Reviews

The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu

tmawhir's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

bookdeli's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

laviskrg's review against another edition

5.0

Ken Liu is hands down the master of short stories and of science fiction. This is a bewildering, beautiful and sensitive collection of stories, written for intellectuals, nerds, parents, people who love the natural, people who worship the scientific, for old souls and new minds. The stories touch on everything from Chinese myths to the recreating of the entirety of human possibility by an uploaded singularity-enhanced psyche.
I love the fact that Ken Liu constructed an interwoven web of stories, adding colour to the same world, based on our obsession with space travel, AI, human condition, terraformation, immortality, memory, legacy. I was touched and this is also how you bring awareness to current affairs such as climate change, imbalance of wealth and dwindling resources.
This is a must read and to be honest, most modern readers would benefit from an injection of intelligence after this book (or even in order to understand it).

dkai's review against another edition

3.0

Especially compared to the outstanding Paper Menagerie, this collection left me wanting way more. Many of the stories felt like weak encores of their counterparts in PM. There was also too much about singularities and ecodisasters that grew repetitive and heavy-handed. Most importantly, I feel like the stories fell into the scifi trap of worrying more about world building and philosophical musings than the human elements that should always be at the heart (e.g. Mono No Aware).

frozenfrog's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

ljpaatan's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

paolo_jpmv's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative mysterious slow-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? No

3.5

savageco's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.75

willb's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.25

itkovian_books's review against another edition

4.0

This is a good collection of modern science fiction short stories (as well as an excerpt from a fantasy novel, which I didn't read, as I'm not caught up with the series). Ken Liu is an excellent writer on a technical level, and many of his concepts were very interesting to explore. There were definitely weaker entries, but not enough that the collection felt bogged down or bloated.

My favorite stories were probably "Thoughts and Prayers", "Staying Behind", "Real Artists", and "Memories of My Mother".

Rating: 8/10, with the individual stories ranging from 5/10-10/10