Dream of the Ages, a book of 420,000 words, is jointly published by Jiangxi People's Publishing House and Baihuazhou Literature & Art Publishing House. The book reviews the solemn and stirring course of manned space flight in the last 50 years in China, and is commented as one of the most excellent pieces of reportage in the new century by critics. The author, Li Mingsheng, is a contemporary well-known military writer, adhering to "aerospace literature" creation for about 20 years. Dream of the Ages is the sixth book of his Aerospace Series.
The book traces the cause to its source and illuminates the development path of China's aerospace industry. Beginning with the predestined relation between the author and the spacecraft over the past three decades, then telling the story of Yury Gagadn, the first person travelling in space, as a lead-in to the serious part of his article, the author narrates the tortuous and difficult development course of China's aerospace industry over the past 50 years, against the background of international aerospace development as well as domestic political and social development. In this historical process, several generations of aerospace workers contributed their wisdom and talent and paid out their youth, passion and life to the aerospace industry. Their fate and fortune were closely related to the fate of their country and nation. National and social unrest or revolution had a great influence on the development of aerospace industry.
Li Mingsheng attaches great importance to the authenticity and the news value of reportage. Historian writing style is applied throughout the book. Almost all source materials used in the book are first-hand materials collected in interviews. He always tries to be faithful to history and tries to reveal the true features of history. He is quite conscious that he is going for "recording history" while writing.
The job of aerospace workers “looks like something attractive, encouraging and remarkable". But in fact, it is very difficult and unprofitable. Li Mingsheng is good at writing about characters via telling stories, and fleshing out his characters via highlighting the characteristics of such character. Especially valuable is that he pays special attention to those important figures or behind-the-scenes heroes, who have been forgotten by the media and even forgotten in the history, faithfully records their contributions to the history and makes up the missed part of history. Li Mingsheng does not go in for writing about aerospace heroes, who are shrouded with numerous glories, in high-profile way, but pays particular attention to those nameless figures and faded aerospace heroes, recording their stories into history by means of literature. Writing about unknown or noteless figures is an attractive feature of this book, reflecting the author's pursuit of the writing style of "historical biography" and "historical record" while writing this book.
Dream of the Ages is written with skill and ease. There is no lack of ups and downs one after another, no lack of ingenious twists and turns in a row. The book is provided with simple but flexible narrative feature, keeping a very good narrative rhythm, with no wordy phrase or sentence that has little meaning. The stories about manned space flight told in Dream of the Ages successfully convey professional knowledge to readers in an accessible manner, without obstacles for reading. Stories come out one after another throughout the book, all of which are brilliant, lively and interesting, full of twists and turns, attracting readers to read on.