China wants to shape the literary taste of its netizens, but is it working?

The annual prize, co-organized by the country’s media watchdog, endorses works of internet literature deemed positive in the eyes of the government. The top winner for 2018, announced this week, was Heroes of Internet: Gravitational Field -- a business thriller about a Chinese internet startup battling a multinational conglomerate for market dominance. (Spoiler: The startup triumphed.)

Online publishing is a booming industry in China, where half of all internet users consume web literature, according to a report by state agency China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC). Supported by a readership larger than the US population, successful authors stand to collect a windfall for selling adaptation rights to their works.

Some of the nation’s biggest box office and TV hits are based on internet novels. Wu Kong, a 2017 blockbuster that surpassed Despicable Me 3 and Transformers: The Last Knight in China, was based on an internet novel about a legendary monkey. Ever Night, a historical fantasy serialized online, was purchased by Tencent and turned into a show and a smartphone game last year.

But while fantasy tales like these dominate China’s online literature landscape, authorities seem to favor stories with a more realistic bent. One criteria for contest entries is that they should “reflect real-world issues and spread socialist energy”.