Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

15 reviews

10stormlight's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

Some really conceptually interesting and thought provoking stuff. A collection of very emotional (and sometimes heartrending) stories. Primarily sci fi and magical realism with a heavy historical influence. 

As a warning, there is a ton of *extremely* graphic content in here. In fact, I think this may be the most explicitly graphic book I have ever read. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

danielles_reads's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

I’m honestly in awe of Ken Liu’s mind! This collection is full of stories bursting with imagination, discussing everything from language, culture, our responsibility to history, racism, imperialism and colonialism, personal trauma, and family relationships.

I’ve only read a handful of SFF short story collections because I really disliked the first one I read, and I wasn’t sure if it was the author or the format. Turns out it is possible to write short, engaging speculative stories that make sense with minimal world building and make you attached to the characters! A lot of these stories were absolute tear jerkers—I cried my eyes out at the titular story, which was only 28 minutes long but so emotional. Liu discussed a lot of trauma, both personal and collective, which made this a really heavy but worthwhile read.

I loved so many of the stories and only found two of them to be meh. My favorites were: The Man Who Ended History, Mono no Aware, The Paper Menagerie, The Regular, and Good Hunting. My least favorites were The Perfect Match and Simulacrum (though the latter inspired a good book club discussion). I do kind of wish that Liu had spaced out the longer stories more evenly throughout the collection—the stories in the first half were all fairly short, but the longest stories were all in the second half. It made the pacing feel a bit uneven.

I definitely need to read more of Liu’s work! I highly recommend this collection to anyone looking to read more short speculative fiction.

Spoiler thoughts on each story:
Preface: made me tear up a lil bit tbh. I like how he talked about how different human consciousnesses are but how we can connect through books. “Communication is a miracle of translation.”

The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species: wow, these species are all so different! I love the metal species with stone brains carving out a little for their descendants. And the species that has to physically touch the books to read and so they lock them away and only share interpretations. So creative, loving this already.

State Change: Gave Ling Ma vibes. A seemingly mundane story with slightly absurd speculative elements that has a greater meaning. But with actual closure lol. This one was fascinating and had me all in. I liked the excerpts with historical figures’ souls too. I’m already so impressed with Liu’s mind!

The Perfect Match: Disappointing. An obvious manifesto against tech companies that was super predictable. Hopefully this is a one-time issue.

Good Hunting: This one made me tear up 🥲 I loved the theming, characters, ending. Beautiful

The Literomancer: Ken Liu is really just gonna rip my heart out of my throat like that huh?? jesus. This one was too real. The ending did feel rushed and kind of forced with the dad explaining literally every detail about the torture to his wife, but ultimately I think it succeeded in delivering the message he wanted about imperialism, anti-communism, etc. I also loved the discussion around Chinese characters and language—you can really see Liu’s translation skills at work.

Simulacrum: Was that ending implying that Anna started the simulacrum of her mom? Interesting. I’ll always be team family members don’t deserve reconciliation just because they’re family, so it would make sense she’d rather bond with a fake version of her mom than have that message be her last memory of her. And her dad was creeping me out.

The Regular: omg this was so scary and intense. How does Liu always get me to connect with these characters so quickly?? Ruth hanging from the windowsill waiting for the Watcher had me STRESSED. And then her getting the chance to make up for her daughter’s death by saving Carrie in the way she couldn’t for her daughter… 😭 the feels
The Watcher was creepy af and his POV heightened the tension even more. And Liu really seems to understand women’s experiences with sexism with the comments Ruth made about what she dealt with from men

The Paper Menagerie: freaking bawling at his mom’s story, she didn’t deserve that and neither did he 😭😭

An Advanced Readers' Picture Book of Comparative Cognition: Just the kind of philosophical sci-fi I like. Uranium-based life forms, who even comes up with that?!? Though I can’t deny that traveling 550 AU from the sun to listen to messages around the universe for the rest of your life sounds depressing as fuck. I like to think that the parts about different aliens were things she learned while listening.
I think the point was to show how insignificant our thoughts and legacy are to the universe and the different ways love can be expressed.

The Waves: This one was wild. I feel like Liu took the typical “what makes us human?” sci-fi theme to its absolute limit in a way I haven’t really seen before. I also felt the revulsion Maggie felt when Bobby turned into a machine 😅 but then when they essentially turned into light I started thinking, what’s the point of living like that forever? So strange. I like how he incorporated creation stories too. For a second I thought Maggie was going to create humans from mud at the end there lol

Mono no Aware: A beautiful story about community and sacrifice and the inherent transience of life. Loved it.

