A review by thisotherbookaccount
Invisible Planets by Ken Liu
3.0
The thing about short story collections is that you never quite know what you are going to get — and Invisible Planets is like that. There are some good stories in this collection alongside some really perplexing ones. Compared to Ken Liu's other short story collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, this one falls somewhat short on the emotional resonance. Granted, Liu did not write any of the stories in this collection. Instead, he dons the editor's hat this time, curating a list of Chinese science fiction for foreign readers.
Stories of particular note are: Tongtong's Summer, The City of Silence (love the echoes of Fahrenheit 451 and 1984), Folding Beijing and Taking Care of God. Then there are the stories that did not quite work out for me, such as anything by the author Chen Qiufan, the other two stories by Xia Jia, and Call Girl. Some of these I couldn't even be bothered to finish.
With that said, I would still recommend this book because it also comes with three very interesting essays on Chinese science fiction at the back. In fact, the three essays almost redeems the stories that don't work in this collection. Very glad that I pulled through this particular read, even though some of the stories didn't quite work out.
Stories of particular note are: Tongtong's Summer, The City of Silence (love the echoes of Fahrenheit 451 and 1984), Folding Beijing and Taking Care of God. Then there are the stories that did not quite work out for me, such as anything by the author Chen Qiufan, the other two stories by Xia Jia, and Call Girl. Some of these I couldn't even be bothered to finish.
With that said, I would still recommend this book because it also comes with three very interesting essays on Chinese science fiction at the back. In fact, the three essays almost redeems the stories that don't work in this collection. Very glad that I pulled through this particular read, even though some of the stories didn't quite work out.