changes are taking place with even greater speed. China is a highly futuristic country. It is true that the future of China may be full of challenges and risks, but never has this country been so attractive like today. This reality provides fertile soil for the growth of science fiction, which is enjoying unprecedented attention in the country. As a sci-fi author who was born in the 1960s in China, I’m the luckiest from the luckiest generation.
I started writing sci-fi because I decided to escape the dull life, and to reach out, with imagination, to the mysterious time and space that I could never truly reach. But then I realized that the world around me became more and more like science fiction, and this process is speeding up. Future is like a pouring rain. It falls right on us even before we have time to open an umbrella. Meanwhile, when sci-fi becomes reality, it won’t be hailed as magical any more, and that frustrates me. Sci-fi will soon become part of our lives. The only thing I can do, is to push my imagination further to even more distant time and space to hunt for the mysteries of sci-fi. As a sci-fi author, I think my job is to write things down before they get really boring.
This being said, the world is moving in the direction opposite to Clarke’s predictions. In??2001: A Space Odyssey, in the year of 2001, which has already passed, human beings have built magnificent cities in space, and established permanent colonies on the moon, and huge nuclear-powered spacecraft have sailed to Saturn. However, today, in 2018, the walk on the moon has become a distant memory. And the farthest reach of our manned space flights is just as long as the two-hour mileage of a high-speed train passing through my city. At the same time, information technology is developing at an unimaginable speed. The entire world is connected via the Internet and people have gradually lost their interest in space, as they find themselves increasingly comfortable in the space created by IT. Instead of an exploration of the real space, which is full of real difficulties, people now just prefer to experiencing virtual space through VR. Just like someone said, “You promised me Mars colonies, instead, I got Facebook.”
This reality is also reflected in science fiction. Arthur Clarke’s magnificent imagination about space has gradually faded away. People have taken back their eyes from the stars. In the sci-fi works today, there are more imagination about how we live in cyber utopia or dystopia. Writers focus more on various problems we encounter in reality. The imagination of science fiction is abandoning the vastness and profoundness that Arthur Clarke once opened up, instead people are now embracing the narrowness and introversion of cyberpunk.
As a sci-fi writer, I have been striving to continue Arthur Clarke’s imagination. I believe that the boundless space is still the best direction and destination for human imagination. I have always been portraying the magnitude and mysteries of the universe, interstellar expeditions, and the lives and civilizations happening in distant worlds, even if for today’s sci-fi writers, this may seem childish or even outdated. It says on Arthur Clarke’s epitaph, “He never grew up, but he never stopped growing.”
Many people misunderstand sci-fi as trying to predict the future, but this is not true. It just makes a list of possibilities of what may happen in the future, like displaying a pile of cobblestones of imagination for people to see and play with. Science fiction can never tell which possible future will actually become the real future. This is not its job. It’s also beyond its capabilities.
But one thing is certain: in the long run, for all these countless possible futures, any future without space travel is gloomy, no matter how prosperous our own planet becomes.
I look forward to the day when, like the sci-fi works writing about the age of information, those about space travel finally become the ordinary. By then, Mars and the asteroid belts will be boring places and countless people are building a home over there. Jupiter and its many satellites will be tourist attractions. The only obstacle preventing people from going there for good, will be the high price.
But even at that time, the universe is still something so big that even our wildest imagination fails to catch its edge. And even the closest star remains out of our reach. The vast ocean of stars can always carry our infinite imagination.
Thank you all.