All the Flavors: this was… fine. It was pretty much just straight historical fiction and it felt meh compared to the other brilliant stories in this collection. And it was so long! I also kept getting the names in the legend confused so I probably didn’t fully understand it. And I know it’s historically accurate but hearing “Chinaman” constantly was grating.

A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel: interesting alternate history that had a real dark but realistic turn. Damn, the prisoner trying to escape was Hokkien like the narrator and not a communist terrorist like he was told :(

The Man Who Ended History: wowowow, this one was incredible. A perfect example of a sci-fi with meaningful social commentary. I loved the rumination on how we interact with history, and the discussion of the needs of the individuals affected by past atrocities vs the needs of society as a whole vs the need to save and document these atrocities. I had never heard of unit 731 before. Pure evil, but I’m glad that this story informed me.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

ruthhelizabeth's review

Go to review page

challenging dark informative medium-paced
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

paulaortuno's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

samdalefox's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

I had first read 'The paper menagerie' as a stand alone story and loved it, so bought Liu's full short story collection. As you can see from the individual ratings below, I also loved the rest of the stories. The only one to drop below 4/5 was 'All the flavours', mostly because I don't think the structure and length entirely paid off. Outstanding pieces include 'State change', Simulacrum', 'The paper menagerie', and 'The man who ended history: a documentary'. Although the collection averaged 4.5, I'm bumping it up to 4.75 because the work is greater than the sum of its parts. 
 
It's hard to describe Ken Liu's writing style and subject matter. It's an easy to read, sci-fi, magical realism, literary, historical fiction, kind of genre. There were several times I looked up specific events referenced and learnt about Chinese and pan-Asian history. I found this incredibly enjoyable, the way history and culture are presented is informative, but in an appeasing way because it's told almost like a fairy tale. I also greatly appeciated the author's notes at the end of the stories with historical features explaining the references and pointing to further reading. 

The stories cover difficult themes such as imperialism, industrialisation, migration and immigrant experience, ethical use/misuse and philosophical development of technology, revolution and nationalism, militarianism, philosophy of communication and memory, and censorship, all with respect to Chinese people.

"Every act of communication is a miracle of translation"

The book making habits of select species 4.25⭐
State change 4.75⭐ 
The perfect match 4.25⭐
Good hunting 4⭐
The literomancer 4.5⭐
Simulacrum 5⭐
The regular 4⭐
The paper menagerie 5⭐
An advanced reader's picture book of comparative cognition 4.25⭐
The waves 4.5⭐
Mono no aware 4.5⭐
All the flavours 3.5⭐
A brief history of the trans Pacific tunnel 4.25⭐
The litigation master and the monkey king 4.75⭐
The man who ended history: a documentary 5⭐

Average = 4.43 


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

sofiadanielle's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wow, just wow. 

Ken Liu is certainly an author who has undeniable power in his words. Each story has left an impact on me. He created worlds so complete that even the shortest stories included don’t leave the reader feeling not submerged in whatever the setting and plot is. 

The intertwining of Asian folklore, futuristic creations and ideals, was something new for me to find in a singular story, never mind a series of them. Liu also doesn’t shy away from gruesome bits in the stories centered around real wars and global conflicts. 

Definitely not for the faint of heart, as some topics are heavy and detailed, but I feel that despite these sometimes gory details, the heart of the story- reflectivity on society most of the time- always prevails. 

Simply amazing and deeply moving. I won’t be forgetting this read for a long time. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kalira's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ken Lie has a brilliant approach to weaving together history and realism with fantastical/speculative fiction elements, drawing it all into poignant and deeply emotional relief.

It took me a long time to read this anthology, largely because the stories are very good . . . and sometimes, so painful and heavy and immediate that upon finishing I needed to set the book aside and take some time. Both to process the story and to give myself a little emotional space to breathe.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

janiswong's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

Wow. A truly spectacular book that presents sci-fi and contemporary literature in a new form. The book took me a long time to read as the stories were emotionally difficult to process and is a book that requires the right mentally capacity and head space to enjoy. The short stories in the book represent the immensely wide range of socio-political, and technical topics in Liu's arsenal. The narratives challenge our current assumptions and assessments of truth, while bring critical attention to our own humanity. The author brilliantly weaves together histories and cultural narraties of the past into thought-provoking futures. A true must read, as there is a story for everyone.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

starrynight's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

fromjuliereads's review

Go to review page

challenging dark hopeful informative reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This collection of short stories was so well done! I don't normally read short story collections, but I always loved reading short stories for study purposes. These were unlike any I had read.

These stories incorporate real places and history into science fiction and fantasy. They are raw, unique, heartbreaking, and in many ways, eye opening. While a couple were a bit long or not for me, I had quite a few that I thoroughly enjoyed and could still find appreciation for all of them.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings