From a Tang Dynasty legend of a young girl trained as an assassin with the ability to skip between dimensions on a secluded mountain sanctuary to a space colony called Nova Pacifica that reflects on a post-apocalyptic world of the American Empire and ‘Moonwalker’ Neil Armstrong, award-winning author Ken Liu’s writings are laced with depictions of silkpunk fantasy, Sci-Fi and old Chinese folklore, wrapped up in a mesmerising genre-bending collection of short stories.
Ken Liu is one of the most lauded short story writers of our time. This much-anticipated collection includes a selection of his latest science fiction and fantasy stories over 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 book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, The Veiled Throne.
I received a copy of this book from Head of Zeus in return for an honest review.
My Thoughts…
Science-fiction and fantasy are not my favourite genres. Science-fiction is often too abstract and difficult for me to engage with. Fantasy, such a personal concept. If you don’t appreciate, what the author is trying to convey, it’s hard to enjoy.
Despite, this I was asked to review this book. I enjoy reading short stories, and I am always willing to read the work of authors I am unfamiliar with, so I agreed. I didn’t read this book cover to cover, it’s a book that you can dip into when you’re looking for something different to read.
Not surprisingly, I find some of the concepts in the science-fiction stories challenging, but the underlying themes of the dangers technology present for humanity, as well as its benefits, is something I understand. The idea that if technological advance continues at the rate it grew in the late twentieth century, and this century, to date, humanity, as we know it, may be lost. Which is disturbing for anyone who values the diversity and fallibility of humans. Many of the stories are dark, they offer little hope, but when you look around the world you live in, you can see where the inspiration for these stories comes from.
The fantasy stories, of which the title story is one, were easier for me to understand. They are strange and reminiscent of stories passed down through the generations in all cultures. I like these. The quality of the writing, the imagery and the detail are beautiful, as is the physical book and cover.
This is a book that can be read many times, and the reader will see something in the text that they missed before. An interesting experience, that I will enjoy again. Recommended for lovers of fantasy and science fiction, and those, like me who like to read something original and challenging.
Ken Liu is an American speculative fiction writer and the winner of the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, Sidewise, and Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards. The son of a pharmaceutical chemist and a computer engineer, Ken emigrated to the US with his mother and father at the age of 11. He graduated from Harvard with a degree in English Literature and Computer Science and later attended Harvard Law School.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Ken worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. His 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 have been published in more than a dozen language and his short story Good Hunting was adapted for an episode for Netflix’s science fiction web series Love, Death and Robots.
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