The observation was that there is a much stronger Chinese field (300K circulation for SF World) than there is in India for SF stories, just judging by publications and circulation.
The gist of the discussion was that the 'progressive' mode that SF sits in is politically very acceptable to the Chinese government and therefore SF does not get suppressed. The reason why India has not really picked up on the mode, we really didn't get into except to remark that it hadn't happened, even though India has a healthy space industry.
The comments from the audience went into the differences between mythologies in different countries but were shot down by Ken commenting that India had its own share of Von Danikens and the legends of ancient visitors in the Vedas were really not relevant.
As to why more Chinese than Indian SF? My opinion as someone on the panel but who has no further expertise: SF is a mode, as Ken said, of the literature of industrialised cultures. China is busy industrialising while India is not, so much.
We didn't conclude much on the panel except that while the Chinese were ahead for now, watch out for Indian SF coming down the pipe as Indians get industrialised and start thinking in the terms that generate SF stories.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-10-13 01:01 am (UTC)The gist of the discussion was that the 'progressive' mode that SF sits in is politically very acceptable to the Chinese government and therefore SF does not get suppressed. The reason why India has not really picked up on the mode, we really didn't get into except to remark that it hadn't happened, even though India has a healthy space industry.
The comments from the audience went into the differences between mythologies in different countries but were shot down by Ken commenting that India had its own share of Von Danikens and the legends of ancient visitors in the Vedas were really not relevant.
As to why more Chinese than Indian SF? My opinion as someone on the panel but who has no further expertise: SF is a mode, as Ken said, of the literature of industrialised cultures. China is busy industrialising while India is not, so much.
We didn't conclude much on the panel except that while the Chinese were ahead for now, watch out for Indian SF coming down the pipe as Indians get industrialised and start thinking in the terms that generate SF stories.