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inverarityA short story collection by one of the most award-winning SF authors today.
Saga Press, 2020, 411 pages
I have yet to read any of Ken Liu's stand-alone novels, only a novella (The Man Who Ended History) and his translations of Cixin Liu's Three-Body Problem. I really liked this collection of short stories, which is his second. Not every story was great, but none were bad, and Liu writes the kind of thought-provoking speculative fiction you expect from a worthwhile SF collection.
The title story, The Hidden Girl, is perhaps one of the most "standard fantasy" stories in the collection, a Wuxia story about a girl trained as an invisible assassin. There are several fantasy stories in this collection, like A Chase Beyond the Storms, which was an excerpt from the third volume of Liu's Dandelion Dynasty series (which was one of the less interesting stories to me because I haven't read the series and didn't really engage with the setting), and Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard, about three women in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone gets a "revealed" animal form. But most of the stories are very firmly SF. Reflecting the current mood of SF, there are several stories about post-singularity transhumanism, and one (Byzantine Empathy) which is perhaps a slightly too clever twist on cryptocurrency and blockchains. Themes of anti-Asian racism appear in Ghost Days, a multi-generational story that connects a genetically engineered girl on a far-future alien world with Chinese people back on Earth suffering a similar marginalized existence, and in Maxwell's Demon, about a Japanese-American physicist who's sent to become a spy for the United States during World War II, and also turns out to be traditional Okinawan shamaness who can talk to ghosts... it's a little confusing, but interesting.
Some of my favorites in the collection:
The Reborn, about humans living under occupation by alien invaders who can change personalities and shed their memories and don't understand the human habit of staying angry about past crimes.
Thoughts and Prayers, perhaps the most obvious "of the moment" story, about gun control and trolling and social media in the wake of another mass shooting. It stops just short of becoming heavy-handed.
The Message, about a xeno-archeologist who has to reconnect with his estranged daughter after her mother died. It's touching and good SF, but also ends on a real bummer.
There are a total of nineteen stories in this collection, and I found a high proportion of them to be memorable and thought-provoking, and I will continue to seek out Ken Liu's short fiction, and I'll probably give his Dandelion Dynasty series a try at some point.
Also by Ken Liu: My review of The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary.
My complete list of book reviews.
Saga Press, 2020, 411 pages
From stories about time-traveling assassins, to Black Mirror-esque tales of cryptocurrency and internet trolling, to heartbreaking narratives of parent-child relationships, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is a far-reaching work that explores topical themes from the present and a visionary look at humanity’s future.
This collection includes a selection of Liu’s speculative-fiction stories over the past five years - 17 of his best - plus a new novelette. In addition, it also features an excerpt from The Veiled Throne, the third book in Liu’s epic fantasy series The Dandelion Dynasty.
I have yet to read any of Ken Liu's stand-alone novels, only a novella (The Man Who Ended History) and his translations of Cixin Liu's Three-Body Problem. I really liked this collection of short stories, which is his second. Not every story was great, but none were bad, and Liu writes the kind of thought-provoking speculative fiction you expect from a worthwhile SF collection.
The title story, The Hidden Girl, is perhaps one of the most "standard fantasy" stories in the collection, a Wuxia story about a girl trained as an invisible assassin. There are several fantasy stories in this collection, like A Chase Beyond the Storms, which was an excerpt from the third volume of Liu's Dandelion Dynasty series (which was one of the less interesting stories to me because I haven't read the series and didn't really engage with the setting), and Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard, about three women in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone gets a "revealed" animal form. But most of the stories are very firmly SF. Reflecting the current mood of SF, there are several stories about post-singularity transhumanism, and one (Byzantine Empathy) which is perhaps a slightly too clever twist on cryptocurrency and blockchains. Themes of anti-Asian racism appear in Ghost Days, a multi-generational story that connects a genetically engineered girl on a far-future alien world with Chinese people back on Earth suffering a similar marginalized existence, and in Maxwell's Demon, about a Japanese-American physicist who's sent to become a spy for the United States during World War II, and also turns out to be traditional Okinawan shamaness who can talk to ghosts... it's a little confusing, but interesting.
Some of my favorites in the collection:
The Reborn, about humans living under occupation by alien invaders who can change personalities and shed their memories and don't understand the human habit of staying angry about past crimes.
Thoughts and Prayers, perhaps the most obvious "of the moment" story, about gun control and trolling and social media in the wake of another mass shooting. It stops just short of becoming heavy-handed.
The Message, about a xeno-archeologist who has to reconnect with his estranged daughter after her mother died. It's touching and good SF, but also ends on a real bummer.
There are a total of nineteen stories in this collection, and I found a high proportion of them to be memorable and thought-provoking, and I will continue to seek out Ken Liu's short fiction, and I'll probably give his Dandelion Dynasty series a try at some point.
Also by Ken Liu: My review of The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary.
My complete list of book reviews.
