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The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Science Fiction (2020)original cover of ISBN 9781982134037
From award-winning author Ken Liu comes his much anticipated second volume of short stories.
Ken Liu is one of the most lauded short story writers of our time. This collection includes a selection of his science fiction and fantasy stories from the last five years — sixteen of his best — plus a new novelette.
In addition to these seventeen selections, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories also features an excerpt from the forthcoming book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, "The Veiled Throne".
Contents:
- Ghost Days (2013)
- Maxwell's Demon (2012)
- The Reborn (2014)
- Thoughts and Prayers (2019)
- Byzantine Empathy (2018)
- The Gods Will Not Be Chained (2014)
- Staying Behind (2011)
- Real Artists (2011)
- The Gods Will Not Be Slain (2014)
- Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer (2011)
- The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (2015)
- Memories of My Mother (2012)
- Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit - Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (2016)
- Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard (2020)
- A Chase Beyond the Storms: An excerpt from "The Veiled Throne", Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty
- The Hidden Girl (2017)
- Seven Birthdays (2016)
- The Message (2012)
- Cutting (2012)
From award-winning author Ken Liu comes his much anticipated second volume of short stories.
Ken Liu is one of the most lauded short story writers of our time. This collection includes a selection of his science fiction and fantasy stories from the last five years — sixteen of his best — plus a new novelette.
In addition to these seventeen selections, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories also features an excerpt from the forthcoming book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, "The Veiled Throne".
Contents:
- Ghost Days (2013)
- Maxwell's Demon (2012)
- The Reborn (2014)
- Thoughts and Prayers (2019)
- Byzantine Empathy (2018)
- The Gods Will Not Be Chained (2014)
- Staying Behind (2011)
- Real Artists (2011)
- The Gods Will Not Be Slain (2014)
- Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer (2011)
- The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (2015)
- Memories of My Mother (2012)
- Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit - Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (2016)
- Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard (2020)
- A Chase Beyond the Storms: An excerpt from "The Veiled Throne", Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty
- The Hidden Girl (2017)
- Seven Birthdays (2016)
- The Message (2012)
- Cutting (2012)
411 pages, Hardcover
First published February 25, 2020
About the author
Ken Liu
451 books21k followersKen Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an American author of speculative fiction. He has won the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, as well as top genre honors in Japan, Spain, and France, among other places.
Ken's debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers play the role of wizards. His debut collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker.
He has been involved in multiple media adaptations of his work. The most recent projects include “The Message,” under development by 21 Laps and FilmNation Entertainment; “Good Hunting,” adapted as an episode of Netflix's breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC's Pantheon, which Craig Silverstein will executive produce, adapted from an interconnected series of short stories by Ken.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Ken worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Ken frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, the mathematics of origami, and other subjects of his expertise.
Ken is also the translator for Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds, Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide, as well as the editor of Invisible Planets and Broken Stars, anthologies of contemporary Chinese science fiction.
He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
Ken's debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers play the role of wizards. His debut collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker.
He has been involved in multiple media adaptations of his work. The most recent projects include “The Message,” under development by 21 Laps and FilmNation Entertainment; “Good Hunting,” adapted as an episode of Netflix's breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC's Pantheon, which Craig Silverstein will executive produce, adapted from an interconnected series of short stories by Ken.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Ken worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Ken frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, the mathematics of origami, and other subjects of his expertise.
Ken is also the translator for Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds, Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide, as well as the editor of Invisible Planets and Broken Stars, anthologies of contemporary Chinese science fiction.
He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,149 reviews
March 11, 2020
ARC provided by the publisher—Saga Press—in exchange for an honest review.
3.5/5 stars
Ken Liu is incredibly good at writing short stories.
I’ve been waiting for The Dandelion Dynasty to be completed for years now so I can binge read the epic fantasy series. During my waiting time, I have read The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and also some books Liu has translated: The Three-Body Problem and Death’s End by Cixin Liu. I loved them all; The Paper Menagerie, in particular, is one of the two best short stories I’ve ever read so far. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is the second collection of short stories published by Ken Liu, and as expected, it’s another wonderful collection of stories. I think of this as something wondrous because I’m not even a fan of short stories; I avoid this format more than I avoid novellas. However, this is Ken Liu, and this collection goes to show how good he is at writing short stories. Just try reading the beautifully written two-page long preface; I highly doubt you’ll be able to resist reading this collection after reading this.
And so this will be my interpretation of these stories.
Few exceptions aside, most of these stories are connected, taking place in the same universe. I’ll be giving a very mini-review for each respective title.
Ghost Days: 4/5 stars
I loved this one. Liu tells a story that encompasses the importance of the past, culture, traditions, and how even the smallest of things could be the treasure that sustains our heritage and legacy for hundreds of years.
Maxwell's Demon: 3.5/5 stars
A brutal and dark read. Maxwell’s Demons is about a Japanese-American female living in America during the time of World War II, and she receives a task to go back to Japan and help bring victory to America.
Reborn: 3/5 stars
One of the three longest short stories in the collection, and it’s a good sci-fi story about the importance of memories. I enjoyed this one well enough, although it’s not as good as many other stories in this collection, I found the discussion regarding memories and how it makes us who we are to be well-written.
Thoughts and Prayers: 4/5 stars
If you have lost someone to a mass shooting, be warned that this is a very dark story. Harrowing and thought-provoking, the loss of someone important due to a mass shooting is inexplicable; Liu goes further by exploring another danger that can come after the event through the misuse of technologies and trolling.
Byzantine Empathy: 2/5 stars
Same as Reborn, this is one of the longest short stories in the collection, and I honestly didn’t enjoy this one. Empathy, Virtual Reality, and cryptocurrency are relatable topics of discussion, but this story was boring to read.
The Gods Will Not Be Chained: 4/5 stars
This one was so intriguing and compelling, and it’s the first installment in a mini-trilogy available in this collection. It begins with a story about bullying, then it proceeds to show the limitless capability of technologies, the internet, and digital immortality.
Staying Behind: 3.5/5 stars
Similar to the previous one, this is a short story that explores the idea of “immortality through machines” versus “meaningful life through mortality.” It’s a very interesting read because both factions have believable reasoning that makes sense.
Real Artists: 3.5/5 stars
This is a very short story about doing whatever it takes to make a perfect movie, even if it means allowing technology to do all the heavy lifting.
The Gods Will Not Be Slain: 3.5/5 stars
A direct sequel to The Gods Will Not Be Chained with Maddie as the main character again. The themes of history, human nature, and once again, digital immortality dominate the story.
Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer: 4/5 stars
This story shows the life of the people who have decided to go through digital immortality. Food for thought: what if infinity ends up decreasing the meaning of life?
The Gods Have Not Died in Vain: 3.5/5 stars
The end of the mini-trilogy revolving around Maddie. I think this is the weakest of the mini-trilogy, but the conclusion was satisfying enough.
Memories of My Mother: 2/5 stars
One of my least favorite from the collection. This one suffers from being way too short; the story ended before I even began to care about the characters.
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts: 3/5 stars
The story shows what happened to Earth in the year 2600 after its destruction caused by Climate Change. It's a bit scary to be reading about this because there's a chance of the situation portrayed in this story happening in our life.
Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard: 4/5 stars
The most action-packed story in the collection, and it’s in my favorite genre: fantasy. Three sisters of different bloodlines find themselves united to for a purpose, fight against oppression and dictator. It’s a great fantasy story, and I believe there’s a potential for this one to become a series or a standalone novel.
A Chase Beyond the Storms
An excerpt from The Veiled Throne, The Dandelion Dynasty, book three: No rating
As I mentioned, I’m waiting for The Dandelion Dynasty to be completed first, and I highly prefer not having my reading experience of the series spoiled. I won’t be reading/reviewing this one.
The Hidden Girl: 4/5 stars
Here it is, the titular story in this collection, and this is one of my personal favorite stories within this collection. Filled with Buddhism, The Hidden Girl is a fantasy story about an assassin who's willing to have the bravery to do what's right, even when it means fighting against those who are important to her.
Seven Birthdays : 4/5 stars
I don’t want to say too much regarding this one, let’s just say that I didn’t expect the scope of this short story to be this massive and insane. It reminded me of reading Death’s End by Cixin Liu.
The Message: 4.5/5 stars
My favorite story in this collection. A heartwarming, meaningful, and lovely story about responsibility, legacy, and family.
Cutting: 3/5 stars
The final story in this collection. A good story about cutting unnecessary words from a book to create a relatively better message/content.
Overall rating for The Hidden Girl and Other Stories: 63/90 stars
That’s it. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is a clever and thought-provoking collection of short stories by Ken Liu. Diving deep into the possible benefits and destruction caused by technological advancement and digital immortality, Liu conveyed the meaning of life, tragedy, ambition, and so much more in his SFF/contemporary settings. I do think that the personality of the stories listed here lean more towards sci-fi than fantasy, and there’s a good chance that if you love watching The Black Mirror as I did, you’re going to love this one as well. So which Ken Liu’s books I’ll be reading next? Fingers crossed it will be The Dandelion Dynasty series. I already own the first two books in The Dandelion Dynasty for a while now, once there’s an official release date—which I hope will be soon—for The Veiled Throne, I will plan my reading accordingly.
You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping)
The quotes in this review were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.
You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions
Special thanks to my Patrons on Patreon for giving me extra support towards my passion for reading and reviewing!
My Patrons: Alfred, Devin, Hamad, Joie, Mike, Miracle, Nicholas.
3.5/5 stars
Ken Liu is incredibly good at writing short stories.
I’ve been waiting for The Dandelion Dynasty to be completed for years now so I can binge read the epic fantasy series. During my waiting time, I have read The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and also some books Liu has translated: The Three-Body Problem and Death’s End by Cixin Liu. I loved them all; The Paper Menagerie, in particular, is one of the two best short stories I’ve ever read so far. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is the second collection of short stories published by Ken Liu, and as expected, it’s another wonderful collection of stories. I think of this as something wondrous because I’m not even a fan of short stories; I avoid this format more than I avoid novellas. However, this is Ken Liu, and this collection goes to show how good he is at writing short stories. Just try reading the beautifully written two-page long preface; I highly doubt you’ll be able to resist reading this collection after reading this.
“As the author, I construct an artifact out of words, but the words are meaningless until they're animated by the consciousness of the reader. The story is co-told by the author and the reader, and every story is incomplete until a reader comes a long and interprets it."
And so this will be my interpretation of these stories.
Few exceptions aside, most of these stories are connected, taking place in the same universe. I’ll be giving a very mini-review for each respective title.
Ghost Days: 4/5 stars
I loved this one. Liu tells a story that encompasses the importance of the past, culture, traditions, and how even the smallest of things could be the treasure that sustains our heritage and legacy for hundreds of years.
"She would show them how she now understood that digging into the past was an act of comprehension, an act of making sense of the universe."
Maxwell's Demon: 3.5/5 stars
A brutal and dark read. Maxwell’s Demons is about a Japanese-American female living in America during the time of World War II, and she receives a task to go back to Japan and help bring victory to America.
"A war opened a door in men, and whatever was inside just tumbled out. The entropy of the world increased, in the absence of a demon by the door."
Reborn: 3/5 stars
One of the three longest short stories in the collection, and it’s a good sci-fi story about the importance of memories. I enjoyed this one well enough, although it’s not as good as many other stories in this collection, I found the discussion regarding memories and how it makes us who we are to be well-written.
“You cannot tell which memories are real and which memories are false, and yet you insist on their importance, base so much of your life on them.”
Thoughts and Prayers: 4/5 stars
If you have lost someone to a mass shooting, be warned that this is a very dark story. Harrowing and thought-provoking, the loss of someone important due to a mass shooting is inexplicable; Liu goes further by exploring another danger that can come after the event through the misuse of technologies and trolling.
“What did I think was going to happen? After decades of watching the exact same script being followed to end in thoughts and prayers, what made me think this time would be different? It was the very definition of madness.”
Byzantine Empathy: 2/5 stars
Same as Reborn, this is one of the longest short stories in the collection, and I honestly didn’t enjoy this one. Empathy, Virtual Reality, and cryptocurrency are relatable topics of discussion, but this story was boring to read.
“A VR rig was the ultimate empathy machine. How could she truly say she had walked in their shoes without suffering as they did?”
The Gods Will Not Be Chained: 4/5 stars
This one was so intriguing and compelling, and it’s the first installment in a mini-trilogy available in this collection. It begins with a story about bullying, then it proceeds to show the limitless capability of technologies, the internet, and digital immortality.
“But the digital world, the world of bits and electrons, of words and images—it had brought her so much joy, felt so intimate that she thought of it a part of her. And it hurt.”
Staying Behind: 3.5/5 stars
Similar to the previous one, this is a short story that explores the idea of “immortality through machines” versus “meaningful life through mortality.” It’s a very interesting read because both factions have believable reasoning that makes sense.
“She taught me that our mortality makes us human. The limited time given to each of us makes what we do meaningful. We die to make place for our children, and through our children a piece of us lives on, the only form of immortality that is real.”
Real Artists: 3.5/5 stars
This is a very short story about doing whatever it takes to make a perfect movie, even if it means allowing technology to do all the heavy lifting.
"I was right about you; a real artist will do whatever it takes to make a great vision come true, even if she has to work with someone else's art."
The Gods Will Not Be Slain: 3.5/5 stars
A direct sequel to The Gods Will Not Be Chained with Maddie as the main character again. The themes of history, human nature, and once again, digital immortality dominate the story.
"They could use a historian," she said. "Someone who knew something about how things used to work."
Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer: 4/5 stars
This story shows the life of the people who have decided to go through digital immortality. Food for thought: what if infinity ends up decreasing the meaning of life?
”It's not how long we have that matters, but what we do with the same time we have.”
The Gods Have Not Died in Vain: 3.5/5 stars
The end of the mini-trilogy revolving around Maddie. I think this is the weakest of the mini-trilogy, but the conclusion was satisfying enough.
"We have grown to the point where we must depend on machines to survive," said Mom. "The world has become too fragile for us to count on people, and so our only choice is to make it even more fragile."
Memories of My Mother: 2/5 stars
One of my least favorite from the collection. This one suffers from being way too short; the story ended before I even began to care about the characters.
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts: 3/5 stars
The story shows what happened to Earth in the year 2600 after its destruction caused by Climate Change. It's a bit scary to be reading about this because there's a chance of the situation portrayed in this story happening in our life.
"Humanity may have taken to the stars, but we have destroyed our home planet. Such has been the lament of the Naturalists for eons."
Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard: 4/5 stars
The most action-packed story in the collection, and it’s in my favorite genre: fantasy. Three sisters of different bloodlines find themselves united to for a purpose, fight against oppression and dictator. It’s a great fantasy story, and I believe there’s a potential for this one to become a series or a standalone novel.
"Greed and ambition are the rule at court, and the only goal of every governor, general, official, and legate, Revealed or not, is selfish gain, not the good of the people."
A Chase Beyond the Storms
An excerpt from The Veiled Throne, The Dandelion Dynasty, book three: No rating
As I mentioned, I’m waiting for The Dandelion Dynasty to be completed first, and I highly prefer not having my reading experience of the series spoiled. I won’t be reading/reviewing this one.
The Hidden Girl: 4/5 stars
Here it is, the titular story in this collection, and this is one of my personal favorite stories within this collection. Filled with Buddhism, The Hidden Girl is a fantasy story about an assassin who's willing to have the bravery to do what's right, even when it means fighting against those who are important to her.
"There's a greater promise we all must live by: to do what our heart tells us is right."
Seven Birthdays : 4/5 stars
I don’t want to say too much regarding this one, let’s just say that I didn’t expect the scope of this short story to be this massive and insane. It reminded me of reading Death’s End by Cixin Liu.
"There is a darkness in human nature that makes certain conflicts irreconcilable."
The Message: 4.5/5 stars
My favorite story in this collection. A heartwarming, meaningful, and lovely story about responsibility, legacy, and family.
"This was a story that would always mean something, a message worth passing on, even in a universe that was cold, dark, and dying."
Cutting: 3/5 stars
The final story in this collection. A good story about cutting unnecessary words from a book to create a relatively better message/content.
"The act of remembering is an act of retracing, and by doing so we erase and change the stencil."
Overall rating for The Hidden Girl and Other Stories: 63/90 stars
That’s it. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is a clever and thought-provoking collection of short stories by Ken Liu. Diving deep into the possible benefits and destruction caused by technological advancement and digital immortality, Liu conveyed the meaning of life, tragedy, ambition, and so much more in his SFF/contemporary settings. I do think that the personality of the stories listed here lean more towards sci-fi than fantasy, and there’s a good chance that if you love watching The Black Mirror as I did, you’re going to love this one as well. So which Ken Liu’s books I’ll be reading next? Fingers crossed it will be The Dandelion Dynasty series. I already own the first two books in The Dandelion Dynasty for a while now, once there’s an official release date—which I hope will be soon—for The Veiled Throne, I will plan my reading accordingly.
You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping)
The quotes in this review were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.
You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions
Special thanks to my Patrons on Patreon for giving me extra support towards my passion for reading and reviewing!
My Patrons: Alfred, Devin, Hamad, Joie, Mike, Miracle, Nicholas.
November 25, 2020
Quite a lot of heavily conflicted characters.
Culture - do you love your own or do you readily embrace the strange one? Be it Ancient China or a mesh of space genetics...
This actually could be on par with Bradbury if only the weaker essays were taken out: the politics-based one, the VR one, the algorithmic bullying one... Seriously, it's all so very childish.
Excellent stories:
The 'Ghost Days', a story about Ona, the half-alien girl, about bubis and else. A lot of else.
'The Reborn' - wowser. Unique concept, I'd say. What are our memories, anyway? How does history work? What would aliens have to say about it? Lovely...
The 'Maxwell's Demon' was, how to put it? Poignant but horrible. How do you put immigrants from a whole nation into camps and then just shrug it off? Yep, Japanese camps - this was not a fair treatment, was it?
Ghosts in the machine. The digerati. A bit overboard, wasn't it? The Singularity.
The Hidden Girl - a bit too cartoonish but then again, why not? Just like some of the Ancient Chinese legends.
Q:
“We study classical languages to acquire the habits of mind of the ancients,” Ms. Coron said. “You must know where you came from.” (c)
Q:
You’ll never see the beautiful floating islands of Tai-Winn or the glorious skyways of Pele, the elegant city-trees of Pollen, or the busy data warrens of Tiron... (c)
Q:
“The past... thus accumulating bit by bit through recursion, becomes the future.” (c)
Q:
“See how the universe is straightforward, but to understand it with the intellect, to turn it into language, requires a twist, a sharp turn? Between the World and the Word, there lies an extra curve. When you look at these characters, you’re convening with the history of these artifacts, with the minds of our ancestors from thousands of years ago. That is the deep wisdom of our people, and no Latin letters will ever get at our truth as deeply as our characters.”
