Fantastic Novels and Transmedia Expansions in Chinese Internet Literature

Fantasy is a genre of storytelling that extends beyond fixed empirical reality. Transmedia is a mode of information distribution across different media. The structural affinity between the fantastic genre and the transmedia mode is that both are committed to building flexible selves and unstable worlds. Fantasy and transmedia have converged in the field of Chinese internet literature, which is produced and consumed in interactive online contexts. Internet-based fantasy novels draw on two repositories of resources to imagine subjects and worlds deviating from modern, Western norms: both the ideas and practices of the nonmodern, non-Western traditions and the re-enchantment of the putatively secularized politics, economy, and technology. There are two major branches of Chinese fantasy, qihuan (Western-style fantasy written in the Chinese language) and xuanhuan (novels resorting to Chinese traditions to reimagine magic), the latter being far more popular among Chinese readers. Internet-based fantasy novels have been expanded into transmedia texts by the transmedia practices of fans and media corporations. Since the development of internet literature intertwined with the building of a Chinese intellectual property (IP) regime in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the spontaneous efforts made by fans to seek immersive experiences preceded the industrial production of transmedia adaptations. It is also worth highlighting that the Chinese state that has been building an IP regime and censorship system is the third party in the Chinese transmedia model. In this model, while fans and corporations interact with one another, they both must work under the Chinese state that regulates all cultural productions. Transmedia practices constitute a type of digital labor characterized by information sharing across platforms and devices. Transmedia labor brings about transmedia selves (the ontologically complex and instable personas created by the ways in which we have become entangled with media content and digital technologies) and transmedia worlds (not just the fictional worlds of media content but the very worlds experienced by transmedia selves). Correspondingly, there are two interesting generic configurations of transmedia fantasy: chuanyue (crossing) and wuxianliu (infinite worlds). Chuanyue is not a genre but an arrangement in which characters travel into a book, film, or game, and chuanyue can be combined with any genre. Wuxianliu is a meta-genre potentially inclusive of all genres because characters travel into numerous worlds to accomplish missions. The boundary-crossing selves and magically multiplying worlds mirror our experiences of transmedia selves and transmedia worlds.