"In 'Folding Beijing,' I have raised a possibility for the future and how we face the challenges of automated production, technological advances, unemployment and economic stagnation," she said.

Hao said her book offered some ideas on how to deal with the challenges but hoped the scenarios she imagined do not come to reality, the South China Morning Post reported.

"I have raised a solution, which may seem a little dark. It is not the best outcome, but neither is it the worst - people do not starve to death, young people are not sent to battlefields, like what happens in reality," she said.

Hao, who earned a physics degree from Tsinghua University in 2006, admitted that although she was not surprised to receive the award, she was to lose.

The best novelette category caters short works with the number of words limited between 7,500 and 17,500 only.

Other winners named in the 2016 Hugo Awards include "The Fifth Season" by N.K. Jemisin for best novel, "Binti" by Nnedi Okorafor for best novella, and "Cat Pictures Please" by Naomi Kritzer for best short story.