...
Which is authentic? he thought. The World or the Word? The truth or understanding? (c)
Q:
“You can’t control what others think... But you can always decide for yourself if you belong.” (c)
Q:
Family is a story that is told to you, but the story that matters the most you must tell yourself. (c)
Q:
Remember us, you who treasure the old. (c)
Q:
Sometimes understanding comes to you not through thought, but through this throbbing of the heart, this tenderness in the chest that hurts. (c)
Q:
She would show them how she now understood that digging into the past was an act of comprehension, an act of making sense of the universe. (c)
Q:
I will swear unqualified allegiance to my country when my country frees me and my family. (c)
Q:
“I have to renounce America to prove that I’m a patriot. You don’t see how stupid this is?” (c)
Q:
I remember being Reborn. It felt the way I imagine a fish feels as it’s being thrown back into the sea. (c)
Q:
She did not believe in conspiracies. She was counting on the angels of human nature. (c)
Q:
A consensus of feelings had replaced the consensus of facts. (c)
Q:
Too bad it’s hard to make the unglamorous but necessary work of truly understanding a complex situation compelling... (c)
Q:
“But we were wrong. The brain is holonomic. Each part of the mind, like points in a hologram, encodes some information about the whole image. We were arrogant to think that we could isolate the personality away from the technical know-how.” (c)
Q:
She could see patterns in the news, insights that eluded those who saw the data but had no understanding. (c)
Q:
We’ve created gods, she thought, and the gods will not be chained. (c)
Q:
The Pope denounced the “Digital Adam”; the digerati celebrated; and everyone else struggled to make sense of the new world. (c)
Q:
“A real artist will do whatever it takes to make a great vision come true... even if it’s just sitting still in a dark room.” (c)
Q:
Mom is an Ancient, from before the Singularity. There are only a few hundred million of them in the whole universe. (c)
Q:
The pure beauty of mathematics and the landscapes of the imagination are very lovely, but they are not real. Something has been lost to humanity since we gained this immortal command over an imagined existence. We have turned inward and become complacent. We’ve forgotten the stars and the worlds out there. (c)
Q:
I would have thought that a world with only three dimensions would be flat and uninteresting. But it’s not true. The colors are more vibrant than any I’ve ever seen, and the world has a random beauty that I could not have imagined. (c)
Q:
No one ever talks about engineering now. Building with physical atoms is inefficient, inflexible, limited, and consumes so much energy. I’ve been taught that engineering is an art of the dark ages, before people knew any better. Bits and qubits are far more civilized, and give our imaginations free rein. (c)
Q:
Cloud-born, cloud-borne, she was a mystery. (c)
Q:
But there were also segments of Mist that puzzled her: the way she seemed to possess so many heuristics for trends in the stock market; the way her thoughts seemed attuned to the subtleties of patents; the way the shapes of her decision algorithms seemed adapted for the methods of warfare. (c)
Q:
Life is about embodiment... (c)
Q:
“The world has become too fragile for us to count on people, and so our only choice is to make it even more fragile.” (с)
Q:
“I am a child of the ether... I do not yearn for something that I never had.” (c)
Q:
... she had experienced more of the world than Maddie had ever experienced. She could, at will, peek through billions of cameras, listen through billions of microphones, sense the speed of the wind atop Mount Washington and at the same time feel the heat of the lava spilling out of Kilauea. She had known what it was like to gaze down at the world from the International Space Station and what it was like to suffer the stress of kilometers of water pressing down upon a deep-sea submersible’s shell. She was, in a way, far older than Maddie. (c)
Q:
“Call a woman a financial engineer or a man an agricultural systems analyst, and the world thinks they know something about them,” she wrote. “But what does the job a person has been channeled into have to do with who they are?” (с)
Q:
A few days after she became the youngest chief managing director for JPMCS, on Solar Epoch 22385200, she handed in her resignation, divorced her husbands and wives, liquidated all her assets, placed the bulk of the proceeds into trusts for her children, and then departed for the Old Blue on a one-way ticket. (c)
Q:
The stars are invisible from the metal cocoons floating in the heavy atmosphere of Venus; nor do we pay much attention to them from the pressurized domes on Mars. On Earth, the denizens of the climate-controlled cities in habitable zones are preoccupied with scintillating screens and XP implants, the glow of meandering conversation, brightening reputation accounts, and the fading trails left by falling credit scores. They do not look up.
One night, as I lay in the habitat drifting over the balmy subtropical Pacific, the stars spun over my face in their habitual course, a million diamantine points of crisp, mathematical light. I realized, with a startled understanding reminiscent of the clarity of childhood, that the face of the heavens was a collage. (c)
Q:
We do not look.
We do not see.
We travel millions of miles to seek out fresh vistas without even once having glimpsed inside our skulls, a landscape surely as alien and as wondrous as anything the universe has to offer. ...
Only in solitude it is possible to live as self-contained as a star. (c)
Q:
“Who are we to warm a planet for a dream and to cool it for nostalgia?” (c)
Q:
We live in a time of chaos, and the only moral choice is to be amoral. (c)
Q:
“There’s a greater promise we all must live by: to do what our heart tells us is right.” (c)
Q:
The hidden space has its own structure, made from dangling thin strands that glow faintly with an inner light. (c)
Q:
She has always been the best at vine fighting and cloud dancing. She glides and swings as gracefully as an immortal of the heavenly court. (c)
Q:
There’s a glow in her eyes. This is her favorite subject, pitching her mad scientist answer. (c)
Q:
I had once thought the Singularity would solve all our problems. Turns out it’s just a simple hack for a complicated problem. We do not share the same histories; we do not all want the same things. (c)
Q:
What follows are aerial shots of worlds both familiar and strange: the Earth, with its temperate climate carefully regulated to sustain the late Holocene; Venus, whose orbit has been adjusted by repeated gravitational slingshots with asteroids and terraformed to become a lush, warm replica of Earth during the Jurassic; and Mars, whose surface has been pelted with redirected Oort cloud objects and warmed by solar reflectors from space until the climate is a good approximation of the dry, cold conditions of the last glaciation on Earth.
Dinosaurs now roam the jungles of Aphrodite Terra, and mammoths forage over the tundra of Vastitas Borealis. Genetic reconstructions have been pushed back to the limit of the powerful data centers on Earth. (c)
Q:
Isn’t it the duty of every intelligent species to rescue all life, even from the dark abyss of time? There is always a technical solution. (c)
Q:
Thin, circular plates a hundred kilometers in diameter are arranged in a lattice of longitudinal rings around the star until it is completely surrounded. The plates do not orbit the star; rather, they are statites, positioned so that the pressure from the sun’s high-energy radiation counteracts the pull of gravity.
On the inner surface of this Dyson swarm, trillions of robots have etched channels and gates into the substrate, creating the most massive circuits in the history of the human race.
As the plates absorb the energy from the sun, it is transformed into electric pulses that emerge from cells, flow through canals, commingle in streams, until they gather into lakes and oceans that undulate through a quintillion variations that form the shape of thought.
The backs of the plates glow darkly, like embers after a fierce flame. The lower-energy photons leap outward into space, somewhat drained after powering a civilization. But before they can escape into the endless abyss of space, they strike another set of plates designed to absorb energy from radiation at this dimmer frequency. And once again, the process for thought-creation repeats itself. (c)
Q:
... I always feel that there is a message that the people I study want to pass on. Whatever I discover will be the last testament and whisper of the people of Pi Baeo. In studying them, I become connected to them, and in passing on their message, the human race is no longer so alone. (c)
Q:
I’d rather he buy that shuttle, and we’ll wander the stars together, weighed down by nothing. (c)
Q:
A man wants to leave behind his name, and a civilization wants to leave behind its stories. I’m the only thing standing between them and oblivion. (c)
Culture - do you love your own or do you readily embrace the strange one? Be it Ancient China or a mesh of space genetics...
This actually could be on par with Bradbury if only the weaker essays were taken out: the politics-based one, the VR one, the algorithmic bullying one... Seriously, it's all so very childish.
Excellent stories:
The 'Ghost Days', a story about Ona, the half-alien girl, about bubis and else. A lot of else.
'The Reborn' - wowser. Unique concept, I'd say. What are our memories, anyway? How does history work? What would aliens have to say about it? Lovely...
The 'Maxwell's Demon' was, how to put it? Poignant but horrible. How do you put immigrants from a whole nation into camps and then just shrug it off? Yep, Japanese camps - this was not a fair treatment, was it?
Ghosts in the machine. The digerati. A bit overboard, wasn't it? The Singularity.
The Hidden Girl - a bit too cartoonish but then again, why not? Just like some of the Ancient Chinese legends.
Q:
“We study classical languages to acquire the habits of mind of the ancients,” Ms. Coron said. “You must know where you came from.” (c)
Q:
You’ll never see the beautiful floating islands of Tai-Winn or the glorious skyways of Pele, the elegant city-trees of Pollen, or the busy data warrens of Tiron... (c)
Q:
“The past... thus accumulating bit by bit through recursion, becomes the future.” (c)
Q:
“See how the universe is straightforward, but to understand it with the intellect, to turn it into language, requires a twist, a sharp turn? Between the World and the Word, there lies an extra curve. When you look at these characters, you’re convening with the history of these artifacts, with the minds of our ancestors from thousands of years ago. That is the deep wisdom of our people, and no Latin letters will ever get at our truth as deeply as our characters.”
...
Which is authentic? he thought. The World or the Word? The truth or understanding? (c)
Q:
“You can’t control what others think... But you can always decide for yourself if you belong.” (c)
Q:
Family is a story that is told to you, but the story that matters the most you must tell yourself. (c)
Q:
Remember us, you who treasure the old. (c)
Q:
Sometimes understanding comes to you not through thought, but through this throbbing of the heart, this tenderness in the chest that hurts. (c)
Q:
She would show them how she now understood that digging into the past was an act of comprehension, an act of making sense of the universe. (c)
Q:
I will swear unqualified allegiance to my country when my country frees me and my family. (c)
Q:
“I have to renounce America to prove that I’m a patriot. You don’t see how stupid this is?” (c)
Q:
I remember being Reborn. It felt the way I imagine a fish feels as it’s being thrown back into the sea. (c)
Q:
She did not believe in conspiracies. She was counting on the angels of human nature. (c)
Q:
A consensus of feelings had replaced the consensus of facts. (c)
Q:
Too bad it’s hard to make the unglamorous but necessary work of truly understanding a complex situation compelling... (c)
Q:
“But we were wrong. The brain is holonomic. Each part of the mind, like points in a hologram, encodes some information about the whole image. We were arrogant to think that we could isolate the personality away from the technical know-how.” (c)
Q:
She could see patterns in the news, insights that eluded those who saw the data but had no understanding. (c)
Q:
We’ve created gods, she thought, and the gods will not be chained. (c)
Q:
The Pope denounced the “Digital Adam”; the digerati celebrated; and everyone else struggled to make sense of the new world. (c)
Q:
“A real artist will do whatever it takes to make a great vision come true... even if it’s just sitting still in a dark room.” (c)
Q:
Mom is an Ancient, from before the Singularity. There are only a few hundred million of them in the whole universe. (c)
Q:
The pure beauty of mathematics and the landscapes of the imagination are very lovely, but they are not real. Something has been lost to humanity since we gained this immortal command over an imagined existence. We have turned inward and become complacent. We’ve forgotten the stars and the worlds out there. (c)
Q:
I would have thought that a world with only three dimensions would be flat and uninteresting. But it’s not true. The colors are more vibrant than any I’ve ever seen, and the world has a random beauty that I could not have imagined. (c)
Q:
No one ever talks about engineering now. Building with physical atoms is inefficient, inflexible, limited, and consumes so much energy. I’ve been taught that engineering is an art of the dark ages, before people knew any better. Bits and qubits are far more civilized, and give our imaginations free rein. (c)
Q:
Cloud-born, cloud-borne, she was a mystery. (c)
Q:
But there were also segments of Mist that puzzled her: the way she seemed to possess so many heuristics for trends in the stock market; the way her thoughts seemed attuned to the subtleties of patents; the way the shapes of her decision algorithms seemed adapted for the methods of warfare. (c)
Q:
Life is about embodiment... (c)
Q:
“The world has become too fragile for us to count on people, and so our only choice is to make it even more fragile.” (с)
Q:
“I am a child of the ether... I do not yearn for something that I never had.” (c)
Q:
... she had experienced more of the world than Maddie had ever experienced. She could, at will, peek through billions of cameras, listen through billions of microphones, sense the speed of the wind atop Mount Washington and at the same time feel the heat of the lava spilling out of Kilauea. She had known what it was like to gaze down at the world from the International Space Station and what it was like to suffer the stress of kilometers of water pressing down upon a deep-sea submersible’s shell. She was, in a way, far older than Maddie. (c)
Q:
“Call a woman a financial engineer or a man an agricultural systems analyst, and the world thinks they know something about them,” she wrote. “But what does the job a person has been channeled into have to do with who they are?” (с)
Q:
A few days after she became the youngest chief managing director for JPMCS, on Solar Epoch 22385200, she handed in her resignation, divorced her husbands and wives, liquidated all her assets, placed the bulk of the proceeds into trusts for her children, and then departed for the Old Blue on a one-way ticket. (c)
Q:
The stars are invisible from the metal cocoons floating in the heavy atmosphere of Venus; nor do we pay much attention to them from the pressurized domes on Mars. On Earth, the denizens of the climate-controlled cities in habitable zones are preoccupied with scintillating screens and XP implants, the glow of meandering conversation, brightening reputation accounts, and the fading trails left by falling credit scores. They do not look up.
One night, as I lay in the habitat drifting over the balmy subtropical Pacific, the stars spun over my face in their habitual course, a million diamantine points of crisp, mathematical light. I realized, with a startled understanding reminiscent of the clarity of childhood, that the face of the heavens was a collage. (c)
Q:
We do not look.
We do not see.
We travel millions of miles to seek out fresh vistas without even once having glimpsed inside our skulls, a landscape surely as alien and as wondrous as anything the universe has to offer. ...
Only in solitude it is possible to live as self-contained as a star. (c)
Q:
“Who are we to warm a planet for a dream and to cool it for nostalgia?” (c)
Q:
We live in a time of chaos, and the only moral choice is to be amoral. (c)
Q:
“There’s a greater promise we all must live by: to do what our heart tells us is right.” (c)
Q:
The hidden space has its own structure, made from dangling thin strands that glow faintly with an inner light. (c)
Q:
She has always been the best at vine fighting and cloud dancing. She glides and swings as gracefully as an immortal of the heavenly court. (c)
Q:
There’s a glow in her eyes. This is her favorite subject, pitching her mad scientist answer. (c)
Q:
I had once thought the Singularity would solve all our problems. Turns out it’s just a simple hack for a complicated problem. We do not share the same histories; we do not all want the same things. (c)
Q:
What follows are aerial shots of worlds both familiar and strange: the Earth, with its temperate climate carefully regulated to sustain the late Holocene; Venus, whose orbit has been adjusted by repeated gravitational slingshots with asteroids and terraformed to become a lush, warm replica of Earth during the Jurassic; and Mars, whose surface has been pelted with redirected Oort cloud objects and warmed by solar reflectors from space until the climate is a good approximation of the dry, cold conditions of the last glaciation on Earth.
Dinosaurs now roam the jungles of Aphrodite Terra, and mammoths forage over the tundra of Vastitas Borealis. Genetic reconstructions have been pushed back to the limit of the powerful data centers on Earth. (c)
Q:
Isn’t it the duty of every intelligent species to rescue all life, even from the dark abyss of time? There is always a technical solution. (c)
Q:
Thin, circular plates a hundred kilometers in diameter are arranged in a lattice of longitudinal rings around the star until it is completely surrounded. The plates do not orbit the star; rather, they are statites, positioned so that the pressure from the sun’s high-energy radiation counteracts the pull of gravity.
On the inner surface of this Dyson swarm, trillions of robots have etched channels and gates into the substrate, creating the most massive circuits in the history of the human race.
As the plates absorb the energy from the sun, it is transformed into electric pulses that emerge from cells, flow through canals, commingle in streams, until they gather into lakes and oceans that undulate through a quintillion variations that form the shape of thought.
The backs of the plates glow darkly, like embers after a fierce flame. The lower-energy photons leap outward into space, somewhat drained after powering a civilization. But before they can escape into the endless abyss of space, they strike another set of plates designed to absorb energy from radiation at this dimmer frequency. And once again, the process for thought-creation repeats itself. (c)
Q:
... I always feel that there is a message that the people I study want to pass on. Whatever I discover will be the last testament and whisper of the people of Pi Baeo. In studying them, I become connected to them, and in passing on their message, the human race is no longer so alone. (c)
Q:
I’d rather he buy that shuttle, and we’ll wander the stars together, weighed down by nothing. (c)
Q:
A man wants to leave behind his name, and a civilization wants to leave behind its stories. I’m the only thing standing between them and oblivion. (c)
December 25, 2019
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This is my first work of fiction by Ken Liu, so I had no idea what to expect going in. THE HIDDEN GIRL is a collection of short stories, most of which are science-fiction, that dwell on themes of artificial intelligence, the transmittance of culture over time (memes), global warming and climate change, and at its most fundamental level, what it means to be human.
Reading these stories made me think of the TV show Love, Death + Robots. Not only does it share many of the same themes, it also shares the ability to really bum you the heck out. Even though I'm a fast reader, I couldn't really make it through more than three or four of these stories in a sitting, as they were almost all depressing and many of them had truly tragic or even wretched endings. Do not read this book if you are easily upset and are looking for something uplifting, as I left THE HIDDEN GIRL feeling pretty bummed and in need of a hug.
Depressing content aside, most of these stories are excellent. I'm definitely interested in reading more of Liu's work, and liked the focus that he put on having strong and intelligent women in these stories, many of them being of Asian (and more specifically, Chinese) descent. It's hard to rate a short story collection as a whole, which is why I tend to break them down story by story, but this is a pretty solid effort, and I was, on the whole, impressed with what I read, bar a few exceptions that were mediocre/confusing at worst.
Mild spoilers ahead!
