ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I explore the creation of collective relationships and their political meaning in cyberspace through cyberliterature, a cultural sector that has been booming in China for at least two decades. I focus mainly on two particular fictional genres, which are very popular among readers of Chinese web literature: time-travel fiction (chuanyue xiaoshuo 穿越小说) and alternative history fiction (jiakong lishi xiaoshuo 架空历史小说). I discuss how Chinese cyber-time-travel fiction suggests new ways of making literature within a virtual space. For this purpose, I analyze more specifically Lingao qiming (临高启明) series, a time-travel fiction series whose genesis comes from a discussion on an online forum whose users imagine that a group of young contemporary people succeed through a wormhole to return to the time of the Ming Dynasty, where they try to establish an independent political enclave. I question the modalities of participation to the collective writing project of the series and the reception by the Chinese authorities of this type of narrative, as well as the latent subversive content that it is possible to discern behind these seemingly naive and popular novels. Through the example of time travel through an alternative history fiction, and of the extended universes to which they give birth, I observe the collective and interactive dimension of this new type of creation and discuss how the study of cyberliterature, both in its creation and reception aspects, reveals innovative means of investing collective (cyber)space and creating social networks.
