The Paper Menagerie: Ken Liu Paperback – 8 Sept. 2016

Great!

This eclectic collection of short stories, a few, which are almost novellas in their own right, is an absorbing if not particularly easy read. Many of these pieces dealt with alternative histories, and there was impressive research done by Liu, who always keeps a tight focus on the cultural implications of these historical events.However, while the stories were wonderfully composed, I flitted in and out of this collection over the past 2 months, as I plunged into other reads midway, and I am afraid my overall impression of the earlier stories are rather fragmented.The titular story, though, stood out for me. Blending Chinese mythology with modern-day concerns about cultural assimilation, the story about a son of biracial parents explores what it means to love your parents, in the most magical and moving manner.What is also impressive is Liu’s scientific knowledge, which makes his fictional postulations always credible and all the more fantastical at the same time.

I bought this book on the cheap during an Amazon daily deal. The small numbers of really positive reviews were enough to convince me to buy this book. I’m really happy that I did and those reviewers were right.The book consists of 15 short stories. The stories are quite varied and are mostly in the genres science fiction, alternate reality, and fantasy. I loved that a number of them are set in Asian history, mythology, or culture – even the science fiction stories. I do not know a great deal about the author but I felt that this touch made the stories more personal and relatable. The author sometimes also takes a historic fact or scientific paper and sets loose his imagination to take these in interesting new directions. I’m really impressed with how imaginative and varied the offering of stories is. If I had to give some criticism I would say that characters in some stories might lack a bit of depth. This is mostly due to the nature of short stories I think.So how do you rate a collection of stories? All of the stories, even the least strong ones, are at the very least an interesting read. The best ones left me with a warm glow or feeling truly sad. Read as a collection I feel that this is one of the best reads I’ve had in a while.I bought the author’s fantasy book (The Grace of Kings) after I finished this book and gave a physical copy to a friend. If anyone asks which book to read next this one will be one of the books I’d recommend. Highly recommended!

I guarantee 'The Paper Menagerie' will make you want to be nicer to your mother.