Ghost Days: ☆☆☆½
This is a poignant story about an alien colonist who ends up taking solace in the multi-generational saga of a Chinese family's dealings with xenophobic white people as well as their struggle with dual cultural identities. The title is a play on the Chinese term (often offensive, so I won't write here) for white foreigners, which also refers, additionally, to spirits. Both meanings play a role in this story.
Maxwell's Demon: ☆☆☆☆
This is a story set during WWII about a woman of Okinawan descent who is taken from an internment camp and forced to renounce her citizenship so she can be deported back to Japan as a spy for the Americans. Working in a physics lab, she ends up being the assistant and lover to a scientist developing a weapon that runs on a type of magic, forcing Takako to make a choice about what it easy versus what is right, and which country she should choose to be loyal to when both are wrong.
The Reborn: ☆☆☆☆
This is a chilling story that occurs in the aftermath of first contact. After a brutal colonization, the invading aliens feel remorse and have turned the other cheek to instill compassion and peace in the very society they destroyed. But their compassion has a dark edge, and the body modifications required of the humans they interact with have a sinister purpose.
Thoughts and Prayers: ☆☆☆☆
This is a multi-POV story exploring how a mass shooting affects the members of the victim's family, including the POV of a troll who is determined to see that the family suffers.
Byzantine Empathy: ☆☆½
Confusing story about cryptocurrency, virtual reality, and the dispassion with which we view global conflict when looking through the removed and sanitized lens of social media.
The Gods Will Not Be Chained: ☆☆☆☆☆
This is honestly my favorite story in the collection. It's heartbreaking, but ends on a note of hope. A girl being bullied ends up gaining the mysterious protection of someone who only speaks in emoji, but, through further attempts at contact, starts to seem kind of familiar...
Staying Behind: ☆☆☆☆
This is a haunting story about what happens when we get the ability to upload consciousness without a physical body to anchor it. What kind of temptation would a digital existence pose to a venal one, and what would this mean for those who choose to remain behind? This one reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode, or maybe a kinder retelling of The Matrix.
Real Artists: ☆☆☆☆☆
Another stand-out story in the collection, Real Artists is a rather disillusioning look behind the curtain at the sterile future of creativity, in this case, via the medium of film. I liked it.
The Gods Will Not Be Slain: ☆☆☆☆½
I loved the opening to this one, and had it continued in that vein, this probably would have been a solid five-- but no, it had to be depressing. This is a sequel to The Gods Will Not Be Chained, and explores the dangers of AI and the painful sacrifices we must make to do good.
Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer: ☆☆
Meh. Another story about AI and the evanescent nature of all things. This one wasn't really a favorite, I think because it was too similar in topic to several stronger stories that came right before it.
The Gods Have Not Died in Vain: ☆☆☆☆
The conclusion to the three-part miniseries revolving around AI. I really loved this little miniseries, even though it broke my heart. AI is like the Promethean fire, with advancement meaning tragedy for both the creator and the receivers. It definitely feels like a cautionary tale, like Icarus flying too high.
Memories of My Mother: ☆☆½
A sad story about a woman dying of terminal disease who decides to cheat time by going into stasis and visiting her daughter once every seven years to cheat her 2 year prognosis. Interesting concept and heart-tugging idea, but the story was too short to pack much of an emotional wallop.
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit-- Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts: ☆☆☆☆
Really more of a three and a half, but I rounded up for the beautiful writing and interesting premise. In this story, earth has flooded in the wake of massive climate change, and humans have moved on to colonize other planets. Here, two are deep-sea diving in the remains of Massachusetts, looking at coral and pondering the end.
Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard: ☆
Really confusing. I didn't understand what was happening in this one at all.
A Chase Beyond the Storms: NO RATING
This is an excerpt from the upcoming third book in one of the author's series. I don't really like this, as it kind of feels like an advertisement masquerading as content.Ads belong in the back.
The Hidden Girl: ☆☆☆½
The titular story. I always have high hopes for the titular story; I feel like if you're going to name your collection after a story, it should be your strongest work or the most representative of the themes. Neither is the case for The Hidden Girl, which is more fantasy than science-fiction and also very strange. It's about a girl who becomes apprentice to a Buddhist nun with powers, but ends up leaving her order after being asked to kill a man, despite this meaning cutting all ties to the people she considers family.
Seven Birthdays: ☆☆½
Another really strange story. I didn't get this one either, even though it was nicely written.
The Message: ☆☆☆½
This is a very sad story about an ancient civilization hiding a secret, the meaning of lost symbols, and a father and daughter who have bonded too late. Easily one of the most depressing stories in the collection, and what makes this even more infuriating is that it feels like it was handled carelessly.
Cutting: ☆☆☆
A poem, and don't worry-- cutting, here, refers to cuttings of paper and not the more upsetting kind. I know, I had the same concern, given the content in this book. After a series of major downers, it was nice to end on a somewhat lighter note.
So there you have it, THE HIDDEN GIRL with all its ups and downs (mostly downs). It's a great work of science-fiction and I do recommend it for fans of Love, Death + Robots, but don't read it when you're having a bad day, as it will likely make you feel worse.
And now, to read something happy! :)
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!
3.5 stars
April 22, 2020
Ken Liu is becoming one of my favorite short story writers. It's one thing to drop names like Harlan Ellison or Ted Chiang, but it's another thing to see such stories rise up out of so many other writers and still stick with you after years.
I guess I've been blessed to read a number of these stories from other collections, and it's great to find out that reading them again is still a pleasure. For the most part, the tone of the tales moves away from Chinese mythology or the social bits or the horrors of history or the direction things are taking in terms of China (as was the case in Paper Menagerie), and we see a lot more pure science-fiction goodies that deal with my personal favorite subjects:
The Singularity! There's a trio of stories in here that belong together and they thrilled me. There's a lot more going on with future life, uploads, ecological conservation, and even the future of art.
All of these stories are fascinating and there wasn't a dull one in the bunch.
But that's not all. Whenever Ken Liu writes fantasy, it's always as delicious as hell. I really got into the action and the adventure and if I was going to complain about anything, it's the fact I don't get to read whole novels set in these worlds. :)
My favorites:
Thoughts and Prayers - the dark underbelly of news and information filters.
Byzantine Empathy - A truly fun story detailing some rather cool possible virtual reality economics.
The Gods Will Not Be Chained, The Gods Will Not Be Slain, The Gods Have Not Died In Vain - the trio of Singularity stories, but not the only ones in this collection! So delicious.
Hidden Girl - A truly GREAT fantasy I would give anything to read more within.
Seven Birthdays - Gimmie a truly massive future history, please! Reminds me of a much-updated Asimov story. :)
The Message - This one really tugged on my heartstrings. Truly tragic, wonderful.
I guess I've been blessed to read a number of these stories from other collections, and it's great to find out that reading them again is still a pleasure. For the most part, the tone of the tales moves away from Chinese mythology or the social bits or the horrors of history or the direction things are taking in terms of China (as was the case in Paper Menagerie), and we see a lot more pure science-fiction goodies that deal with my personal favorite subjects:
The Singularity! There's a trio of stories in here that belong together and they thrilled me. There's a lot more going on with future life, uploads, ecological conservation, and even the future of art.
All of these stories are fascinating and there wasn't a dull one in the bunch.
But that's not all. Whenever Ken Liu writes fantasy, it's always as delicious as hell. I really got into the action and the adventure and if I was going to complain about anything, it's the fact I don't get to read whole novels set in these worlds. :)
My favorites:
Thoughts and Prayers - the dark underbelly of news and information filters.
Byzantine Empathy - A truly fun story detailing some rather cool possible virtual reality economics.
The Gods Will Not Be Chained, The Gods Will Not Be Slain, The Gods Have Not Died In Vain - the trio of Singularity stories, but not the only ones in this collection! So delicious.
Hidden Girl - A truly GREAT fantasy I would give anything to read more within.
Seven Birthdays - Gimmie a truly massive future history, please! Reminds me of a much-updated Asimov story. :)
The Message - This one really tugged on my heartstrings. Truly tragic, wonderful.
June 23, 2020
There are about a dozen new stories here in Ken Liu's second collection. I felt that it was less interesting than his extraordinary The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, but still good reading. Many of the stories are set in a dystopia called "the Singularity" where, like in a few episodes of Black Mirror such as 'San Junipero', folks can decide to upload their consciousness into the cloud and live as digital entities. In these stories, there is a massive social pressure for folks to assimilate and most of the stories focus on people that are resisting the trend. Thought-provoking for sure.
January 2, 2020
Ken Liu is one of my top five favorite short story writers working today. And he is really the only one of the bunch being prolific. I believe he has published over 80 stories in most reputable speculative fiction magazines over the past 10 years. He attained the remarkable feat of gaining popularity in the supersaturated medium of speculative fiction magazines. The reason he was able to rise above the rest, I believe, was his storytelling ability, which often combines traditional Chinese storytelling tropes with razor-edged scientific knowledge. Along with Ted Chiang, I think it is safe to assume that Liu's intelligence is much higher than the average purveyor of science fiction these days. Borderline, if not certified, genius.
The Paper Managerie and Other Stories, Ken Liu's rock-solid debut collection, was a masterpiece. The finest collection of short stories to come out of the speculative genre in recent decades. It can hold its own against The Martian Chronicles, Endangered Species, and other must-reads in my opinion. It is not likely to be equaled or surpassed anytime soon. It is very likely to be reread, by me, and very soon. It is an emotionally charged, politically relevant, and breathtaking summation of his career thus far. His silk-punk novel series is still unknown to me. I know I will have to set aside a significant amount of time to read it. I have dabbled in the first volume, but I know I will come back to it when I'm ready. I cannot help but think that that project will be overshadowed by Liu's short story collections to come. It may be wishful thinking, but he was born to write short stories imho. Maybe he will be regarded as another Bradbury one day.
This second collection, despite the glowing accolades it has already garnered, is not as perfect as his previous effort. It could still be called a masterpiece, perhaps, but I had several gripes with it. Several stories were a slight chore to get through, it pains me to say. Luckily, the collection is well-rounded and the best stories toward the end of the collection, leaving me with a satiated aftertaste.
Taken together the stories become less than the sum of their parts in one distinct way, by virtue of repetition - first of the distracting inclusions of dozens of emojis and the reused character tropes exploring father-daughter and daughter-mother relationships. The family ties in all of Ken Liu's short fiction are critical to the functioning of plot. Here, they are bittersweet and forced. The patterns grated on me, almost as if he recast the same characters in the same roles with slightly differing world building constraints.
Taken separately the stories are all pretty strong and engaging. Many themes stand out in this volume including: post human scenarios, virtual reality, AI, mega corporate corruption, environmental activism, post apocalyptic landscapes, uninhabitable earths, atemporal existence, multi dimensional family dynamics, ethics, the troubles of old age, infirmity, and fear of death, war and slavery, extra-terrestrial archaeology, and much more. That sentence right there should give you enough reason to read the collection.
"The Hidden Girl" was a nice, representative story, an impressive piece of storytelling, combining his trademark Chinese cultural references with his trademark brilliant s-f ideas.
Ken Liu remains an incredible writer. His talent is undeniable. He should also be commended for bringing us several volumes of Chinese science fiction in translation. It is hard to know which contribution is more valuable. We are sitting on a veritable treasure trove of untranslated literature, and heroes like Ken Liu are brave enough, and generous enough, to set aside their fame and risk exposing new talent to the masses. I appreciate what you do, Sir.
The Paper Managerie and Other Stories, Ken Liu's rock-solid debut collection, was a masterpiece. The finest collection of short stories to come out of the speculative genre in recent decades. It can hold its own against The Martian Chronicles, Endangered Species, and other must-reads in my opinion. It is not likely to be equaled or surpassed anytime soon. It is very likely to be reread, by me, and very soon. It is an emotionally charged, politically relevant, and breathtaking summation of his career thus far. His silk-punk novel series is still unknown to me. I know I will have to set aside a significant amount of time to read it. I have dabbled in the first volume, but I know I will come back to it when I'm ready. I cannot help but think that that project will be overshadowed by Liu's short story collections to come. It may be wishful thinking, but he was born to write short stories imho. Maybe he will be regarded as another Bradbury one day.
This second collection, despite the glowing accolades it has already garnered, is not as perfect as his previous effort. It could still be called a masterpiece, perhaps, but I had several gripes with it. Several stories were a slight chore to get through, it pains me to say. Luckily, the collection is well-rounded and the best stories toward the end of the collection, leaving me with a satiated aftertaste.
Taken together the stories become less than the sum of their parts in one distinct way, by virtue of repetition - first of the distracting inclusions of dozens of emojis and the reused character tropes exploring father-daughter and daughter-mother relationships. The family ties in all of Ken Liu's short fiction are critical to the functioning of plot. Here, they are bittersweet and forced. The patterns grated on me, almost as if he recast the same characters in the same roles with slightly differing world building constraints.
Taken separately the stories are all pretty strong and engaging. Many themes stand out in this volume including: post human scenarios, virtual reality, AI, mega corporate corruption, environmental activism, post apocalyptic landscapes, uninhabitable earths, atemporal existence, multi dimensional family dynamics, ethics, the troubles of old age, infirmity, and fear of death, war and slavery, extra-terrestrial archaeology, and much more. That sentence right there should give you enough reason to read the collection.
"The Hidden Girl" was a nice, representative story, an impressive piece of storytelling, combining his trademark Chinese cultural references with his trademark brilliant s-f ideas.
Ken Liu remains an incredible writer. His talent is undeniable. He should also be commended for bringing us several volumes of Chinese science fiction in translation. It is hard to know which contribution is more valuable. We are sitting on a veritable treasure trove of untranslated literature, and heroes like Ken Liu are brave enough, and generous enough, to set aside their fame and risk exposing new talent to the masses. I appreciate what you do, Sir.
September 14, 2020
3.5ish stars. This is a collection of fantasy and SF short stories by the very talented Ken Liu, many of them set in a future where humans choose to be “uploaded” into a virtual world, like a voluntary Matrix. Liu is great at focusing on relationships while also exploring ideas.
RTC. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Thanks!
RTC. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Thanks!
January 29, 2021
(อ่านต้นฉบับภาษาอังกฤษ)
รวมเรื่องสั้นเจ๋งๆ อีกเล่มจากนักเขียนไซไฟ-แฟนตาซีคนโปรดอีกคน รอบนี้ เคน หลิว บอกในคำนำว่าเขาเลือกเรื่องสั้นในเล่มจากเกณฑ์ง่ายๆ คือ เป็นความชอบส่วนตัว ซึ่งก็หลากหลายมากเช่นเคย มีตั้งแต่เรื่องดาร์คๆ แนว Black Mirror อย่าง Thoughts and Prayers ว่าด้วยด้านมืดของโลกออนไลน์และความท้าทายของการเก็บรักษาความทรงจำ แอ๊กชั่นแฟนตาซีมันส์ๆ ใน The Hidden Girl หรือความสัมพันธ์ซึ้งๆ ระหว่างพ่อลูกและข้ามธารเวลาและอารยธรรมใน The Message
เรื่องที่ชอบที่สุดในเล่มคือซีรีส์เรื่องสั้นสามเรื่องที่ต่อเนื่องกันกลางเล่ม ว่าด้วยโลกหลัง singularity (อนาคตที่มนุษย์สามารถ “อัพโหลด” ความรู้สึกนึกคิด สติสัมปชัญญะ ความทรงจำและทั้งหมดทั้งมวลที่มีในสมองเข้าไปไว้ในเครือข่ายคอมพิวเตอร์ มี “ชีวิตดิจิทัล” อมตะที่ไม่ต้องอาศัยร่างกายอีกต่อไป หลายคนมองว่านี่คือวิวัฒนาการขั้นสุดของมนุษย์ เอาชนะความตายและเป็นวิธีที่จะ “คืน” ผืนโลกให้กับสิ่งมีชีวิตอื่นๆ ให้โอกาสธรรมชาติเยียวยาตัวเอง เพราะชีวิตดิจิทัลใช้ทรัพยากรน้อยกว่าชีวิตสสารที่เป็นของแข็งมาก แต่อีกหลายคนก็มองว่าชีวิตแบบนี้ไม่ใช่ชีวิต เพราะร่างกายของมนุษย์จำเป็นต่อความรู้สีกนึกคิดที่เป็นมนุษย์ (หรือพูดอีกอย่างคือ สติสัมปชัญญะต้องมีฐานในร่างกาย หรือ embodied consciousness ถึงจะเป็นความรู้สึกที่แท้) และ “ความตาย” หรือจุดสิ้นสุดของชีวิตนั้น ก็จำเป็นต่อการสร้างความหมายของการมีชีวิตอยู่ หลิวสำรวจประเด็นเหล่านี้และอีกมากมายผ่านมุมมองและสายสัมพันธ์ระหว่างสมาชิกในครอบครัว
ไม่ได้ชอบทุกเรื่องเท่ากัน แต่สามเรื่องในซีรีส์และเรื่องอื่นๆ ที่เกี่ยวกับ singularity ก็ทรงพลังและรุ่มรวยด้วยรายละเอียดและความเข้าอกเข้าใจ คุ้มค่าแก่การอ่านจากปลายปากกาของนักเขียนที่ผนวก “สมอง” กับ “หัวใจ” และ “จินตนาการ” ได้อย่างกลมกล่อมที่สุดคนหนึ่งในบรรณภพ
รวมเรื่องสั้นเจ๋งๆ อีกเล่มจากนักเขียนไซไฟ-แฟนตาซีคนโปรดอีกคน รอบนี้ เคน หลิว บอกในคำนำว่าเขาเลือกเรื่องสั้นในเล่มจากเกณฑ์ง่ายๆ คือ เป็นความชอบส่วนตัว ซึ่งก็หลากหลายมากเช่นเคย มีตั้งแต่เรื่องดาร์คๆ แนว Black Mirror อย่าง Thoughts and Prayers ว่าด้วยด้านมืดของโลกออนไลน์และความท้าทายของการเก็บรักษาความทรงจำ แอ๊กชั่นแฟนตาซีมันส์ๆ ใน The Hidden Girl หรือความสัมพันธ์ซึ้งๆ ระหว่างพ่อลูกและข้ามธารเวลาและอารยธรรมใน The Message
เรื่องที่ชอบที่สุดในเล่มคือซีรีส์เรื่องสั้นสามเรื่องที่ต่อเนื่องกันกลางเล่ม ว่าด้วยโลกหลัง singularity (อนาคตที่มนุษย์สามารถ “อัพโหลด” ความรู้สึกนึกคิด สติสัมปชัญญะ ความทรงจำและทั้งหมดทั้งมวลที่มีในสมองเข้าไปไว้ในเครือข่ายคอมพิวเตอร์ มี “ชีวิตดิจิทัล” อมตะที่ไม่ต้องอาศัยร่างกายอีกต่อไป หลายคนมองว่านี่คือวิวัฒนาการขั้นสุดของมนุษย์ เอาชนะความตายและเป็นวิธีที่จะ “คืน” ผืนโลกให้กับสิ่งมีชีวิตอื่นๆ ให้โอกาสธรรมชาติเยียวยาตัวเอง เพราะชีวิตดิจิทัลใช้ทรัพยากรน้อยกว่าชีวิตสสารที่เป็นของแข็งมาก แต่อีกหลายคนก็มองว่าชีวิตแบบนี้ไม่ใช่ชีวิต เพราะร่างกายของมนุษย์จำเป็นต่อความรู้สีกนึกคิดที่เป็นมนุษย์ (หรือพูดอีกอย่างคือ สติสัมปชัญญะต้องมีฐานในร่างกาย หรือ embodied consciousness ถึงจะเป็นความรู้สึกที่แท้) และ “ความตาย” หรือจุดสิ้นสุดของชีวิตนั้น ก็จำเป็นต่อการสร้างความหมายของการมีชีวิตอยู่ หลิวสำรวจประเด็นเหล่านี้และอีกมากมายผ่านมุมมองและสายสัมพันธ์ระหว่างสมาชิกในครอบครัว
ไม่ได้ชอบทุกเรื่องเท่ากัน แต่สามเรื่องในซีรีส์และเรื่องอื่นๆ ที่เกี่ยวกับ singularity ก็ทรงพลังและรุ่มรวยด้วยรายละเอียดและความเข้าอกเข้าใจ คุ้มค่าแก่การอ่านจากปลายปากกาของนักเขียนที่ผนวก “สมอง” กับ “หัวใจ” และ “จินตนาการ” ได้อย่างกลมกล่อมที่สุดคนหนึ่งในบรรณภพ
March 11, 2020
Thought provoking, and often chilling, collection of soft sci-fi and fantasy, with many stories examining the unimaginable ramifications of human technological progress spun out of control. A number of stories revolve around the concept of uploaded human consciousness, AKA the "Singularity", where human minds become digitized, no longer requiring physical bodies. The three linked "The Gods.." stories in particular are fascinating looks at this, with the absolutely riveting story "Staying Behind" as a kind of CODA to these. Together these seemingly make up the heart of this collection and were certainly highlights for me.
Though many are certainly chilling in their implications, Liu tells these stories with warmth and heart. The messages are clearly ominous - warnings that humanity's belief that we can keep transformational, and potentially devastating, technologies bottled up is almost certainly a fallacy.
Thoughts on some of the individual stories -
The Reborn (4.5) - Chilling story of alien invaders who constantly shed their memories and remake themselves, and can "rebirth" humans by radically manipulating their memories, which they do to eliminate resistance to their presence. Liu uses the story to examine the connection between memory and identity, as well as to the perception of self and reality. If you've read Octavia E. Butler's classic Xenogenesis series, the symbiotic yet parasitic alien-human relationships depicted here will feel familiar.
The Gods Will Not Be Chained (4.0) - Examines the "pursuit of digital immortality, the fusion of man and machine, the Singularity" and the futility of trying to keep the genie of uploaded consciousnesses in a bottle.
Staying Behind (5.0) - A kind of final chapter in the "The Gods.." series of stories. A riveting look at the post apocalyptic world left to the few scraps of humanity who holdout from uploading to the Singularity. In my opinion, this should be read after the three "The Gods.." stories, rather than in the order presented.
Real Artists (4.0) - A kind of chilling look at the transformation of art into engineering and what that means for the role of the "artist". Creativity and artistic inspiration supplanted by big data and algorithms.
The Gods Will Not Be Slain (4.0) - A sequel to The Gods Will Not Be Chained , examining the conflicts and disastrous consequences on the world of the unleashing of the uploaded digital consciousnesses.
The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (4.0) - A sequel to The Gods Will Not Be Slain where we see a post apocalyptic society trying to pick up the pieces in the wake of devastation and chaos.
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit - Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (3.5) - Hundreds of years in the future, after the climate changed induced flooding of the Earth and man's settling of other parts of the solar system, a philosopher of sorts visits the flooded ancient ruins of Boston and ponders the wisdom of destroying Earth's new habitats while attempting to rollback the changes wrought by humanity.
The Hidden Girl (4.0) - A delightful story of a girl abducted at a young age and trained as an assassin. Liu's beautiful and evocative style is magical in and of itself.
Though many are certainly chilling in their implications, Liu tells these stories with warmth and heart. The messages are clearly ominous - warnings that humanity's belief that we can keep transformational, and potentially devastating, technologies bottled up is almost certainly a fallacy.
Thoughts on some of the individual stories -
The Reborn (4.5) - Chilling story of alien invaders who constantly shed their memories and remake themselves, and can "rebirth" humans by radically manipulating their memories, which they do to eliminate resistance to their presence. Liu uses the story to examine the connection between memory and identity, as well as to the perception of self and reality. If you've read Octavia E. Butler's classic Xenogenesis series, the symbiotic yet parasitic alien-human relationships depicted here will feel familiar.
The Gods Will Not Be Chained (4.0) - Examines the "pursuit of digital immortality, the fusion of man and machine, the Singularity" and the futility of trying to keep the genie of uploaded consciousnesses in a bottle.
Staying Behind (5.0) - A kind of final chapter in the "The Gods.." series of stories. A riveting look at the post apocalyptic world left to the few scraps of humanity who holdout from uploading to the Singularity. In my opinion, this should be read after the three "The Gods.." stories, rather than in the order presented.
Real Artists (4.0) - A kind of chilling look at the transformation of art into engineering and what that means for the role of the "artist". Creativity and artistic inspiration supplanted by big data and algorithms.
The Gods Will Not Be Slain (4.0) - A sequel to The Gods Will Not Be Chained , examining the conflicts and disastrous consequences on the world of the unleashing of the uploaded digital consciousnesses.
The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (4.0) - A sequel to The Gods Will Not Be Slain where we see a post apocalyptic society trying to pick up the pieces in the wake of devastation and chaos.
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit - Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (3.5) - Hundreds of years in the future, after the climate changed induced flooding of the Earth and man's settling of other parts of the solar system, a philosopher of sorts visits the flooded ancient ruins of Boston and ponders the wisdom of destroying Earth's new habitats while attempting to rollback the changes wrought by humanity.
The Hidden Girl (4.0) - A delightful story of a girl abducted at a young age and trained as an assassin. Liu's beautiful and evocative style is magical in and of itself.
October 23, 2023
I love short stories. I read several authors of short stories, but Ken Liu is my favorite. I love his creativity and character development. His world building is absolutely incredible. He writes across all aspects of science fiction. What I love most, is that several of the short stories are related and continue almost like a serial novel. Whether you like fantasy, technology or science based fiction, or space/interstellar science fiction, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories has something for every reader.
May 20, 2020
Quite a satisfying collection of stories. I am typically a fan of sprawling space operas with a lot of character development and the fate of human existence at stake. But my early love of Borges and his portrayal of mystifying ideas in a small package has primed my readiness to pursue the best of sci fi short stories. Liu is in the running for that with tales replete with elements used by classic masters of the form: ironic twists, poignant contrasts, potent microcosms, ambiguous endings that point beyond the frame and engage you to complete with your own imagination.
Recently, I was awed by the imagination and skills of Ted Chiang and Greg Egan in this form. While they spend a lot of effort instilling the reader with the plausibility of the physics behind their tales, Liu excels in inspiring a bit more empathy by incorporating more of the human elements. For example, they each often explore the implications of the coming so-called Singularity, the point where computer-based intelligence or personality emulations achieve consciousness and autonomy. Whereas Chiang and Egan tend to dwell on the technology, the details behind such a development, and the big-picture drama of the outcome, Liu’s four stories on this theme focus more on the impact upon the resilience of a family responding to such a technical evolution.
Once story features a girl, Maggie, whose father was uploaded into digital existence. She discovers how to secretly communicate with him in emojis and explores his alternate mode of being. I appreciated Liu’s highlighting the potential of this kind of posthuman existence to retain feelings about their mortal family members and to experience nostalgia for life in the real world. She is challenged to bridge the gap their lives, but finds meaning in teaming up with him in trying to keep another digital personality with a grudge against being exploited by a corporation from wreaking havoc on the network infrastructure of the world.
Another linked story, follows up on the family after this rogue AI facilitates a nuclear war in Asia, leaving the U.S. to struggle with a much degraded economy and a flood of refugees. Though the girl’s father was effectively wiped out in a cyberattack, along with other AIs, a new virtual persona, Mist, created by him initiates contact with Maggie, and a touching friendship with this “sister” emerges. With no reserve of memory of an embodied existence, Mist has no nostalgia about life in the real world and effectively lives as a god. As a gift, Maggie creates a robot with sensory tech to allow Mist to experience and act in the physical world, which disappointingly does not impress Mist.
Another story explores a further iteration of the upload concept from a family perspective, one in which the world is getting progressively depleted from most people choosing to get uploaded. Liu effectively engages in the tradeoff of giving up ones bodily life through the destructive scanning of their synaptic architecture in favor of immortality and freedom from the pain and struggle of our mortal life. Though the environment recovers dramatically and people adopt a healthy, rural agrarian life, the loss of historical and cultural progression is depressing. Liu homes us in on that experience with an example of a teenaged boy and girl feeling the artificiality and hollowness of trying to emulate the tradition of prom night at their tiny school.
The other stories are on diverse topics and scenarios, include an excerpt from a book of fantasy. Two take flight across long swaths of time, one highlighting the potential of human evolution and the other the persistence of admirable human traits. A third plays with time as a seeming counterpoint to Haldeman’s story of alienation by space warriors who return after a few years of near-light speed travel to face an Earth that has advanced hundreds of years; in this case a dying women travels so that in her short remaining live she can experience the span of her daughter’s life at 7-year intervals. The title story, about a girl being trained as an assassin in 9th century China, was a bit disappointing, feeling like a cross between the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and the mathematical fantasy about life in different dimension, “Flatland”.
My favorite story in the collection covers the life of a powerful, successful woman who became a hermit. Asa at 400 years in the future has given up her position managing the massive enterprise of terraforming Mars and an Earth now seriously degraded by pollution and rising seas from global warming. She disperses her wealth and leaves behind her large family of husbands and wives to travel Earth in a floating habitat, taking up long periods of residence amid the floating cities of stateless refugees above the sunken islands of Singapore and Malaysia. We get a samples of her lyrical, philosophical journal that she devotes her time writing in old-fashioned script. A journalist joins her on the habitat in the waters above the former Massachusetts to cover her story and viewpoint, which harks back to Naturalism and the writings of Thoreau and Dickinson. I loved the coverage of life on the translucent habitat, which can travel as a submersible in the case of storms. Having lived in the Boston area for 11 years, I especially appreciated the tour of the underwater city, now amid a reef of colorful coral, which has recovered from near extinction and moved north. It was cool that tourists are drawn to making dives to explore Harvard’s Widener Library. They pick up an aristocratic tourist who got lost on the library dive, who looks forward to the recovery of Earth. Asa imagines the wars of competition and greed over the re-emerged land and the death of new coral reef, proclaiming:
Who are we to warm a planet for a dream and to cool it for nostalgia?
The journalist concludes:
We do not know who we are. But we dare not stop striving to find out.
In sum, Egan and Chiang wow me more in their coverage of similar themes, but the human element in these tales makes Liu’s stories a bit more engaging in the emotional sphere.
Recently, I was awed by the imagination and skills of Ted Chiang and Greg Egan in this form. While they spend a lot of effort instilling the reader with the plausibility of the physics behind their tales, Liu excels in inspiring a bit more empathy by incorporating more of the human elements. For example, they each often explore the implications of the coming so-called Singularity, the point where computer-based intelligence or personality emulations achieve consciousness and autonomy. Whereas Chiang and Egan tend to dwell on the technology, the details behind such a development, and the big-picture drama of the outcome, Liu’s four stories on this theme focus more on the impact upon the resilience of a family responding to such a technical evolution.
Once story features a girl, Maggie, whose father was uploaded into digital existence. She discovers how to secretly communicate with him in emojis and explores his alternate mode of being. I appreciated Liu’s highlighting the potential of this kind of posthuman existence to retain feelings about their mortal family members and to experience nostalgia for life in the real world. She is challenged to bridge the gap their lives, but finds meaning in teaming up with him in trying to keep another digital personality with a grudge against being exploited by a corporation from wreaking havoc on the network infrastructure of the world.
Another linked story, follows up on the family after this rogue AI facilitates a nuclear war in Asia, leaving the U.S. to struggle with a much degraded economy and a flood of refugees. Though the girl’s father was effectively wiped out in a cyberattack, along with other AIs, a new virtual persona, Mist, created by him initiates contact with Maggie, and a touching friendship with this “sister” emerges. With no reserve of memory of an embodied existence, Mist has no nostalgia about life in the real world and effectively lives as a god. As a gift, Maggie creates a robot with sensory tech to allow Mist to experience and act in the physical world, which disappointingly does not impress Mist.
Another story explores a further iteration of the upload concept from a family perspective, one in which the world is getting progressively depleted from most people choosing to get uploaded. Liu effectively engages in the tradeoff of giving up ones bodily life through the destructive scanning of their synaptic architecture in favor of immortality and freedom from the pain and struggle of our mortal life. Though the environment recovers dramatically and people adopt a healthy, rural agrarian life, the loss of historical and cultural progression is depressing. Liu homes us in on that experience with an example of a teenaged boy and girl feeling the artificiality and hollowness of trying to emulate the tradition of prom night at their tiny school.
The other stories are on diverse topics and scenarios, include an excerpt from a book of fantasy. Two take flight across long swaths of time, one highlighting the potential of human evolution and the other the persistence of admirable human traits. A third plays with time as a seeming counterpoint to Haldeman’s story of alienation by space warriors who return after a few years of near-light speed travel to face an Earth that has advanced hundreds of years; in this case a dying women travels so that in her short remaining live she can experience the span of her daughter’s life at 7-year intervals. The title story, about a girl being trained as an assassin in 9th century China, was a bit disappointing, feeling like a cross between the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and the mathematical fantasy about life in different dimension, “Flatland”.
My favorite story in the collection covers the life of a powerful, successful woman who became a hermit. Asa at 400 years in the future has given up her position managing the massive enterprise of terraforming Mars and an Earth now seriously degraded by pollution and rising seas from global warming. She disperses her wealth and leaves behind her large family of husbands and wives to travel Earth in a floating habitat, taking up long periods of residence amid the floating cities of stateless refugees above the sunken islands of Singapore and Malaysia. We get a samples of her lyrical, philosophical journal that she devotes her time writing in old-fashioned script. A journalist joins her on the habitat in the waters above the former Massachusetts to cover her story and viewpoint, which harks back to Naturalism and the writings of Thoreau and Dickinson. I loved the coverage of life on the translucent habitat, which can travel as a submersible in the case of storms. Having lived in the Boston area for 11 years, I especially appreciated the tour of the underwater city, now amid a reef of colorful coral, which has recovered from near extinction and moved north. It was cool that tourists are drawn to making dives to explore Harvard’s Widener Library. They pick up an aristocratic tourist who got lost on the library dive, who looks forward to the recovery of Earth. Asa imagines the wars of competition and greed over the re-emerged land and the death of new coral reef, proclaiming:
Who are we to warm a planet for a dream and to cool it for nostalgia?
The journalist concludes:
We do not know who we are. But we dare not stop striving to find out.
In sum, Egan and Chiang wow me more in their coverage of similar themes, but the human element in these tales makes Liu’s stories a bit more engaging in the emotional sphere.
April 28, 2022
Exceptional collection from one of our very best SF authors. At his best, he’s as good as any writer in the business. As always, I liked some stories more than others. Rating based on my favorites, all SF: 4 stars. Most of the fantasies didn’t work for me.
Highlights:
● Seven Birthdays (2016), http://www.tor.com/2016/11/15/reprint... A million or so years in the life of Mia and her Mom. Ken Liu dreams big in this meticulous, breathtaking hard-SF tale of the transition from organic to silicon-based life. 5+ stars, my favorite of his shorts. More: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
● Ghost Days (2013), http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic... Three stories about the immigrant experience, from Hong Kong in 1905, Connecticut in 1989, and Nova Pacifica, a new colony world, in 2313. First-rate story: 4+ stars.
● Byzantine Empathy (2018). A young Chinese programmer designs a block-chain cryptocurrency to help refugees. A powerful and thoughtful near-future SF novelette. 4 stars. Online copy: https://breakermag.com/kchain-science...
● Staying Behind (2011), http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_1... Will Uploading bring the Singularity? Thoughtful, bittersweet story. 4 stars.
*All the stories*:
● Ghost Days (2013), http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic... Three stories about the immigrant experience, from Hong Kong in 1905, Connecticut in 1989, and Nova Pacifica, a new colony world, in 2313. I liked the SF part best, but this is a first-rate story throughout. 4+ stars.
● Maxwell’s Demon (2012). A young Nisei woman, a physics grad student before being interned, is sent to Japan as a spy in 1943. It doesn’t work out for her, or for Japan. Grim ending is historically accurate. Science fantasy, 3.5 stars.
● The Reborn (2014), https://www.tor.com/2014/01/29/reborn... An unpleasant paranoia-piece about an alien invasion. Not for me. 2 stars
● Thoughts and Prayers (2019), https://slate.com/technology/2019/01/... A college girl was a victim of a mass shooting. Her mother agrees to make her a poster-girl for gun control. Then the trolls arrive…. Memorable story that I pretty much hated. 1.5 stars, for me. Many other readers liked it.
● Byzantine Empathy (2018). A young Chinese programmer designs “Empathium,” a block-chain cryptocurrency to help refugees. Her American roommate in college, now a board member in a prominent NGO, happens to meet her old friend in a war zone in Burma. A powerful and thoughtful near-future SF novelette. 4 stars
● The Gods Will Not Be Chained (2015, Apocalypse Triptych #1). A brilliant computer engineer, on his deathbed, is forcibly uploaded by his company. First of 3 linked stories — which amount to a novella.
● The Gods Will Not Be Slain (2015, Apocalypse Triptych #2). Uploading becomes common. Unhappy consequences. Widespread warfare.
● The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (2015, Apocalypse Triptych #3). Is Uploading better than Real Life? Maybe so…. 3.5 stars for this interesting, if implausible(?) medium-future SF story.
● Staying Behind (2011), http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_1... Will Uploading bring the Singularity? Thoughtful, bittersweet story, recommended. 4 stars.
● Real Artists (2011), http://escapepod.org/2013/01/03/ep377... A new way to make movies disappoints an aspiring filmmaker. 3.5 stars.
● Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer (2010). Liu’s first posthuman story. Klein bottles, whales & the Chrysler Building are featured—but no reindeer. 3+ stars.
● Memories of My Mother (2012), http://dailysciencefiction.com/scienc.... Good but confusing sort-of sequel to “Reindeer”. 3+ stars.
● Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (2016) (reread). Asa organized the terraforming of both Mars and Earth. Then she quit to become a hermit. Strange story, reprinted in Dozois #34. 3.5 stars
● Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard (2020). A brother & sister work a small midden mine in a post-collapse society. The story morphs into a transformation science-fantasy. I didn’t much care for it. First publication here.
● The Hidden Girl (2017), http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic... Fantasy set in the Imperial court of Tang Dynasty China.
● Seven Birthdays (2016), http://www.tor.com/2016/11/15/reprint... A million or so years in the life of Mia and her Mom. Ken Liu dreams big in this meticulous, breathtaking hard-SF tale of the transition from organic to silicon-based life. 5+ stars, my favorite of his shorts.
● The Message (2012). A xenoarchaeologist and his daughter explore alien ruins and make a fateful discovery. Pretty hokey story, I thought. 2.5 stars.
● Cutting (2012), https://galli-books.co.uk/2018/08/06/... An odd religious fantasy that I didn’t much care for. All of 500 words, so try it for yourself.
Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for the eARC.
Highlights:
● Seven Birthdays (2016), http://www.tor.com/2016/11/15/reprint... A million or so years in the life of Mia and her Mom. Ken Liu dreams big in this meticulous, breathtaking hard-SF tale of the transition from organic to silicon-based life. 5+ stars, my favorite of his shorts. More: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
● Ghost Days (2013), http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic... Three stories about the immigrant experience, from Hong Kong in 1905, Connecticut in 1989, and Nova Pacifica, a new colony world, in 2313. First-rate story: 4+ stars.
● Byzantine Empathy (2018). A young Chinese programmer designs a block-chain cryptocurrency to help refugees. A powerful and thoughtful near-future SF novelette. 4 stars. Online copy: https://breakermag.com/kchain-science...
● Staying Behind (2011), http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_1... Will Uploading bring the Singularity? Thoughtful, bittersweet story. 4 stars.
*All the stories*:
● Ghost Days (2013), http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic... Three stories about the immigrant experience, from Hong Kong in 1905, Connecticut in 1989, and Nova Pacifica, a new colony world, in 2313. I liked the SF part best, but this is a first-rate story throughout. 4+ stars.
● Maxwell’s Demon (2012). A young Nisei woman, a physics grad student before being interned, is sent to Japan as a spy in 1943. It doesn’t work out for her, or for Japan. Grim ending is historically accurate. Science fantasy, 3.5 stars.
● The Reborn (2014), https://www.tor.com/2014/01/29/reborn... An unpleasant paranoia-piece about an alien invasion. Not for me. 2 stars
● Thoughts and Prayers (2019), https://slate.com/technology/2019/01/... A college girl was a victim of a mass shooting. Her mother agrees to make her a poster-girl for gun control. Then the trolls arrive…. Memorable story that I pretty much hated. 1.5 stars, for me. Many other readers liked it.
● Byzantine Empathy (2018). A young Chinese programmer designs “Empathium,” a block-chain cryptocurrency to help refugees. Her American roommate in college, now a board member in a prominent NGO, happens to meet her old friend in a war zone in Burma. A powerful and thoughtful near-future SF novelette. 4 stars
● The Gods Will Not Be Chained (2015, Apocalypse Triptych #1). A brilliant computer engineer, on his deathbed, is forcibly uploaded by his company. First of 3 linked stories — which amount to a novella.
● The Gods Will Not Be Slain (2015, Apocalypse Triptych #2). Uploading becomes common. Unhappy consequences. Widespread warfare.
● The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (2015, Apocalypse Triptych #3). Is Uploading better than Real Life? Maybe so…. 3.5 stars for this interesting, if implausible(?) medium-future SF story.
● Staying Behind (2011), http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_1... Will Uploading bring the Singularity? Thoughtful, bittersweet story, recommended. 4 stars.
● Real Artists (2011), http://escapepod.org/2013/01/03/ep377... A new way to make movies disappoints an aspiring filmmaker. 3.5 stars.
● Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer (2010). Liu’s first posthuman story. Klein bottles, whales & the Chrysler Building are featured—but no reindeer. 3+ stars.
● Memories of My Mother (2012), http://dailysciencefiction.com/scienc.... Good but confusing sort-of sequel to “Reindeer”. 3+ stars.
● Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (2016) (reread). Asa organized the terraforming of both Mars and Earth. Then she quit to become a hermit. Strange story, reprinted in Dozois #34. 3.5 stars
● Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard (2020). A brother & sister work a small midden mine in a post-collapse society. The story morphs into a transformation science-fantasy. I didn’t much care for it. First publication here.
● The Hidden Girl (2017), http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic... Fantasy set in the Imperial court of Tang Dynasty China.
● Seven Birthdays (2016), http://www.tor.com/2016/11/15/reprint... A million or so years in the life of Mia and her Mom. Ken Liu dreams big in this meticulous, breathtaking hard-SF tale of the transition from organic to silicon-based life. 5+ stars, my favorite of his shorts.
● The Message (2012). A xenoarchaeologist and his daughter explore alien ruins and make a fateful discovery. Pretty hokey story, I thought. 2.5 stars.
● Cutting (2012), https://galli-books.co.uk/2018/08/06/... An odd religious fantasy that I didn’t much care for. All of 500 words, so try it for yourself.
Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for the eARC.
December 28, 2020
While I had my ups and downs with the author’s previous collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, I had my downs and ups with this book, meaning more downs than ups this time. While the other collection was the proverbial box of chocolates with me liking the variety, this collection had too much of one flavor I didn’t care for, called “The Singularity” which even hints at a sameness in the name. Part of the concept had to do with certain segments of humanity uploading their consciousness into a new realm of existence. But despite this being fascinating, the emotional content was absent, except for some isolated scenes. I felt no pull to pick up this book where I left off, as I did with the other collection, never knowing where that former book would lead me. The stories in this collection often lead to the same place which was technology and a world built around it. I’d designate them as “think pieces.” This is fine to a point, but I had hoped to engage my heart as much as my brain.
To be fair, there were still some excellent stories in this collection that individually I would rate as four or five stars. They are as follows:
Maxwell’s Dream
The Reborn
Real Artists
Memories of My Mother
The Hidden Girl
The Message
Cutting
So that’s seven out of seventeen stories I can recommend. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did. I do think those seven stories were worth reading the book for, but I can’t enthusiastically recommend the book as a whole.
Favorite quotes:
Nostalgia is a wound that we refuse time to heal.
Sometimes I wonder if we have misunderstood the notion of freedom. We prize “freedom to” so much more than “freedom from.” People must be free to own guns, so the only solution is to teach children to hide in closets and wear ballistic backpacks. People must be free to post and say what they like, so the only solution is to tell their targets to put on armor.
We have grown to the point where we must depend on machines to survive. The world has become too fragile for us to count on people, and so our only choice is to make it even more fragile.
To be fair, there were still some excellent stories in this collection that individually I would rate as four or five stars. They are as follows:
Maxwell’s Dream
The Reborn
Real Artists
Memories of My Mother
The Hidden Girl
The Message
Cutting
So that’s seven out of seventeen stories I can recommend. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did. I do think those seven stories were worth reading the book for, but I can’t enthusiastically recommend the book as a whole.
Favorite quotes:
Nostalgia is a wound that we refuse time to heal.
Sometimes I wonder if we have misunderstood the notion of freedom. We prize “freedom to” so much more than “freedom from.” People must be free to own guns, so the only solution is to teach children to hide in closets and wear ballistic backpacks. People must be free to post and say what they like, so the only solution is to tell their targets to put on armor.
We have grown to the point where we must depend on machines to survive. The world has become too fragile for us to count on people, and so our only choice is to make it even more fragile.
December 10, 2020
AVERAGE RATING: 3.6 stars
➤ Ghost Days - 4 stars
➤ Maxwell’s Demon - 3.5 stars
➤ The Reborn - 4 stars
➤ Thoughts and Prayers - 4 stars
➤ Byzantine Empathy - 2 stars
➤ The Gods Will Not Be Chained - 5 stars
➤ Staying Behind - 3.5 stars
➤ Real Artists - 3 stars
➤ The Gods Will Not Be Slain - 4 stars
➤ Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer - 3.5 stars
➤ The Gods Have Not Died in Vain - 3.5 stars
➤ Memories of My Mother - 3 stars
➤ Dispatched from the Cradle: The Hermit-Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts - 3 stars
➤ Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard - 4.5 stars
➤ A Chase Beyond Storms - No rating
➤ The Hidden Girl - 5 stars
➤ Seven Birthdays - 3 stars
➤ The Message - 3.5 stars
➤ Cutting - 3 stars
➤ Ghost Days - 4 stars
➤ Maxwell’s Demon - 3.5 stars
➤ The Reborn - 4 stars
➤ Thoughts and Prayers - 4 stars
➤ Byzantine Empathy - 2 stars
➤ The Gods Will Not Be Chained - 5 stars
➤ Staying Behind - 3.5 stars
➤ Real Artists - 3 stars
➤ The Gods Will Not Be Slain - 4 stars
➤ Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer - 3.5 stars
➤ The Gods Have Not Died in Vain - 3.5 stars
➤ Memories of My Mother - 3 stars
➤ Dispatched from the Cradle: The Hermit-Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts - 3 stars
➤ Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard - 4.5 stars
➤ A Chase Beyond Storms - No rating
➤ The Hidden Girl - 5 stars
➤ Seven Birthdays - 3 stars
➤ The Message - 3.5 stars
➤ Cutting - 3 stars
February 13, 2020
My only experience with Ken Liu thus far has been in his translation of Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem and Death’s End. But I know he has a few beloved books already published out there, so I jumped at the chance to read this.
I generally try to read the introduction whenever one is included, and I definitely recommend reading the intro to The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. Liu talks a little about his writing process and how he went about selecting stories for this book. He says that stories are co-told by an author’s words and a reader’s interpretation; that writing a story is like building a house in which the reader moves in, arranges the furniture and decor to suit their tastes, and settles down.
He also goes on to say that it would be impossible for him to construct a home in which everyone was comfortable, so he selected the stories that he himself felt most comfortable in, and asks that the reader “find a story..to make [their] home.” I adored the metaphor and knew with that short but sweet introduction I was in for a treat.
That being said, I really am terrible at reviewing collections. So terrible in fact, that I’ve put this off for two months because I read it in December. It took me a week because these were stories that often required some processing afterward, so I know it’s worthy of a fantastic review and I’ve no idea how to convey that to you.
So bare with me friends, I’m doing my best.
The first two stories “Ghost Days” and “Maxwell’s Demon” absolutely blew me out of the water. They were both eye opening, haunting. They were stories I think it would benefit everyone to read at least once. While “Ghost Days” is about the importance of history and immigrant experience in America, “Maxwell’s Demon” is about the experience of a woman of Japanese descent in America during WWII.
For me, the stories that follow didn’t quite live up to the enormous standard by those first two stories. What they do instead, is follow, as Liu himself put it, a “meta-narrative”. Trailing different and yet similar themes (AI, digital immortality, virtual reality, shared experiences, parent-child relationships, etc.) weaving together an inventive tapestry of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
I will say this book ventures to some dark places. Sometimes I’d read a story and have to put the book down for a bit because it was that dark. Many stories don’t have a happy ending.
I do think the book finished strong, despite being a little bogged down in the middle. Other highlights include the miniseries starting with “The Gods Will Not Be Chained” and “The Hidden Girl”.
In the end, I liked The Hidden Girl and Other Stories enough that I will certainly be checking out Liu’s other work. This collection is well worth picking up for fans and newcomers alike.
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories releases on February 25, 2020. Thank you to the publisher for sending an ARC for review.
I generally try to read the introduction whenever one is included, and I definitely recommend reading the intro to The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. Liu talks a little about his writing process and how he went about selecting stories for this book. He says that stories are co-told by an author’s words and a reader’s interpretation; that writing a story is like building a house in which the reader moves in, arranges the furniture and decor to suit their tastes, and settles down.
He also goes on to say that it would be impossible for him to construct a home in which everyone was comfortable, so he selected the stories that he himself felt most comfortable in, and asks that the reader “find a story..to make [their] home.” I adored the metaphor and knew with that short but sweet introduction I was in for a treat.
That being said, I really am terrible at reviewing collections. So terrible in fact, that I’ve put this off for two months because I read it in December. It took me a week because these were stories that often required some processing afterward, so I know it’s worthy of a fantastic review and I’ve no idea how to convey that to you.
So bare with me friends, I’m doing my best.
The first two stories “Ghost Days” and “Maxwell’s Demon” absolutely blew me out of the water. They were both eye opening, haunting. They were stories I think it would benefit everyone to read at least once. While “Ghost Days” is about the importance of history and immigrant experience in America, “Maxwell’s Demon” is about the experience of a woman of Japanese descent in America during WWII.
For me, the stories that follow didn’t quite live up to the enormous standard by those first two stories. What they do instead, is follow, as Liu himself put it, a “meta-narrative”. Trailing different and yet similar themes (AI, digital immortality, virtual reality, shared experiences, parent-child relationships, etc.) weaving together an inventive tapestry of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
I will say this book ventures to some dark places. Sometimes I’d read a story and have to put the book down for a bit because it was that dark. Many stories don’t have a happy ending.
I do think the book finished strong, despite being a little bogged down in the middle. Other highlights include the miniseries starting with “The Gods Will Not Be Chained” and “The Hidden Girl”.
In the end, I liked The Hidden Girl and Other Stories enough that I will certainly be checking out Liu’s other work. This collection is well worth picking up for fans and newcomers alike.
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories releases on February 25, 2020. Thank you to the publisher for sending an ARC for review.
August 8, 2022
Real Rating: 4.5* of five
First look at Pantheon, the AMC+ series based on these stories.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM SAGA PRESS VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
Ken Liu is a busy, busy man. He is practically the sole engine behind Chinese SF being translated into English, and that's a major feat right there, especially while he was also being a lawyer and a software engineer...and also writing his own fiction. Thankfully the fact that his story "Good Hunting" was made into an episode of the first season of Love, Death + Robots for Netflix, and two seasons of a series called Pantheon is being made for AMC from these post-Singularity interconnected stories means that he's now a full-time toiler in the vineyards of literature.
There is, I suppose inevitably, quite a lot of focus on names, naming, descritpive labeling, and other methods of identifying unique points in the information flow-chart of the Universe. There are entities with graphic and mathematical-symbol augmented (or even composed) names; there are subtle jokes scattered around having to do with the sounds and definitions of the component parts of the names; it all feels playful, and is in part that. But think...a Chinese-American man, by the fact that this label is applied to him, becomes supremely sensitive to the power of names and naming. The power to create, destroy, invent, reinvent, control and rebel is in the power of naming. What better way to use that power, inherent in storytelling, than to signpost one's purpose without having to bash the reader with Messages.
A hefty proportion (possibly even all?) of the stories in this collection are set in that Uploaded (as opposed to Artificial) Intelligence/post-Singularity world. Liu takes his time exploring the inevitable losses of the end of the Anthropocene, making the coming of UI (that is, formerly human personalities freed of our slow wetware by insertion into quantum computers) "gods" inevitable. Then, as only Author Liu can, parsing out the ways humanity, freed of bodies, might optimize Life, the Universe, and Everything. These have the overarching feel of a novel that just wouldn't *quite* take shape. The key scenes are here...but there simply wasn't enough *oomph* to launch the project with a reasonable chance of success. But they're absolutely perfect cloth to shape a sixteen-episode TV series into!
See the story-by-story at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
First look at Pantheon, the AMC+ series based on these stories.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM SAGA PRESS VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
Ken Liu is a busy, busy man. He is practically the sole engine behind Chinese SF being translated into English, and that's a major feat right there, especially while he was also being a lawyer and a software engineer...and also writing his own fiction. Thankfully the fact that his story "Good Hunting" was made into an episode of the first season of Love, Death + Robots for Netflix, and two seasons of a series called Pantheon is being made for AMC from these post-Singularity interconnected stories means that he's now a full-time toiler in the vineyards of literature.
There is, I suppose inevitably, quite a lot of focus on names, naming, descritpive labeling, and other methods of identifying unique points in the information flow-chart of the Universe. There are entities with graphic and mathematical-symbol augmented (or even composed) names; there are subtle jokes scattered around having to do with the sounds and definitions of the component parts of the names; it all feels playful, and is in part that. But think...a Chinese-American man, by the fact that this label is applied to him, becomes supremely sensitive to the power of names and naming. The power to create, destroy, invent, reinvent, control and rebel is in the power of naming. What better way to use that power, inherent in storytelling, than to signpost one's purpose without having to bash the reader with Messages.
A hefty proportion (possibly even all?) of the stories in this collection are set in that Uploaded (as opposed to Artificial) Intelligence/post-Singularity world. Liu takes his time exploring the inevitable losses of the end of the Anthropocene, making the coming of UI (that is, formerly human personalities freed of our slow wetware by insertion into quantum computers) "gods" inevitable. Then, as only Author Liu can, parsing out the ways humanity, freed of bodies, might optimize Life, the Universe, and Everything. These have the overarching feel of a novel that just wouldn't *quite* take shape. The key scenes are here...but there simply wasn't enough *oomph* to launch the project with a reasonable chance of success. But they're absolutely perfect cloth to shape a sixteen-episode TV series into!
See the story-by-story at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
August 3, 2020
I received this book from Net galley, in exchange for an honest review.
Ken Liu has a very accomplished writing style and I found myself enjoying stories about AI and computer code that I normally find quite boring.
The first few stories are for the most part barely fiction, set in the present time or the very near future illustrating the most appalling and repellant uses of what is now every-day technology. Stories designed to provoke discussion.
Then there is a group of stories concerned with uploading human consciousness and the consequences it will have on the human psyche and perception. Although I found these easier to read than most stories involving AI I did feel a certain distance from the characters.
In between these scifi stories were a couple of Chinese folktale-style fantasy stories which I enjoyed though I experienced a certain whiplash switching from far-future techo-scifi to historically based fantasy and back again.
This is a curious collection of fantasy and scifi, both near and far future and I enjoyed the stories individually. However I felt that the composition of this collection did not necessarily display Mr Liu’s skills to their best advantage. The underlying theme was of family relationships particularly between separated parents and their children – who curiously all seemed to be only children - but this wasn’t enough to meld the collection into a cohesive whole.
Despite these reservations Ken Liu’s story-telling talent was not obscured and deserves at least 4 stars.
Ken Liu has a very accomplished writing style and I found myself enjoying stories about AI and computer code that I normally find quite boring.
The first few stories are for the most part barely fiction, set in the present time or the very near future illustrating the most appalling and repellant uses of what is now every-day technology. Stories designed to provoke discussion.
Then there is a group of stories concerned with uploading human consciousness and the consequences it will have on the human psyche and perception. Although I found these easier to read than most stories involving AI I did feel a certain distance from the characters.
In between these scifi stories were a couple of Chinese folktale-style fantasy stories which I enjoyed though I experienced a certain whiplash switching from far-future techo-scifi to historically based fantasy and back again.
This is a curious collection of fantasy and scifi, both near and far future and I enjoyed the stories individually. However I felt that the composition of this collection did not necessarily display Mr Liu’s skills to their best advantage. The underlying theme was of family relationships particularly between separated parents and their children – who curiously all seemed to be only children - but this wasn’t enough to meld the collection into a cohesive whole.
Despite these reservations Ken Liu’s story-telling talent was not obscured and deserves at least 4 stars.
March 26, 2020
Updated March 26: 5 Stars. I went through the stories to put in my reading list of short stories for the year and realized that I really liked the vast majority of these.
A lot of stories tied together and a lot of them about singularity / uploading consciousness into a network. I always enjoy those type of stories. I may update this review with favorites and individual story thoughts. Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard was the new story and it was pretty good but not amazing.
A lot of stories tied together and a lot of them about singularity / uploading consciousness into a network. I always enjoy those type of stories. I may update this review with favorites and individual story thoughts. Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard was the new story and it was pretty good but not amazing.
April 10, 2022
เคน หลิวก็ยังคงเป็นเคน หลิว ไม่ผิดเลย ที่ชอบมากๆ นอกจากคำนำผู้เขียน มีอยู่สามเรื่อง
'ดรุณีเร้นเงา' น่าจะเป็นเรื่องที่ไซไฟน้อยที่สุด แต่เป็นเรื่องกำลังภายในชั้นเยี่ยม คมคาย ลึกซึ้ง และงดงาม
'หลง-ลืม' ตั้งคำถามว่าทำไมความจำจึงสำคัญแม้กระทั่งในโลกอนาคตที่เทคโนโลยีก้าวหน้าไปไกลแสนไกล ทำไมบางคนยังอยากจำ ทำไมบางคน/สิ่งจึงเลือกลืม
'รั้ง' และอีกหลายเรื่องในเล่ม ชวนคิดว่าจะเกิดอะไรขึ้นถ้าการผสานสำนึกเข้าไปในคอมพิวเตอร์ทำได้ง่ายๆ เมื่อซิงกุลาริตี้เป็นทางเลือกหนึ่งในชีวิตมนุษย์ เราจะเข้าใจคนที่เลือกทิ้งร่างกายเพื่อเป็นหนึ่งเดียวกับระบบอย่างไร คนที่เรารักคนนั้นยังเป็นคนเดิมหรือคนใหม่���้าเรายังสื่อสารกับเราได้ด้วยความทรงจำทุกอย่างขาดไปเพียงร่างกาย
ที่ชอบที่สุดคือประเด็นที่ว่า จะเกิดอะไรขึ้นถ้าเราเติบโตมาในยุครอยต่อที่ลูกหลานคิดต่างจากเราไม่ใช่แค่เรื่องการ 'เลือกที่เรียนต่อ' แต่เป็นการเลือกทิ้งร่างกายเพื่อเดินเข้าสู่ทางสายใหม่ เป็น generation gap ในระดับวิถี 'ชีวิต' ไม่ใช่แค่ 'วิถี' ชีวิต
ที่เหลืออีกหลายเรื่องก็ยอดเยี่ยมไม่แพ้กันเลย คุ้มค่าทุกบาททุกสตางค์
'ดรุณีเร้นเงา' น่าจะเป็นเรื่องที่ไซไฟน้อยที่สุด แต่เป็นเรื่องกำลังภายในชั้นเยี่ยม คมคาย ลึกซึ้ง และงดงาม
'หลง-ลืม' ตั้งคำถามว่าทำไมความจำจึงสำคัญแม้กระทั่งในโลกอนาคตที่เทคโนโลยีก้าวหน้าไปไกลแสนไกล ทำไมบางคนยังอยากจำ ทำไมบางคน/สิ่งจึงเลือกลืม
'รั้ง' และอีกหลายเรื่องในเล่ม ชวนคิดว่าจะเกิดอะไรขึ้นถ้าการผสานสำนึกเข้าไปในคอมพิวเตอร์ทำได้ง่ายๆ เมื่อซิงกุลาริตี้เป็นทางเลือกหนึ่งในชีวิตมนุษย์ เราจะเข้าใจคนที่เลือกทิ้งร่างกายเพื่อเป็นหนึ่งเดียวกับระบบอย่างไร คนที่เรารักคนนั้นยังเป็นคนเดิมหรือคนใหม่���้าเรายังสื่อสารกับเราได้ด้วยความทรงจำทุกอย่างขาดไปเพียงร่างกาย
ที่ชอบที่สุดคือประเด็นที่ว่า จะเกิดอะไรขึ้นถ้าเราเติบโตมาในยุครอยต่อที่ลูกหลานคิดต่างจากเราไม่ใช่แค่เรื่องการ 'เลือกที่เรียนต่อ' แต่เป็นการเลือกทิ้งร่างกายเพื่อเดินเข้าสู่ทางสายใหม่ เป็น generation gap ในระดับวิถี 'ชีวิต' ไม่ใช่แค่ 'วิถี' ชีวิต
ที่เหลืออีกหลายเรื่องก็ยอดเยี่ยมไม่แพ้กันเลย คุ้มค่าทุกบาททุกสตางค์
February 26, 2020
Ahoy there me mateys! I received this short story collection eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings . . .
One of the best short stories I have ever read was Ken Liu's the paper menagerie which in 2012 was the first work to win the Hugo, the Nebula and the World Fantasy Award. Ye can read it for free by clicking here. This lovely cover for his second short story collection caught me eye and I was excited to read more of his work. This book has 16 stories from the past five years and a brand new novelette. There were 19 all together.
All short story collections are kinda hard to review. I usually try to give thoughts about each story individually but I am not able to do that for this book. This stems from the fact that the stories, as the author's preface states, have been arranged by the editor into a "meta-narrative." The stories at the beginning seem to standalone but later stories have many characters and plots reappear. I think the beginning of the collection was the strongest but much of the middle blurred together and felt very slow for reasons I will get to. Here are the stories that I loved:
"Ghost Days" - The first story was cool and the historical fiction aspects excellent. I didn't particularly love the ending but I did learn about bubi which are awesome Chinese coins. After the story I went looking to find out more about them and found this cool page.
"Maxwell's Demon"- This was the second story and the best for me. It deals with the Japanese internment in 1943 and ghosts. Poignant and beautiful.
"Thoughts and Prayers" - A thought-provoking tale about the consequences of a mass shooting on one family and how the digital world impacts how each member deals with grief.
"Real Artists" - A weird but fascinating look at how films could be made.
"Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard" - Cool magic. Super fun characters. I wouldn't mind this one being expanded into a longer form.
"The Hidden Girl"- Assassins and magic. Arrrr!
"The Message"- Lovely story about familial bonds, alien archaeology, and tough choices. Bittersweet.
About 30% of the way through is where the tone switched. Much of the middle of this book deals with the unforeseen impact of technology advancing. One story dealt with what happens when ye crowdfund charity and the non-profits have to compete. Multiple stories dealt with uploading the human consciousness to computers.
Two repeating ones were 1) a girl, Maddie, who talks to her dead AI father and 2) the Singularity which is where people gave up their physical bodies. Many of the stories with Maddie used emoji which I couldn't see very well on me Kindle and couldn't enlarge. It irked me and I missed a lot of the meaning. I enjoyed the Singularity ones better. But the switching back and forth did lead to some whiplash. And some of the tech made no sense to me so I was just confused about what was going on.
At 65% it switched to fantasy second with the "Grey Rabbit" story. I loved that one. Next from 76 - 81% there was an excerpt from the third Dandelion Dynasty book. Horrible, horrible choice. It didn't fit and should have been put at the end of the book if they wanted to promote it. Blech. "The Hidden Girl" was next. Fantastic story whose theme and tone matched the "Grey Rabbit" story. The remainder of the stories were good.
Out of the 19 stories, I loved 7, enjoyed 7, and didn't like 5. That is pretty darn good for me and a collection. So while there were quibbles, I am very glad to have read this collection.
So lastly . . .
Thank you Saga Press!
One of the best short stories I have ever read was Ken Liu's the paper menagerie which in 2012 was the first work to win the Hugo, the Nebula and the World Fantasy Award. Ye can read it for free by clicking here. This lovely cover for his second short story collection caught me eye and I was excited to read more of his work. This book has 16 stories from the past five years and a brand new novelette. There were 19 all together.
All short story collections are kinda hard to review. I usually try to give thoughts about each story individually but I am not able to do that for this book. This stems from the fact that the stories, as the author's preface states, have been arranged by the editor into a "meta-narrative." The stories at the beginning seem to standalone but later stories have many characters and plots reappear. I think the beginning of the collection was the strongest but much of the middle blurred together and felt very slow for reasons I will get to. Here are the stories that I loved:
"Ghost Days" - The first story was cool and the historical fiction aspects excellent. I didn't particularly love the ending but I did learn about bubi which are awesome Chinese coins. After the story I went looking to find out more about them and found this cool page.
"Maxwell's Demon"- This was the second story and the best for me. It deals with the Japanese internment in 1943 and ghosts. Poignant and beautiful.
"Thoughts and Prayers" - A thought-provoking tale about the consequences of a mass shooting on one family and how the digital world impacts how each member deals with grief.
"Real Artists" - A weird but fascinating look at how films could be made.
"Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard" - Cool magic. Super fun characters. I wouldn't mind this one being expanded into a longer form.
"The Hidden Girl"- Assassins and magic. Arrrr!
"The Message"- Lovely story about familial bonds, alien archaeology, and tough choices. Bittersweet.
About 30% of the way through is where the tone switched. Much of the middle of this book deals with the unforeseen impact of technology advancing. One story dealt with what happens when ye crowdfund charity and the non-profits have to compete. Multiple stories dealt with uploading the human consciousness to computers.
Two repeating ones were 1) a girl, Maddie, who talks to her dead AI father and 2) the Singularity which is where people gave up their physical bodies. Many of the stories with Maddie used emoji which I couldn't see very well on me Kindle and couldn't enlarge. It irked me and I missed a lot of the meaning. I enjoyed the Singularity ones better. But the switching back and forth did lead to some whiplash. And some of the tech made no sense to me so I was just confused about what was going on.
At 65% it switched to fantasy second with the "Grey Rabbit" story. I loved that one. Next from 76 - 81% there was an excerpt from the third Dandelion Dynasty book. Horrible, horrible choice. It didn't fit and should have been put at the end of the book if they wanted to promote it. Blech. "The Hidden Girl" was next. Fantastic story whose theme and tone matched the "Grey Rabbit" story. The remainder of the stories were good.
Out of the 19 stories, I loved 7, enjoyed 7, and didn't like 5. That is pretty darn good for me and a collection. So while there were quibbles, I am very glad to have read this collection.
So lastly . . .
Thank you Saga Press!
December 9, 2019
I won this via goodreads giveaways in exchange for an honest review. All my opinions are my own.
----
If you want to see my individual ratings for the stories, its all in my status updates :)
This was a fun collection. Some stories were more interesting than others, but all of them kept my attention and a few got me thinking about what it would be like if they actually happened. A couple did have me scratching my head and wondering why it was in the collection (didn't dampen my enjoyment at all).
One thing I was confused over was why there was a book preview of book three in another series of his. Just a fair warning to those of you like me who don't care for book previews.
Will definitely be checking out more of this author's work!
This one kept me company during a hectic retail work schedule (a wonder anyone keeps their sanity this time of year) and I was kind of glad I could take my time with this in a way.
Would recommend :)
(sorry for short review, just really tired.. may add more later)
----
If you want to see my individual ratings for the stories, its all in my status updates :)
This was a fun collection. Some stories were more interesting than others, but all of them kept my attention and a few got me thinking about what it would be like if they actually happened. A couple did have me scratching my head and wondering why it was in the collection (didn't dampen my enjoyment at all).
One thing I was confused over was why there was a book preview of book three in another series of his. Just a fair warning to those of you like me who don't care for book previews.
Will definitely be checking out more of this author's work!
This one kept me company during a hectic retail work schedule (a wonder anyone keeps their sanity this time of year) and I was kind of glad I could take my time with this in a way.
Would recommend :)
(sorry for short review, just really tired.. may add more later)
July 2, 2022
La decepción es un sentimiento más difícil de tratar que el simple disgusto. No es lo mismo no disfrutar de una obra, detestarla incluso, despotricar si se quieren liberar unas pocas endorfinas, pero al rato la obra que tan poco nos ha ofrecido se pierde en el tiempo como lagrimas en la lluvia. Pero la decepción no, en absoluto, porque siempre viene acompañado de una sombra de tristeza, de lo que pudo ser y no fue.
La primera colección de relatos de Ken Liu me encanto por su originalidad y su variedad. Salvo Ted Chiang, y quizá Greg Egan, el chino-estadounidense es una de las voces más interesantes de la ciencia ficción breve, con una batería de ideas que se diría casi infinita. Esta colección de trece relatos tenía muy buena pinta, y estaba deseando descubrir con que nuevas propuestas me iba a sorprender. Para sorpresa, la ya mentada decepción.
No voy a hablar de los cuentos por separado, son demasiados para comentarlos y esta reseña se eternizaría. Estoy seguro de que nadie quiere eso: bastante verborreico soy de por sí. Me voy a limitar a sobrevolar sobre todos ellos y daros mis impresiones generales. Para comenzar, decir que la variedad temática de esta colección es bastante más escasa que la de El jardín de papel. Hay varios relatos enlazados, bastantes, además, que tratan sobre la Singularidad, la posibilidad de transcender la humanidad al introducir la consciencia de una persona a un ordenador. El primero de los relatos es bastante interesante por el misterio que plantea y cómo lo desarrolla. El resto se limitan a seguir a los personajes de este primer relato y explorar las consecuencias que la Singularidad ha tenido para la humanidad y el mundo. Aquí es cuando la cosa se empieza a torcer, pues cada cuento añade poco en comparación a lo mucho que repite; la escala va aumentando más y más a cada relato, pero no alcanza el nivel de épica cósmica que por ejemplo sí logra Cixin Liu -me estoy dando cuenta de que, últimamente, hace falta ser oriental para escribir buena ciencia ficción-, debido a lo redundante que se vuelve. Cada vez que terminaba un cuento rezaba para que no fuera parte de este microcosmos narrativo.
Luego hay otros relatos ambientados en mundos imaginarios, como el relato homónimo, que trata sobre una secta de asesinos que operaba durante la dinastía Tang y poseían unos dones peculiares. Un buen relato, aunque sabe a poco y su final es bastante anticlimático. Otros relatos tratan sobre la memoria, la ascendencia, qué forja nuestra identidad y la importancia de preservar el recuerdo de los que nos han precedido. Un tema interesante que se trata con variable éxito, siendo el mejor para mí Días de fantasmas, en el que se recapitula la vida de distintas personas ligadas a un objeto.
Pero donde más brilla Ken Liu es en sus relatos sociales, pues sabe tomar problemáticas de nuestro tiempo y darle una vuelta de tuerca muy interesante que hace reflexionar hondamente. Y lo mejor: nunca se posiciona. Si es verdad que hay momentos de flaqueza en los que se entrevé de que pie cojea Liu, pero nunca llega a permear al relato hasta el punto de convertirlo en un panfleto. Además, elige unos temas y los desarrolla hasta puntos asombrosos. De este estilo, los mejores son Nuestro más sentido pésame, sobre la exposición mediática del dolor en redes sociales y los problemas que ésta conlleva en una sociedad anestesiada y cínica, y Empatía bizantina, sobre cómo guiarse por el buen corazón antes que por la razón en asuntos tan complejos como las crisis humanitarias puede tener consecuencias impensables. Estos cuentos me parecen un tesoro, porque actualmente estamos viendo como, en redes sociales, medios tradicionales, e incluso en la política, los sentimientos están sustituyendo a la razón y la reflexión, algo que a me resulta terrorífico, pues no hay nada más poderoso y voluble que la sensibilidad humana, y nada niebla el juicio más que la empatía, palabra más que prostituida en determinados lares.
En resumen, es una colección de relatos que está por encima de la media, con una muy interesante batería de ideas capaces de suscitar debates sugerentes. Sin embargo, se queda a medio cocer, como si le faltara algo para brillar tanto como su anterior colección, a mi juicio mucho más inspirada. Esta colección, además, incluye un fragmento de lo que será la tercera entrega de la saga La dinastía del diente de león. No lo he leído, precisamente porque tengo proyectado entrar a esta saga en algún momento, por lo que no se hasta que punto destripa la trama. Si podéis haceros con algunas de las antologías de este autor, os recomiendo encarecidamente que os lancéis a por El zoo de papel. No os arrepentiréis.
La primera colección de relatos de Ken Liu me encanto por su originalidad y su variedad. Salvo Ted Chiang, y quizá Greg Egan, el chino-estadounidense es una de las voces más interesantes de la ciencia ficción breve, con una batería de ideas que se diría casi infinita. Esta colección de trece relatos tenía muy buena pinta, y estaba deseando descubrir con que nuevas propuestas me iba a sorprender. Para sorpresa, la ya mentada decepción.
No voy a hablar de los cuentos por separado, son demasiados para comentarlos y esta reseña se eternizaría. Estoy seguro de que nadie quiere eso: bastante verborreico soy de por sí. Me voy a limitar a sobrevolar sobre todos ellos y daros mis impresiones generales. Para comenzar, decir que la variedad temática de esta colección es bastante más escasa que la de El jardín de papel. Hay varios relatos enlazados, bastantes, además, que tratan sobre la Singularidad, la posibilidad de transcender la humanidad al introducir la consciencia de una persona a un ordenador. El primero de los relatos es bastante interesante por el misterio que plantea y cómo lo desarrolla. El resto se limitan a seguir a los personajes de este primer relato y explorar las consecuencias que la Singularidad ha tenido para la humanidad y el mundo. Aquí es cuando la cosa se empieza a torcer, pues cada cuento añade poco en comparación a lo mucho que repite; la escala va aumentando más y más a cada relato, pero no alcanza el nivel de épica cósmica que por ejemplo sí logra Cixin Liu -me estoy dando cuenta de que, últimamente, hace falta ser oriental para escribir buena ciencia ficción-, debido a lo redundante que se vuelve. Cada vez que terminaba un cuento rezaba para que no fuera parte de este microcosmos narrativo.
Luego hay otros relatos ambientados en mundos imaginarios, como el relato homónimo, que trata sobre una secta de asesinos que operaba durante la dinastía Tang y poseían unos dones peculiares. Un buen relato, aunque sabe a poco y su final es bastante anticlimático. Otros relatos tratan sobre la memoria, la ascendencia, qué forja nuestra identidad y la importancia de preservar el recuerdo de los que nos han precedido. Un tema interesante que se trata con variable éxito, siendo el mejor para mí Días de fantasmas, en el que se recapitula la vida de distintas personas ligadas a un objeto.
Pero donde más brilla Ken Liu es en sus relatos sociales, pues sabe tomar problemáticas de nuestro tiempo y darle una vuelta de tuerca muy interesante que hace reflexionar hondamente. Y lo mejor: nunca se posiciona. Si es verdad que hay momentos de flaqueza en los que se entrevé de que pie cojea Liu, pero nunca llega a permear al relato hasta el punto de convertirlo en un panfleto. Además, elige unos temas y los desarrolla hasta puntos asombrosos. De este estilo, los mejores son Nuestro más sentido pésame, sobre la exposición mediática del dolor en redes sociales y los problemas que ésta conlleva en una sociedad anestesiada y cínica, y Empatía bizantina, sobre cómo guiarse por el buen corazón antes que por la razón en asuntos tan complejos como las crisis humanitarias puede tener consecuencias impensables. Estos cuentos me parecen un tesoro, porque actualmente estamos viendo como, en redes sociales, medios tradicionales, e incluso en la política, los sentimientos están sustituyendo a la razón y la reflexión, algo que a me resulta terrorífico, pues no hay nada más poderoso y voluble que la sensibilidad humana, y nada niebla el juicio más que la empatía, palabra más que prostituida en determinados lares.
En resumen, es una colección de relatos que está por encima de la media, con una muy interesante batería de ideas capaces de suscitar debates sugerentes. Sin embargo, se queda a medio cocer, como si le faltara algo para brillar tanto como su anterior colección, a mi juicio mucho más inspirada. Esta colección, además, incluye un fragmento de lo que será la tercera entrega de la saga La dinastía del diente de león. No lo he leído, precisamente porque tengo proyectado entrar a esta saga en algún momento, por lo que no se hasta que punto destripa la trama. Si podéis haceros con algunas de las antologías de este autor, os recomiendo encarecidamente que os lancéis a por El zoo de papel. No os arrepentiréis.
June 27, 2020
Reading this excellent short story without getting goose bumps is not possible. Utterly realistic and horrifying. In my opinion a must read for anybody who engages in social media (and who doesn't nowadays?)
February 16, 2021
Not all the stories are equally gripping, but some jolted my imagination and gave some food for thought (my favourite combination in a book). The audio version was excellent, too! I recommend it to be taken in small doses, it definitely works better!
January 13, 2020
Average Rating
: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.9
After really enjoying Ken Liu’s previous short story anthology a lot, there was no way I was letting this ARC go and I jumped at the opportunity to be able to review it. This is another collection of fascinating stories by the author, most of them sci-fi/dystopian but a couple of them are fantasy as well. There are also multiple stories which are interconnected but told in no particular order, so it was fun trying to find the connections between them.
One theme that I found very dominant in this collection is that of climate change, how we are at a precipice and have to do something substantial from right now if we want to save our planet; but also that as the situation gets worse, all the problems we currently have with wealth inequality and refugees and developed countries exploiting resources disproportionately will only get more exacerbated. This also means that many of the stories in this collection are tragic and depressing, so I would definitely recommend reading them when you are in the right mood and also maybe not binge read the whole thing at once. I would definitely recommend it though, because the concepts are very interesting and the writing for the most part is excellent.
Ghost Days
Spanning multiple planets and timelines, this was a nice story about memories and heritage, and how we all carry the legacy of our previous generations within us and why it’s important to preserve their knowledge.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Maxwell’s Demon
Told through a POV of a Japanese American young woman who is sent to Japan as a spy during WWII, this one has a bit of supernatural elements but mostly it’s about the futility of war and how it twists everyone’s morality.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Reborn
I really don’t think I have much to say about this story. It was interesting to read and a bit tragic too, but don’t think I can explain it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thoughts and Prayers
CW: mass shooting, online trolling and harassment
As soon as I saw the title of this story, I could guess what it’s about. It’s about the effects of grief on family members of victims, how each person tries to cope in their own ways and how that might drive them apart. There is also some interesting discussion on activism, politicizing grief and the incessant trolling that comes along with it - I’m still not sure if I agree with all the points made but it’s a lot to think about.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Byzantine Empathy
Against a backdrop of a technologically advanced (but current) world with heavy emphasis on VR and cryptocurrencies, this story is all about empathy vs rationality, how do we decide who needs help, and how even being immersed in the pain of others might invoke cynicism in people instead of empathy because we have lost our trust in geopolitics. I can’t really explain the elaborate discussions that happen in this story but it’s very thought provoking and I think everyone should give it a read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Gods Will Not Be Chained
With the concept of digital immortality, this story tries to explore what would happen if corporations tried to digitize the brains of their dead genius employees for profit and these highly technological brains decided to takeover. A very terrifying tale but definitely thought provoking.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Staying Behind
This is almost like a continuation of the previous one, but years later when the technically dead/digitally conscious have taken over (an event called Singularity) and the rest of the living world is just scraping for survival. This was way too depressing and scary to read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Real Artists
Another tale of high technological advancement, this time in the making of movies. I really don’t want to spoil this one at all because I thought the concept was amazing, thought provoking and almost felt like it’s a possible future for us and wouldn’t that be too sad.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Gods Will Not Be Slain
This is a direct continuation of the story “The gods will not be chained” and it’s such a scary and plausible story, what can happen if digital sentiences decide that they want to burn down humanity and plunge it into war, how fragile geopolitics is and how everyone is literally on the brink of war while sitting on a mass pile of nuclear weapons. Really brings some of what’s happening in our current world into perspective.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer
Years after Singularity where only digital beings seem to be existent on our planet, this is the story of how relationships develop even among them, and also how different a three dimensional earth might seem like to a digital being who has never been a human before. Fascinating story.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Gods Have Not Died in Vain
This story a sequel of “The gods will not be slain” is more about how the idea of singularity came to be, how the incessant wars and scarcity of resources may have led people to decide that giving up the body to live digitally might be the only way to survive. There are a lot of interesting points made in the story that leave us with more questions about life.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Memories of My Mother
This was a very very short story about a mother’s love for her child and to what lengths she will go to get the little time to spend with her daughter. It could have been more emotional but I wasn’t feeling it.
⭐️⭐️.5
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts
In a world centuries after climate change has destroyed most of it, where successful countries have managed to migrate to other planets but the poorer people try to survive in ever harsh environments on the ravaged earth - this story is almost like a scary mirror of what our future might be if we don’t start taking decisive action from now on.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard
Set in a dystopian fantasy world, this was a tale about how power and greed corrupts, leading to the protectors becoming predators themselves - which in turn means that those who are poor or considered prey must rise up in arms and protect themselves. This was a fascinating read and one that I felt could make a bigger story.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Chase Beyond the Storms - An excerpt from The Veiled Throne, The Dandelion Dynasty, book three
Not reviewing this excerpt because I haven’t read this series yet.
The Hidden Girl
Set in a fantasy world inspired by 8th century China, this is a story of a young female assassin who’s been trained to kill but starts questioning if her loyalty to her Teacher must supersede her own morality. A lovely read but what made it special were the action sequences which reminded me a lot of the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Seven Birthdays
Another story interconnected to the previous ones related to Singularity, this is about one woman’s mission to find a solution to humanity’s problems, but ultimately just be able to spend more time with her mother. I can’t say I understood much of the story in the second half.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Message
A story about legacy, how even dead civilizations leave messages for anyone who might come eons later; also a tale of a father finally getting to know his daughter - this story was beautiful and emotional but also tragic.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Cutting
I’m not sure I can explain exactly what this story was about - but it was something about looking through the unnecessary stuff and finding the truth underneath.
⭐️⭐️.5
After really enjoying Ken Liu’s previous short story anthology a lot, there was no way I was letting this ARC go and I jumped at the opportunity to be able to review it. This is another collection of fascinating stories by the author, most of them sci-fi/dystopian but a couple of them are fantasy as well. There are also multiple stories which are interconnected but told in no particular order, so it was fun trying to find the connections between them.
One theme that I found very dominant in this collection is that of climate change, how we are at a precipice and have to do something substantial from right now if we want to save our planet; but also that as the situation gets worse, all the problems we currently have with wealth inequality and refugees and developed countries exploiting resources disproportionately will only get more exacerbated. This also means that many of the stories in this collection are tragic and depressing, so I would definitely recommend reading them when you are in the right mood and also maybe not binge read the whole thing at once. I would definitely recommend it though, because the concepts are very interesting and the writing for the most part is excellent.
Ghost Days
Spanning multiple planets and timelines, this was a nice story about memories and heritage, and how we all carry the legacy of our previous generations within us and why it’s important to preserve their knowledge.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Maxwell’s Demon
Told through a POV of a Japanese American young woman who is sent to Japan as a spy during WWII, this one has a bit of supernatural elements but mostly it’s about the futility of war and how it twists everyone’s morality.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Reborn
I really don’t think I have much to say about this story. It was interesting to read and a bit tragic too, but don’t think I can explain it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thoughts and Prayers
CW: mass shooting, online trolling and harassment
As soon as I saw the title of this story, I could guess what it’s about. It’s about the effects of grief on family members of victims, how each person tries to cope in their own ways and how that might drive them apart. There is also some interesting discussion on activism, politicizing grief and the incessant trolling that comes along with it - I’m still not sure if I agree with all the points made but it’s a lot to think about.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Byzantine Empathy
Against a backdrop of a technologically advanced (but current) world with heavy emphasis on VR and cryptocurrencies, this story is all about empathy vs rationality, how do we decide who needs help, and how even being immersed in the pain of others might invoke cynicism in people instead of empathy because we have lost our trust in geopolitics. I can’t really explain the elaborate discussions that happen in this story but it’s very thought provoking and I think everyone should give it a read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Gods Will Not Be Chained
With the concept of digital immortality, this story tries to explore what would happen if corporations tried to digitize the brains of their dead genius employees for profit and these highly technological brains decided to takeover. A very terrifying tale but definitely thought provoking.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Staying Behind
This is almost like a continuation of the previous one, but years later when the technically dead/digitally conscious have taken over (an event called Singularity) and the rest of the living world is just scraping for survival. This was way too depressing and scary to read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Real Artists
Another tale of high technological advancement, this time in the making of movies. I really don’t want to spoil this one at all because I thought the concept was amazing, thought provoking and almost felt like it’s a possible future for us and wouldn’t that be too sad.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Gods Will Not Be Slain
This is a direct continuation of the story “The gods will not be chained” and it’s such a scary and plausible story, what can happen if digital sentiences decide that they want to burn down humanity and plunge it into war, how fragile geopolitics is and how everyone is literally on the brink of war while sitting on a mass pile of nuclear weapons. Really brings some of what’s happening in our current world into perspective.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer
Years after Singularity where only digital beings seem to be existent on our planet, this is the story of how relationships develop even among them, and also how different a three dimensional earth might seem like to a digital being who has never been a human before. Fascinating story.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Gods Have Not Died in Vain
This story a sequel of “The gods will not be slain” is more about how the idea of singularity came to be, how the incessant wars and scarcity of resources may have led people to decide that giving up the body to live digitally might be the only way to survive. There are a lot of interesting points made in the story that leave us with more questions about life.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Memories of My Mother
This was a very very short story about a mother’s love for her child and to what lengths she will go to get the little time to spend with her daughter. It could have been more emotional but I wasn’t feeling it.
⭐️⭐️.5
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts
In a world centuries after climate change has destroyed most of it, where successful countries have managed to migrate to other planets but the poorer people try to survive in ever harsh environments on the ravaged earth - this story is almost like a scary mirror of what our future might be if we don’t start taking decisive action from now on.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard
Set in a dystopian fantasy world, this was a tale about how power and greed corrupts, leading to the protectors becoming predators themselves - which in turn means that those who are poor or considered prey must rise up in arms and protect themselves. This was a fascinating read and one that I felt could make a bigger story.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Chase Beyond the Storms - An excerpt from The Veiled Throne, The Dandelion Dynasty, book three
Not reviewing this excerpt because I haven’t read this series yet.
The Hidden Girl
Set in a fantasy world inspired by 8th century China, this is a story of a young female assassin who’s been trained to kill but starts questioning if her loyalty to her Teacher must supersede her own morality. A lovely read but what made it special were the action sequences which reminded me a lot of the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Seven Birthdays
Another story interconnected to the previous ones related to Singularity, this is about one woman’s mission to find a solution to humanity’s problems, but ultimately just be able to spend more time with her mother. I can’t say I understood much of the story in the second half.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Message
A story about legacy, how even dead civilizations leave messages for anyone who might come eons later; also a tale of a father finally getting to know his daughter - this story was beautiful and emotional but also tragic.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Cutting
I’m not sure I can explain exactly what this story was about - but it was something about looking through the unnecessary stuff and finding the truth underneath.
⭐️⭐️.5
May 23, 2024
There is something to the combination of short stories and Ken Liu that just works for me. Short Stories rarely tend to work for me but the Paper Menagerie is a favorite of mine and I'm happy also this collection was a succes with me. I would say that the Hidden Girl collection has more sci-fi type stories than the PM and because of this I would say that I love the PM collection just a bit more as those stories speak more to me .
That said, I'm so impressed with Liu's range and his ability to make me interested and make care about story in such a short time. Every story in this collection did something for: it made think about important issues or it just caused massive emotional damage. And in many cases it was a combination of the two. My favourite stories of this collection were: Maxwell's Demon, Thoughts and Prayers ( 😭) , Byzantine Empathy and Staying Behind.
That said, I'm so impressed with Liu's range and his ability to make me interested and make care about story in such a short time. Every story in this collection did something for: it made think about important issues or it just caused massive emotional damage. And in many cases it was a combination of the two. My favourite stories of this collection were: Maxwell's Demon, Thoughts and Prayers ( 😭) , Byzantine Empathy and Staying Behind.
January 17, 2022
มาถึงรวมเรื่องสั้นเล่มที่ 2 ของเคนหลิวเเล้ว
เคน หลิวในเล่มนี้เป็นเหมือนมนุษย์ที่ใส่ชุดหนัง ถือเเส้ เอะอะฟาด เอะอะฟาด ลงมาใส่คนอ่าน ส่วนคนอ่านก็เเบบ ตีมาอีกเลย ตีมาอีก เป็นความสัมพันธ์เเบบคนนึงมอบความเจ็บปวดในความงดงามให้กับคนอ่าน ส่วนคนอ่านก็หนักหน่วง โศกเศร้า เเต่ก็ยังเปิดหน้าต่อไปเรื่อยๆเพราะอยากรู้ว่าพี่เคนหลิวจะโบยตีเราด้วยท่าทางไหนอีกบ้าง
เรื่องสั้นทั้ง 18 เรื่องยังคงคอนเซปเเละรูปเเบบการเขียนเหมือนกับเล่มที่เเล้วไม่ผิดเพี้ยน เปลี่ยนไปบ้างตรงเขียนผสานเรื่องเล่าเเละเรื่องเเต่งได้เเนบเนียนมากขึ้น เร่งเร้าอารมณ์ได้ละเลียดมากขึ้น จนบางทีก็ไม่เเนะนำให้อ่านรวดเดียวจบเท่าไหร่นะครับ อ่านซักสองสามเรื่องเเล้วพักหน่อยก็จะเป็นการดีไม่น้อย มันจะไม่หนักอึ้งเกินไปนัก
ไซไฟที่ถูกพูดถึงอย่างเข้มข้นที่สุด (จนรู้สึกว่าพี่เคนหลิวน่าจะกำลังสนใจในเรื่องนี้เป็นพิเศษ) คือ การโหลดจิตของมนุษย์เข้าสู่ระบบดิจิตัล ถ้าใครนึกภาพไม่ออกว่าเป็นยังไง ลองนึกถึงหนังเรื่อง Transcendence (2014) ที่ป๋าเดปเล่น ประมาณนั้นเป๊ะๆเลยครับ
การตั้งคำถามถึง "อะไรคือมนุษย์" ก็ยังมีอยู่สม่ำเสมอในเรื่องสั้นหลายเรื่อง มนุษย์มีรูปเเบบที่เเน่ชัดหรือไม่ มีรายละเอียดที่ชี้ชัดว่าสิ่งใดคือมนุษย์หรือไม่ หากมีเเบบนั้นจริง เเล้ววันหนึ่งบางข้อหรือบางรายละเอียดหายไป สิ่งนั้นยังเป็นมนุษย์อยู่อีกหรือไม่ หรือมันกลับกลายพัฒนา( หรือย้อนถอยหลัง ? ) เป็นสิ่งอื่นที่เราไม่รู้จักไปเเล้ว
นอกจากคำถามถึงความเป็นมนุษย์เเล้ว สิ่งที่โดดเด่นอีกเรื่องหนึ่วของเคนหลิว คือการเขียนความขัดเเย้ง ความยากลำบากในการตัดสินใจเลือกสิ่งใดสิ่งหนึ่ง ให้ออกมาก่ำกึ่งยากต่อการเลือกข้าง เพราะไม่ว่าเราจะเลือกทางไหน มันก็ถูกทั้งหมดนั่นเเหละ เพียงเเต่เมื่อมองจากสายตาที่เเตกต่างกัน บริบทที่ไม่เหมือนกัน การตัดสินว่าสิ่งใดถูกผิดจึงมีอยู่เสมอ เรื่องสั้นของเขาส่วนใหญ่จึงเปิดกว้างให้ผู้อ่านตีความทางเลือกเอาเอง ไม่ได้มีน้ำเสียงชักจูงหรือตัดสินมากมายนัก(เเม้จะมีอยู่บ้าง) เเต่เขาก็มอบช่องว่างให้คนอ่านในการล้มลุกคลุกคลานในเรื่องสั้นของเขาเสมอ
ไซไฟของเคนหลิวนำเสนอเเกนหลักที่ค่อนข้างชัดว่า เทคโนโลยีนั้นจริงๆเเล้ว มันไม่ได้เป็นอะไรมากกว่าเเค่เครื่องมือที่มนุษย์หยิบจับใช้สอย ผลลัพธ์จะดีหรือร้ายขึ้นอยู่กับว่าใครเป็นผู้ใช้เเละใช้มันอย่างไร (ซึ่งในเรื่องสั้นของเขาพวกเทคโนโลยีเหล่านี้ก็มักจะตกไปอยู่ในมือคนเลวมากกว่าซะอย่างงั้น T T ) ซึ่งเเนวคิดเเบบนี้ผมเห็นด้วยกับเคนหลิวนะ เเค่รายละเอียดบางอย่างอาจคิดไม่เหมือนกันซักทีเดียวนัก เเต่การอ่านอะไรที่ไม่ได้ตรงกับความคิดเราก็เป็นเรื่องดีนะครับ มันทำให้เรากลับมาไตร่ตรองสิ่งที่เราคิดอยู่เสมอว่ามันยังมีช่องโหว่อะไรอยู่บ้าง
เรื่องสั้นทั้งหมดในเล่ม ผมชอบเรื่องที่เล่าถึงไซไฟน้อยที่สุดมากกว่าเรื่องที่เน้นไซไฟเหมือนเดิม เเม้ว่าในเล่มนี้จะมาเเนวใหม่ที่เรื่องส้นไซไฟมีหลายเรื่องที่เป็นเรื่องเดียวต่อเนื่องกันไป พูดง่ายๆว่ามันเป็นเรื่องสั้นขนาดยาวที่ถูกเเบ่งซอยออกเป็นเรื่องสั้นหลายเรื่องเเทนที่จะนำมารวมกัน
เรื่องที่ผมชอบที่สุดคือ เรื่อง "ที่มา" "น้ำใจ 4.0" เเละ "เสียงจากมาตุภูมิ" เรื่องสั้นพวกนี้อ่านไม่ได้สนุกมากนัก เเต่ผมชอบสารที่เคนหลิวนำเสนออกมา มันชัดเจน หนักเเน่น ตรงใจดีครับ
เรื่องสายไซไฟที่ชอบที่สุดคือ " หลง-ลืม " ผมว่าเรื่องสั้นเรื่องนี้ดูสัมผัสจับต้องได้ เเละผสานความเป็นไซไฟเเละปรัชญาได้ค่อนข้างดี ผมชอบการนิยามตัวตนของคนเราผ่านความทรงจำ หากวันหนึ่งเราลบความทรงจำของคน จนคนผู้นั้นกลายเป็นคนอีกคนหนึ่ง เรายังนับว่าเขาคนั้นคือคนเดิม คนเดียวกับตอนที่ความทรงจำเดิมยังคงอยู่หรือไม่ สนุกดีครับ
เรื่องที่อ่านสุกที่สุกคือ คือ " กระต่ายเทา อาชาโลหิต เสือดาวนิลกาฬ " เรื่องนี้คือเเอ็คชั่นมันหยด มันคือ การสาบานในสวนท้อเวอร์ชั่นไซไฟที่สนุกดีครับ
การใช้องค์ประกอบของอนาคตเพื่อทำให้เราย้อนกลับมาพิจารณาปัจจุบัน นับว่าเป็นลายเซ็นที่ชัดเจนมากของเคนหลิว เขาปรับเปลี่ยนความตื่นเต้นของเทคโนโลยีให้มีมิติที่มากขึ้น ไม่ใช่เเค่เรื่องความใหม่ของเทคโนโลยีเท่านั้น เเต่มันต้องมาพร้อมความใหม่ของคำถามที่เราควรคิดถึงมันด้วย ซึ่งไม่รู้ได้เลยว่าคำถามใหม่ๆเหล่านี้จะมีมากมายอีกเพียงใด คงต้องรอดูเรื่องสั้นเรื่องใหม่ๆของเขากันเเล้วละครับ
เคน หลิวในเล่มนี้เป็นเหมือนมนุษย์ที่ใส่ชุดหนัง ถือเเส้ เอะอะฟาด เอะอะฟาด ลงมาใส่คนอ่าน ส่วนคนอ่านก็เเบบ ตีมาอีกเลย ตีมาอีก เป็นความสัมพันธ์เเบบคนนึงมอบความเจ็บปวดในความงดงามให้กับคนอ่าน ส่วนคนอ่านก็หนักหน่วง โศกเศร้า เเต่ก็ยังเปิดหน้าต่อไปเรื่อยๆเพราะอยากรู้ว่าพี่เคนหลิวจะโบยตีเราด้วยท่าทางไหนอีกบ้าง
เรื่องสั้นทั้ง 18 เรื่องยังคงคอนเซปเเละรูปเเบบการเขียนเหมือนกับเล่มที่เเล้วไม่ผิดเพี้ยน เปลี่ยนไปบ้างตรงเขียนผสานเรื่องเล่าเเละเรื่องเเต่งได้เเนบเนียนมากขึ้น เร่งเร้าอารมณ์ได้ละเลียดมากขึ้น จนบางทีก็ไม่เเนะนำให้อ่านรวดเดียวจบเท่าไหร่นะครับ อ่านซักสองสามเรื่องเเล้วพักหน่อยก็จะเป็นการดีไม่น้อย มันจะไม่หนักอึ้งเกินไปนัก
ไซไฟที่ถูกพูดถึงอย่างเข้มข้นที่สุด (จนรู้สึกว่าพี่เคนหลิวน่าจะกำลังสนใจในเรื่องนี้เป็นพิเศษ) คือ การโหลดจิตของมนุษย์เข้าสู่ระบบดิจิตัล ถ้าใครนึกภาพไม่ออกว่าเป็นยังไง ลองนึกถึงหนังเรื่อง Transcendence (2014) ที่ป๋าเดปเล่น ประมาณนั้นเป๊ะๆเลยครับ
การตั้งคำถามถึง "อะไรคือมนุษย์" ก็ยังมีอยู่สม่ำเสมอในเรื่องสั้นหลายเรื่อง มนุษย์มีรูปเเบบที่เเน่ชัดหรือไม่ มีรายละเอียดที่ชี้ชัดว่าสิ่งใดคือมนุษย์หรือไม่ หากมีเเบบนั้นจริง เเล้ววันหนึ่งบางข้อหรือบางรายละเอียดหายไป สิ่งนั้นยังเป็นมนุษย์อยู่อีกหรือไม่ หรือมันกลับกลายพัฒนา( หรือย้อนถอยหลัง ? ) เป็นสิ่งอื่นที่เราไม่รู้จักไปเเล้ว
นอกจากคำถามถึงความเป็นมนุษย์เเล้ว สิ่งที่โดดเด่นอีกเรื่องหนึ่วของเคนหลิว คือการเขียนความขัดเเย้ง ความยากลำบากในการตัดสินใจเลือกสิ่งใดสิ่งหนึ่ง ให้ออกมาก่ำกึ่งยากต่อการเลือกข้าง เพราะไม่ว่าเราจะเลือกทางไหน มันก็ถูกทั้งหมดนั่นเเหละ เพียงเเต่เมื่อมองจากสายตาที่เเตกต่างกัน บริบทที่ไม่เหมือนกัน การตัดสินว่าสิ่งใดถูกผิดจึงมีอยู่เสมอ เรื่องสั้นของเขาส่วนใหญ่จึงเปิดกว้างให้ผู้อ่านตีความทางเลือกเอาเอง ไม่ได้มีน้ำเสียงชักจูงหรือตัดสินมากมายนัก(เเม้จะมีอยู่บ้าง) เเต่เขาก็มอบช่องว่างให้คนอ่านในการล้มลุกคลุกคลานในเรื่องสั้นของเขาเสมอ
ไซไฟของเคนหลิวนำเสนอเเกนหลักที่ค่อนข้างชัดว่า เทคโนโลยีนั้นจริงๆเเล้ว มันไม่ได้เป็นอะไรมากกว่าเเค่เครื่องมือที่มนุษย์หยิบจับใช้สอย ผลลัพธ์จะดีหรือร้ายขึ้นอยู่กับว่าใครเป็นผู้ใช้เเละใช้มันอย่างไร (ซึ่งในเรื่องสั้นของเขาพวกเทคโนโลยีเหล่านี้ก็มักจะตกไปอยู่ในมือคนเลวมากกว่าซะอย่างงั้น T T ) ซึ่งเเนวคิดเเบบนี้ผมเห็นด้วยกับเคนหลิวนะ เเค่รายละเอียดบางอย่างอาจคิดไม่เหมือนกันซักทีเดียวนัก เเต่การอ่านอะไรที่ไม่ได้ตรงกับความคิดเราก็เป็นเรื่องดีนะครับ มันทำให้เรากลับมาไตร่ตรองสิ่งที่เราคิดอยู่เสมอว่ามันยังมีช่องโหว่อะไรอยู่บ้าง
เรื่องสั้นทั้งหมดในเล่ม ผมชอบเรื่องที่เล่าถึงไซไฟน้อยที่สุดมากกว่าเรื่องที่เน้นไซไฟเหมือนเดิม เเม้ว่าในเล่มนี้จะมาเเนวใหม่ที่เรื่องส้นไซไฟมีหลายเรื่องที่เป็นเรื่องเดียวต่อเนื่องกันไป พูดง่ายๆว่ามันเป็นเรื่องสั้นขนาดยาวที่ถูกเเบ่งซอยออกเป็นเรื่องสั้นหลายเรื่องเเทนที่จะนำมารวมกัน
เรื่องที่ผมชอบที่สุดคือ เรื่อง "ที่มา" "น้ำใจ 4.0" เเละ "เสียงจากมาตุภูมิ" เรื่องสั้นพวกนี้อ่านไม่ได้สนุกมากนัก เเต่ผมชอบสารที่เคนหลิวนำเสนออกมา มันชัดเจน หนักเเน่น ตรงใจดีครับ
เรื่องสายไซไฟที่ชอบที่สุดคือ " หลง-ลืม " ผมว่าเรื่องสั้นเรื่องนี้ดูสัมผัสจับต้องได้ เเละผสานความเป็นไซไฟเเละปรัชญาได้ค่อนข้างดี ผมชอบการนิยามตัวตนของคนเราผ่านความทรงจำ หากวันหนึ่งเราลบความทรงจำของคน จนคนผู้นั้นกลายเป็นคนอีกคนหนึ่ง เรายังนับว่าเขาคนั้นคือคนเดิม คนเดียวกับตอนที่ความทรงจำเดิมยังคงอยู่หรือไม่ สนุกดีครับ
เรื่องที่อ่านสุกที่สุกคือ คือ " กระต่ายเทา อาชาโลหิต เสือดาวนิลกาฬ " เรื่องนี้คือเเอ็คชั่นมันหยด มันคือ การสาบานในสวนท้อเวอร์ชั่นไซไฟที่สนุกดีครับ
การใช้องค์ประกอบของอนาคตเพื่อทำให้เราย้อนกลับมาพิจารณาปัจจุบัน นับว่าเป็นลายเซ็นที่ชัดเจนมากของเคนหลิว เขาปรับเปลี่ยนความตื่นเต้นของเทคโนโลยีให้มีมิติที่มากขึ้น ไม่ใช่เเค่เรื่องความใหม่ของเทคโนโลยีเท่านั้น เเต่มันต้องมาพร้อมความใหม่ของคำถามที่เราควรคิดถึงมันด้วย ซึ่งไม่รู้ได้เลยว่าคำถามใหม่ๆเหล่านี้จะมีมากมายอีกเพียงใด คงต้องรอดูเรื่องสั้นเรื่องใหม่ๆของเขากันเเล้วละครับ
November 13, 2021
"All Mist had was data about the world, not the world itself... Words or emoji were inadequate to convey the essence of reality. Life is about embodiment...To experience the world through the senses was different from simply having data about the world."
From "The Gods Have Not Died in Vain" (story) in THE HIDDEN GIRL and Other Stories by Ken Liu, 2020.
Buckle up.
Ken Liu is here to blow your mind.
Even before reading a single word of his work, he was already blowing my mind with level of output - (Big ol' books! Big ol' translations! Winning awards left and right!) And now that I've read 19 of his stories in THE HIDDEN GIRL, I can join the praise chorus 🙌🏼
.
.
Liu explores various threads in these stories, but a theme he returns to again and again is that of embodiment and consciousness.
Several stories involve uploading consciousness into data cloud / Singularity, divorcing mind and body, and essentially making a consciousness immortal. That post-human body existence comes up several times.
Three stories (all with titles "The Gods..." Like the quote above ⤴️) explore this specifically as a teenage girl communicates with her uploaded father.
One story in particular stayed with me for days - "The Reborn" (it's available free on tor.com, btw). The crux of the story is "Are we our history?" Are we only what we've done in the past? This one challenged me quite a bit since I personally place a lot of value in historical study and context... again, pondering!
The title story "The Hidden Girl" was an adventure tale of a young woman in ancient China trained to be an interdimensional assassin (!!)
A few other stories are more fantasy realm, but the majority of the stories include sci-fi elements, more "hard" sci-fi, with technical and philosophical questions... In other words, my favorite kind.
Fave stories:
• The Gods... (Trio of stories)
• Maxwell's Demon
• Thoughts and Prayers
• The Reborn
• The Hidden Girl
• Seven Birthdays
...But really I enjoyed them all!
From "The Gods Have Not Died in Vain" (story) in THE HIDDEN GIRL and Other Stories by Ken Liu, 2020.
Buckle up.
Ken Liu is here to blow your mind.
Even before reading a single word of his work, he was already blowing my mind with level of output - (Big ol' books! Big ol' translations! Winning awards left and right!) And now that I've read 19 of his stories in THE HIDDEN GIRL, I can join the praise chorus 🙌🏼
.
.
Liu explores various threads in these stories, but a theme he returns to again and again is that of embodiment and consciousness.
Several stories involve uploading consciousness into data cloud / Singularity, divorcing mind and body, and essentially making a consciousness immortal. That post-human body existence comes up several times.
Three stories (all with titles "The Gods..." Like the quote above ⤴️) explore this specifically as a teenage girl communicates with her uploaded father.
One story in particular stayed with me for days - "The Reborn" (it's available free on tor.com, btw). The crux of the story is "Are we our history?" Are we only what we've done in the past? This one challenged me quite a bit since I personally place a lot of value in historical study and context... again, pondering!
The title story "The Hidden Girl" was an adventure tale of a young woman in ancient China trained to be an interdimensional assassin (!!)
A few other stories are more fantasy realm, but the majority of the stories include sci-fi elements, more "hard" sci-fi, with technical and philosophical questions... In other words, my favorite kind.
Fave stories:
• The Gods... (Trio of stories)
• Maxwell's Demon
• Thoughts and Prayers
• The Reborn
• The Hidden Girl
• Seven Birthdays
...But really I enjoyed them all!
March 20, 2020
2.5?
Man this was rough. The Paper Menagerie, Ken Liu's first collection of short stories is one of my top 3, maybe favorite book I've ever read. Every story in that collection felt somewhere on the spectrum of pretty good to awesome, at least 2-3 of them making me cry.
Every story in this collection feels somewhere on the spectrum of almost DNF to "that was alright." I'm so curious what changed, either in this collection or in my reading of Liu's work. From reading these, I think I generally prefer Liu's fantasy writing more than his science fiction storytelling. I found in the science fiction ones, the characters felt like cardboard prop-ups for a sci-fi concept (which I'm not even necessarily against), but it just didn't work for me here. In the fantasy stories, he was better at creating deeper characters with emotional lives that are also interacting with an interesting fantasy concept.
Additionally, 4ish of the stories all take place in the same world where humans have uploaded consciousnesses. I just wasn't super bought into that world, so coming back to it over and over wasn't great.
Overall, v. disappointed, and would not recommend to anyone, especially not Paper Menagerie fans. If you haven't read either book, I still heartily recommend The Paper Menagerie for powerful and poignant sci-fi and fantasy short stories.
Man this was rough. The Paper Menagerie, Ken Liu's first collection of short stories is one of my top 3, maybe favorite book I've ever read. Every story in that collection felt somewhere on the spectrum of pretty good to awesome, at least 2-3 of them making me cry.
Every story in this collection feels somewhere on the spectrum of almost DNF to "that was alright." I'm so curious what changed, either in this collection or in my reading of Liu's work. From reading these, I think I generally prefer Liu's fantasy writing more than his science fiction storytelling. I found in the science fiction ones, the characters felt like cardboard prop-ups for a sci-fi concept (which I'm not even necessarily against), but it just didn't work for me here. In the fantasy stories, he was better at creating deeper characters with emotional lives that are also interacting with an interesting fantasy concept.
Additionally, 4ish of the stories all take place in the same world where humans have uploaded consciousnesses. I just wasn't super bought into that world, so coming back to it over and over wasn't great.
Overall, v. disappointed, and would not recommend to anyone, especially not Paper Menagerie fans. If you haven't read either book, I still heartily recommend The Paper Menagerie for powerful and poignant sci-fi and fantasy short stories.
October 13, 2022
Actual Rating: 4.5/5
My favorite stories in this collection are: Maxwell's Demon (I am a sucker for entropy related short stories), Thoughts and Prayers, Byzantine Empathy (my heart), The Gods trilogy, Memories of My Mother, Dispatched from the Cradle (one of my favorite post climate disaster sci-fi pieces), Seven Birthdays.
As you can tell I basically loved almost every story in this collection. I loved that this was more of a sci-fi focused collection so even though there were a few more misses than his previous collection I had a wonderful time with the stories in here. I loved exploring the potential future of humanity and the relationship we have to empathy and social media. I will continue to read any and all short stories he comes out with.
My favorite stories in this collection are: Maxwell's Demon (I am a sucker for entropy related short stories), Thoughts and Prayers, Byzantine Empathy (my heart), The Gods trilogy, Memories of My Mother, Dispatched from the Cradle (one of my favorite post climate disaster sci-fi pieces), Seven Birthdays.
As you can tell I basically loved almost every story in this collection. I loved that this was more of a sci-fi focused collection so even though there were a few more misses than his previous collection I had a wonderful time with the stories in here. I loved exploring the potential future of humanity and the relationship we have to empathy and social media. I will continue to read any and all short stories he comes out with.
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