stephanieroc's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Una de mis primeras colecciones de historias cortas, y también es de un género del que no leo mucho: ciencia ficción. Así que no sabía como sería mi experiencia y fui gratamente sorprendida. Todas las historias tenían premisas interesantes y trataban temas que daban mucho que pensar sobre nuestra humanidad, la historia, y mucho más. El hecho de que fueron tan cortas creo también ayudó a que la ciencia ficción no se sintiera tan densa como podría ser en otros libros. Una muy buena colección y que totalmente recomendaría.
Mis historias favoritas fueron (en orden): The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary, Mono No Aware, The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species, The Paper Menagerie y The Literomancer.
Mis historias favoritas fueron (en orden): The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary, Mono No Aware, The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species, The Paper Menagerie y The Literomancer.
sarahngxq's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
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
ajsterkel's review
3.0
Before starting this story collection, I had heard a lot about Ken Liu. His work has won basically every sci-fi/fantasy award ever. A lot of the bookworms I follow online are obsessed with his novels. I decided to give his work a shot, even though fantasy and hard sci-fi aren’t my favorite genres. I mean, books set in space are cool, but once an author starts getting into all the mathy minutiae about how space travel works, I stop caring. I worried that these stories might have too much detail for me.
I was definitely right about some of the stories. A few of them are absolute slogs. (Especially “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” and “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King.”) I feel like the author sometimes goes into so much detail about a subject that I lose sight of the plot or characters. Then I stop caring and become tempted to skip to the next story. I didn’t do that, though. I plowed through the whole book. Even the slow bits. *Pats self on back.*
I do like the themes that Ken Liu writes about in this collection. Most of the stories blend Chinese history or legends with futuristic technology. I love that clash between the past and the future. Many of the characters are trying to make peace with their pasts while dealing with futuristic problems.
My favorite stories are the magical realism ones. Ken Liu writes brilliant magical realism. The stories are realistic enough that the author doesn’t have to spend a ton of pages explaining the world, but they’re bizarre enough that I was completely captivated by them. Those stories have the perfect balance of weird and real for me.
I also learned a lot about China from this book. It’s not a place I know much about. If you’re interested in non-western sci-fi/fantasy worlds, then this is a must-read.
For me, these are the stand-out stories:
TL;DR: I adored most of the magical realism stories, but I got really bored with the sci-fi ones.
I was definitely right about some of the stories. A few of them are absolute slogs. (Especially “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” and “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King.”) I feel like the author sometimes goes into so much detail about a subject that I lose sight of the plot or characters. Then I stop caring and become tempted to skip to the next story. I didn’t do that, though. I plowed through the whole book. Even the slow bits. *Pats self on back.*
I do like the themes that Ken Liu writes about in this collection. Most of the stories blend Chinese history or legends with futuristic technology. I love that clash between the past and the future. Many of the characters are trying to make peace with their pasts while dealing with futuristic problems.
My favorite stories are the magical realism ones. Ken Liu writes brilliant magical realism. The stories are realistic enough that the author doesn’t have to spend a ton of pages explaining the world, but they’re bizarre enough that I was completely captivated by them. Those stories have the perfect balance of weird and real for me.
I also learned a lot about China from this book. It’s not a place I know much about. If you’re interested in non-western sci-fi/fantasy worlds, then this is a must-read.
For me, these are the stand-out stories:
In “State Change,” people’s souls are random objects. This is a big problem for a woman whose soul is an ice cube. What if it melts? The woman becomes cut off from other people because she spends so much time protecting her soul. Very creative and relatable.
“Good Hunting” is like a steampunk Chinese myth. This is one of my favorites because it’s twisty and unpredictable. It’s about adapting to change and how our old stories transform as we carry them into the future.
“The Literomancer” feels more like a historical story than a sci-fi/fantasy story. An American girl befriends a Chinese family. The girl starts telling fantastical stories about the family, which makes the American government suspicious about their activities. Devastating things happen. This story is set during the Cold War and was inspired by real events.“‘Miss Lilly.’ Mr. Kan stood up and solemnly shook her hand. ‘When there is such a large gap of years between two friends, we Chinese call it wang nien chih chiao, a friendship that forgets the years. It’s destiny that brings us together. I hope you will always think of me and Teddy as your friends.’” – The Paper Menagerie
Another historical story that was inspired by true events is “All The Flavors.” It’s about the Chinese men who came to Idaho City in the 1800s to find gold. At first, they face discrimination, but soon they become an integral part of the community. I like the parallels between “Logan’s” life and the Chinese God of War stories that he tells. Also, there’s a lot of Chinese food in this story. I love Chinese food.
My favorite story is “The Paper Menagerie.” This one is stunning. It has origami animals that come to life. It’s about a young man who is struggling with his Chinese-American identity. As a kid, he takes out his anger on his Chinese mother, but when she dies, the origami she leaves behind finally helps him understand her. It’s sad, and magical, and clever, and comes together perfectly in the end.
My final favorite is “A Brief History Of The Trans-Pacific Tunnel.” I guess this is alternate history? Instead of Chinese immigrants building railroads in North America, they build an underwater railroad from North America to Asia? I don’t know, but it’s a cool story. The main character spends so many years working on the tunnel that he can no longer function above ground. I felt bad for him.
TL;DR: I adored most of the magical realism stories, but I got really bored with the sci-fi ones.
zoekatz's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
tanyagold's review against another edition
5.0
An amazing collection of speculative fiction recommended for lovers of multicultural fiction and magical realism.
My favorites are State Change, Good Hunting, Simulacrum, The Regular, All the Flavors, Mono no Aware, and The Paper Menagerie.
My favorites are State Change, Good Hunting, Simulacrum, The Regular, All the Flavors, Mono no Aware, and The Paper Menagerie.
ifpoetshadmerch's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 stars
Take my review with a grain of salt. The ultimate takeaway for me was that science fiction (and especially sci-fi short story collections) is not my genre.
Liu is obviously extremely intelligent and creative. So many of these stories draw upon technology, astronomy, physics, world history and Liu wrote interesting stories around these concepts. I really enjoyed speculations on how humanity would evolve in the future and how aliens would write and record history. The title story, The Paper Menagerie, was by far my favorite and tugged on my heartstrings quite a bit. However, for the most part this collection was lacking that emotional oomph and depended too heavily on vocab words. A large vocabulary helps a writer, but it doesn’t make someone into a writer, and unfortunately Liu stumbles into that pitfall a bit (in my opinion). For these reasons, some of the stories felt unpolished to me.
My interest also tapered off significantly toward the end of this collection. The stories echo each other too much to the point of blurring together. They also don’t add much to the usual “Big Questions” of science fiction. Every story seemed like a different, blunt variation of the same central ideas: what does it mean to be human, who will remember us, and what will they remember?
Take my review with a grain of salt. The ultimate takeaway for me was that science fiction (and especially sci-fi short story collections) is not my genre.
Liu is obviously extremely intelligent and creative. So many of these stories draw upon technology, astronomy, physics, world history and Liu wrote interesting stories around these concepts. I really enjoyed speculations on how humanity would evolve in the future and how aliens would write and record history. The title story, The Paper Menagerie, was by far my favorite and tugged on my heartstrings quite a bit. However, for the most part this collection was lacking that emotional oomph and depended too heavily on vocab words. A large vocabulary helps a writer, but it doesn’t make someone into a writer, and unfortunately Liu stumbles into that pitfall a bit (in my opinion). For these reasons, some of the stories felt unpolished to me.
My interest also tapered off significantly toward the end of this collection. The stories echo each other too much to the point of blurring together. They also don’t add much to the usual “Big Questions” of science fiction. Every story seemed like a different, blunt variation of the same central ideas: what does it mean to be human, who will remember us, and what will they remember?
kyletuhr's review against another edition
4.25
really love these stories, very clearly written from a tech perspective and work well as straightforward concepts / black mirror episodes, basically
seitenreise's review against another edition
4.0
Es hat ein wenig gedauert, aber ich habe es geschafft \o/
Viele der Geschichten gingen mir sehr ans Herz, der Autor hat einen ganz besonderen Stil, um Situationen und Geschehnisse zu beschreiben. Oft schafft er es, dem scheinbar Alltäglichem Magie oder Schmerz abzuringen. Geschickt lässt er seine Aussage sich anschleichen und haut einen dann nebenbei um.
Dennoch waren nicht alle Geschichten nach meinem Geschmack, deshalb sind es nur vier Sterne geworden.
Viele der Geschichten gingen mir sehr ans Herz, der Autor hat einen ganz besonderen Stil, um Situationen und Geschehnisse zu beschreiben. Oft schafft er es, dem scheinbar Alltäglichem Magie oder Schmerz abzuringen. Geschickt lässt er seine Aussage sich anschleichen und haut einen dann nebenbei um.
Dennoch waren nicht alle Geschichten nach meinem Geschmack, deshalb sind es nur vier Sterne geworden.
dayne's review against another edition
4.0
Very interesting stories. I liked the fact that they were all from an East Asian perspective rather than USA centric.