After breakfast, Nie Hualing and her husband Paul Ingres went to receive and get acquainted with the foreign writers who had been invited.

The International Writing Project invited a total of 37 new generation writers from 13 countries around the world and some long-established literary writers.

Much of the credit for inviting writers from so many countries is due to Paul Ingres, who was one of the first students at the University of Iowa to earn a master's degree in creative writing and won the Yale Young Poets Award more than a decade ago.

From 1941, Paul Ingres taught and presided over the "Writing Workshop", the predecessor of the "International Writing Project", for 25 years, until last year, together with Nie Hualing, he reformed the nature of the workshop, transforming it from a regional writing cultivation site to an international writing base.

On the way back to the dormitory, Lin Yanni asked: "Mr. Huo, the cultural exchange will start tomorrow, and Ms. Nie told me that there is a symphony in the theater in Iowa City today, and my husband and I are going to listen to it, do you want to go together?"

"Nope. ”

Huo Yaowen is not a person who likes to be a light bulb, the couple went to watch the symphony, ran to join in the fun, shook his head and refused: "I just had a good idea, while I still remember it, I will write it down when I go back." ”

"Then we won't bother Mr. Huo. When Lin Yanni heard this, she chuckled and said: "Mr. Huo is really talented, and he is full of ideas when he first comes to the United States. ”

Huo Yaowen smiled: "Fortunately, I have always had this idea before." ”

Soon, when several people arrived at the dormitory on the second floor, they separated, and Li Zhongchen accompanied his wife Lin Yanni back to the house to clean up, changed a set of clothes, and went to the theater in Iowa City to listen to the symphony.

Huo Yaowen went back to the arranged residence, took out a pen and paper from his suitcase, and began to close his eyes and ponder, what kind of science fiction novel should he write.

...

Since the Second World War, the world pattern has undergone earth-shaking changes, the once old empire on which the sun never sets, gradually fell lonely, and the vulture that rose with the war has become the new hegemon of this world.

At the same time, in the distant other hemisphere, a grizzly bear wearing a red flag also woke up from the cold winter.

This eagle and bear have been engaged in military competition since World War II, from small machine guns to large nuclear bombs, all of which are desperately competing.

In the Cuban crisis of 1962, the nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States was on the verge of breaking out, and the whole world was in the crisis and panic of nuclear war at that time.

If Huo Yaowen was reborn at that time, he wanted to write a book about the apocalypse of the wasteland, which should be very consistent with the dark clouds that hung over the hearts of people around the world about nuclear war at that time.

But now it's 1968, from last month, when Huo Yaowen saw the anti-war march in Chicago in the newspaper, to today's encounter with the famous Beat youth leader Allen Ginsburg, Americans have been in anti-war, depression, and indulgence.

So Huo Yaowen abandoned the dinosaur sci-fi theme "Jurassic World" that he wanted to write before, and when he had breakfast in the morning, he read the news about the manned moon landing published in the New York Times, which made him focus on the theme of space.

It has to be said that the military competition between the Soviet Union and the United States has gradually changed from the arms and force to a higher space competition, from the launch of the first satellite, to the manned landing on the moon, and then to the space station program, all of which were experiments that were born during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States and were of great help to mankind.

Thinking of this, Huo Yaowen gradually had some plans in his heart, if according to history, next year will inevitably be the United States to launch a manned rocket to land on the moon.

During this period, science fiction will inevitably become the mainstream of fiction all over the world, and it is precisely thanks to the success of the American manned moon landing that science fiction writers have set off a frenzy of writing countless classics to explore the universe.

In the 70s and 80s, there were classics, such as Yoshiki Tanaka's "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" by the island country, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams in the United Kingdom, "The Mars Trilogy" by American writer Kim Stanley Robinson, and a series of space science fiction novels and stories.

Science fiction novels, Huo Yaowen has never written them before, and he has basically not read many traditional science fiction novels, but he has watched a lot of science fiction movies and TV series, such as "Star Wars", "Star Trek", "The Wandering Earth", "Alien", "Interstellar", "Alien Battlefield", ......

Writing a pure hard science fiction novel, Huo Yaowen doesn't have that ability, he originally studied liberal arts in his last life, and his knowledge of physics is probably still in junior high school?

Therefore, I can't write a hard science fiction work like "Mars Trilogy", at most, with the help of understanding of later generations and the ideas of some science fiction movies and TV series, I can write a soft science fiction article.

Just like "Galactic Empire", the gimmick is a gimmick with a radius of 50,000 light years, and the content is all about political conspiracy between empires, in other words, this book is a political essay dressed in science fiction.

From this point of view, the western-style "Star Wars" seems to be a good choice, Huo Yaowen is not a star fan, but he has almost watched all of them, and he still likes Queen Amidala played by Natalie Portman back then.

However, since the magic changed the ghost blowing lamp, Huo Yaowen gradually has his own ideas, although "Star Wars" is good, but in general, even if some sci-fi elements are added, it is difficult to hide the old-fashioned story of the hero saving the beauty.

And in addition to the profound characters such as the Black Knight, the Jedi, and Master Yoda, many of the plots he has long forgotten, and it is still very difficult to copy them completely.

Instead of this, it is better to rewrite a new science fiction novel with the help of science fiction movies and TV series that later generations have watched.

Thinking of this, Huo Yaowen pondered for a while, and roughly had a prototype outline in his heart, and wrote the name of the novel "1999———— Our journey is the sea of stars" on white letterhead.

With 1999 as the background of the times, it tells the story of the future 30 years later, the world's science and technology has developed to the era of the initial Internet.

In that year, the Alpha Starmen of the Centaur Galaxy, a few light-years away, received the radio waves emitted by the Voyager 1 probe launched by the United States thirty years ago, and sent interstellar conquest warships to enter the solar system in an attempt to colonize civilizations in the entire solar system, the first to be the Martians on Mars.

This is a crisis for the earth, and it is also a crisis for all mankind, but after obtaining some alien technology, the diligent and intelligent human beings are pursuing the vast and boundless sea of stars.

Applying the classic lines from "The Legend of the Galactic Heroes", and borrowing the law of the dark forest in "The Three-Body Problem", to the creative "The Wandering Earth" project, and the alien invasion in "Independence Day".

Huo Yaowen's outline can be said to be a fusion of many science fiction movies and TV series ideas, the core of this book, naturally dominated by human conquest of the stars and seas, but it is mixed with the laws of the dark forest, so that the seemingly bright galaxy hides countless mysteries in it.