My writing career began in 2005 with my first blog post, which has now been 20 years. During these two decades, I had about 10 years of intensive writing, while I barely picked up my pen the rest of the time. I have reached a cycle where writers hit a wall—I need to break through myself.
My writing started with fanfiction. My longest fanfiction novel, “Red Hood: Ashes to Dust,” exhausted almost all of my most genuine emotions to the point that I still cannot write a book to match it, especially regarding emotional expression. It may be because fanfiction has the help of the original work, but the difficulty increases when it comes to original works where I must control everything myself.
On January 22, 2021, I wrote the first note related to the Computational Universe. This marked the beginning of the Computational Universe, and I still believe that once a person creates a world, there’s no turning back. Why choose science fiction? Simply put, my writing style was contaminated by English when I was very young. There’s a sense of mixed Chinese and English grammar. This writing style, combined with my insufficient accumulation of Chinese literature, prevents me from writing Chinese fantasy. But I’m meant to write fantasy novels. So, it has to be science fiction.
I worked as a programmer for over 10 years. If I don’t understand the physical universe well, computers are at least old friends. Therefore, I decided to write a computer science fiction universe. Although it’s not as appealing as a magical universe, it’s still a hardcore fictional world. In this universe, the universe itself is a giant computer. In fact, this aligns with my worldview—I believe our universe is indeed a giant computer.
The first story in the Computational Universe is the “Computational Universe” octology, telling the story of battle coder Liang Feng’s cosmic exploration and how the Xinglong civilization became the greatest civilization in the Tianhe Galaxy. This is a series written for China’s post-90s generation. The post-90s need a lot of confidence to persevere. In “The Computational Universe,” the Xinglong civilization becomes a technological civilization, representing the tremendous transformation experienced by the post-90s generation. Because the central theme of “The Computational Universe” is the clash of cultures, the first book is currently undergoing a rewrite.
However, what makes me slightly regretful is that I will first publish the English versions of the first three books of “The Computational Universe” on Amazon KDP rapidly, then gradually release the subsequent five books as I make writing progress. A series originally intended only for China’s post-90s generation will debut in English, so it must also have a particular global appeal. Therefore, in the rewritten “The Computational Universe,” I emphasized the clash of civilizations. It’s expected that in the first half of 2025, the English versions of the first three “The Computational Universe” books will go online, and physical books will be available on Amazon.
The second story in the Computational Universe is the “The Computational Crisis” trilogy. All the best novels are trilogies, especially 900,000-word novels like “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Three-Body Problem.” This shows how much importance I place on “The Computational Crisis.” Although “The Computational Crisis” doesn’t have an outline yet, it has a central thread: it tells of the galaxy-wide involution after the Xinglong civilization reaches the top of the Tianhe Galaxy. This is the inner demon of Chinese people and the real situation that the post-10s generation will face. We’ve explored everything that needed to be explored, and then what?
The independent full-length novel “The Computational Wandering” tells the story of the Computational Universe about to be destroyed with only black holes remaining. At the same time, the AI synthetic Guangmiao searches for the last star and replicates it. This story already has an outline and is even prepared to be filmed as an AI series. But it’s still too long, so series development will be postponed for now. This story has always made me feel very powerful because of its storyline of seeking hope from despair.
An unexpected surprise on the path forward is the independent full-length novel The Computational Era. It tells of Kiyani, a female knight of the Tadar civilization, who goes to Xingling, believes in “my fate is in my own hands, not heaven’s,” and then returns to Tadar to change her destiny. She would rather have individual free will than a golden age. Stories about fate are always fascinating, and this independent full-length novel will likely be the first to be adapted into an AI series.
Let’s look at the writing and AI film production plans for the second half 2025. I plan to create independent short films adapted from short stories in the Computational Universe. I was initially an author who only wrote full-length novels, but I’ve prepared 25 creative ideas and am now writing my first short story. According to the schedule, I can produce at most 10 short films in the second half of this year. I will adopt a strategy of publishing short stories and short films simultaneously in Chinese and English. Everyone can read these short stories on the Computational Universe official account by then.
When the first three books of the “The Computational Universe” octology go online on Amazon in 2026, I should choose either “The Computational Wandering” or “The Computational Era” to write the main text, publish it on Amazon KDP, and then begin producing full-length AI series. After all, making a long series is a dream; by then, AI technology should have made significant progress.
The next few years will be busy, and I plan to harvest more original stories in this busyness. The Computational Universe is a huge undertaking that needs to be filled gradually. Having created a world, there’s no turning back. Welcome, travelers of fictional worlds!