Book ReviewTitle: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken LiuGenre: AnthologyRating: 3.5 StarsI have heard a lot about Ken Liu especially his fantasy books but I thought I would start with the most recommended book of his which is The Paper Menagerie. Since this is a short story collection I am going to follow the same process I have with other collection and review the stories individually before wrapping the review up with my thoughts on the collection as a whole.The Bookmaking Habits of Select SpeciesThe Bookmaking Habits of Select Species was a great introduction to Ken Liu’s writing as it blends lyrical speculative fiction with hard science fiction elements. The story is short so there isn’t much to say about it other than it documents the bookmaking habits of three different species and how reading or their interpretation of it changes. The main objective of the story, I believe, is drawing attention to how we make memories and pass the relevant information on to the next generation.State ChangeState Change was an interesting story where people’s soul’s manifest into a physical form when they are born similar to His Dark Materials. Rina’s soul is an ice cube meant to represent how short and fragile her life will be and for a long time she lives her life terrified that the ice cube will melt and she will die. However, this changes when a young man named Jimmy comes to work at her office and worms his way into her closed off world. Over time Rina finds herself wanting to be more daring like her old friend, Amy, in order to be closer to Jimmy and she does become more daring. During one of these daring acts she accidently lets the ice cube melt but she doesn’t die. After this she receives a letter from Amy, whose soul was a packet of cigarettes, and she explains she went through the same thing were she smoked all the cigarettes and yet didn’t die because the form of her soul shifted as she grew older and she encourages Rina not to be afraid when her state change comes.The Perfect MatchThe Perfect Match is essentially the story of an AI named Tilly and the mission between Sai and Jenny to take it down. When we first meet Sai he is one of Tilly’s faithful users but after switching Tilly off during a date on a whim and the date goes badly because of it he ends up getting into a conversation with his neighbour, Jenny who he has always seen as a bit crazy. Jenny doesn’t believe in letting the AI control every aspect of your life and open Sai’s eye to the truths of the world that Tilly never bothered to reveal to him. He agrees to help Jenny upload a virus into Tilly that will destroy it but they are caught. When they meet the founder of Tilly, they quickly realise how futile their mission was and that the man is right about another rising up in place of Tilly if she was removed. He offers them the chance to work for him as they see the flaws in Tilly’s design and might be able to make a difference from the inside and while we don’t know if Sai and Jenny accept the offer we can see that Sai accepts that Tilly is going to play a huge role in his life whether he likes it or not.Good HuntingGood Hunting was a story that was used in the making of Love, Death and Robots, I believe it is called on Netflix. We are following Liang and his father as they are hunting Hulijing, fox creatures that bewitch human men. They chase one of these Hulijing to a temple where Liang actually encounters the daughter of the creature they are chasing. She explains to him that what he knows about them is wrong and tells him what the Hulijing are really like. This is overshadowed by the fact that Liang’s father succeeds in killing the girl’s mother and he learns her name is Yan when he lies to protect her. They continue meeting in secret for years but Yan’s magic is fading and she finds it harder and harder to transform into her fox form. They soon learn it is because the new railways runs through a major qi line and is bleeding the magic out of the land and eventually one day it is gone. Yan feels this but Liang’s father does to and he takes his own life as without the magic and spirits he has no purpose but Liang and Yan must try and survive in this new world. Liang for the next ten years learn all he can about the machinery and even becomes a trusted advisor to the British company when he ends up meeting Yan again, selling herself on the street to survive. They have a few encounters but the most memorable is the last one where Yan reveals that her esteemed lover has slowly been turning her into a robot as he finds them more sexual attractive than humans and it gave her an idea. She asks Liang to craft her a mechanical body that can turn into a fox so she can be her true self again and he agrees. The final form is dazzling and magical in its own way and Yan promises to return to Liang again with others of her kind trapping in their human forms so together they can set them free. Good Hunting was a bittersweet story and I will definitely have to watch the Netflix show to see it in all its glory.The LiteromancerThe Literomancer is a heart-breaking story that almost moved me to tears. We are following Lilly Dyer whose family have moved to China because of her father’s work which she doesn’t understand yet. She is bullied by the military children for not being one of them and she eventually crosses paths with Mr. Kan and his adopted grandson, Teddy. Mr. Kan introduces Lilly to the idea that words are magic and can tell us about the past or the future depending on how you look at them. Lilly forges a strong friendship both with Teddy and Mr. Kan and she seems to be adjusting to her new life. However, Mr. Kan frequently discussing his own hard life with the children and one innocent conversation with her father, directly involves Lilly in the brutal murders of both Mr. Kan and Teddy. Her father can’t cope with what he has been forced into and decides to move them back to America but Lilly is devastated by the loss of her friend even though she understands that they are free now and decides to carry the magic of words home with her, even though she knows a little part of her will always remain in China with her friends. Honestly, unless Liu can top this story I have a feeling it is going to be my favourite in the collection.SimulacrumSimulacrum was another unhappy story as we are introduced to Paul, the inventor of the simulacrum and his daughter, Anna along with his wife, Erin. Growing up Anna had a relatively normal childhood even though her experiences were used in the development of the simulacrum until one day she finds her father in bed with four virtual women. Through her mother she learns that her father wasn’t always faithful and the virtual women which her mother viewed as a form of pornography helped him maintain his faithfulness to his wife. However, Anna saw this as the cultured image of her father shattering and their relationship was never the same after that. By the time Anna leaves for the college the pair aren’t speaking anymore, until the day of Erin’s accident. Erin pleads with her daughter to forgive her father and she already has agreeing to stay with him until she learns of her simulacrum which she views as a violation of her sense of self and leaves once more. Anna views the simulacrum as an excuse for her father not to face his problems and to excuse his behaviour while Paul sees the digital version of Anna as a way of keeping his daughter close to him when the real one has drifted so far away. The story ends with a recording of Erin explaining to Anna that she has done the same thing to her father, compressed him down into a singular memory making him cease to exist as a person and begs them both to move on from the past especially now that she has died but I don’t think it will be resolved anytime soon since the pair has drastically different opinions on the simulacrum.The RegularThe Regular is one of the longest stories so far in the collection and it definitely was thrilling plunging more into crime, science fiction territory and I loved it. We are mainly following Ruth Law, a private investigator after she is hired by the mother of a murdered prostitute called Mona to find out what happened to her daughter. We know from the opening segment that Mona/Jasmine was murdered by a new client and he wanted something implanted in her face, which turns out to be recording device. The man wants to devices to blackmail important people within world politics as he is looking to make a lot of money in a short period of time and he has figured out that the street workers are the way to do it but only the high end ones. Ruth begins tracking him down and uses her knowledge from working with the police and her connections there too to help track down his next potential victim. Carrie is obviously frightened when Ruth explains the situation but agrees to go along with her plan in order to stop the man once and for all. The final confrontation was amazing and Liu really packs in a lot of Ruth’s trauma and how it comes back to haunt her in these final moments but she manages to follow through and stop the killer before he can claim another life. I would definitely read something like this if Liu ever writes a full length novel similar to this story as it was gritty, action packed and impactful in the space of a few pages.The Paper MenagerieWe have finally reached the story the collection is named after and I couldn’t wait to get into it as Liu’s stories span so many different genres I didn’t know what to expect from it at all. Compared to the previous story The Paper Menagerie is very short but it was no less impactful. We follow the relationship between a mother and her son over the years, he is the child of a Chinese-American marriage and suffers the racism in the America that makes him choose to abandon his Chinese heritage in favour of his American one. However, his mother made him paper animals as a child that were infused with magic so they moved, at this point they haven’t moved for years because the relationship between the boy and his mother got so bad. When she develops cancer and dies, the boy continues on with his life until the animals come back to life and inside his beloved tiger is a letter from his mother explaining her life and how she came to marry his father which isn’t a happy story but her son brought her a lot of joy and made her feel complete. The letter ends with the mother asking why her son won’t talk to her anymore as the pain she feels worsens. Again this is a very bittersweet story but we leave it believing that the boy will embrace more of his Chinese heritage to honour the sacrifices his mother made for him to have a happy and normal childhood even if it meant sacrificing all the joy their relationship brought her so he could be happy.An Advanced Readers’ Picture Book of Comparative CognitionAn Advanced Readers’ Picture Book of Comparative Cognition is one man lament for his wife. We learn that this couple met, married and had a daughter but the mother’s dream was always to explore the stars and when she is given the chance to she wants her daughter to go with her. Not being able to bear losing his wife and daughter, the husband fights this but ultimately the decision is given to the daughter and she chooses to stay with her father. Throughout the story the father thinks about the memories he made with his wife and daughter and how by the time his wife emerges from her cryosleep, he will be dead and their daughter will be an old woman or dead herself and the pain it causes it him but he also experiences happiness knowing the woman he loves his fulfilling her dream beyond the stars.The WavesThe Waves opens with Maggie telling her children the story of Nu Wa and the creation of man as they are heading for a new planet aboard the Sea Foam. However, they recieved a transmission from Earth explaining they have found the answer to immortality and want to share our with them. After done debate she and her husband leave it up to each member of the crew about whether they grow old and die or become immortal but for each adult immortal one child must also become immortal to make sure they don't overpopulate the ship. Of their own two children Lydia decide to remain mortal and their teen year old son Bobby becomes immortal. After generations have been born and died they finally arrive at their destination where humans have transitioned into machines and Maggie is once again given a choice. Initially she refuses watching the immortal children including Bobby become machines but she eventually makes the change as well. After more time passes she leaves the planet with her granddaughter, Bobby's child of creation and they find another branch of civilization that has transcends beyond the physical form and she faces a choice once more and she takes it. The story ends with Maggie considering what actually makes us human and how she now resembled the old gods as she has no one so she decides to create, by mutating a gene in the creatures of this planet she ensures that one day they will evolve into a species similar to humans. This was a really interesting look at humanity and what it means to be human and how our choices can step away or humanity one piece at a time.read more at forthenovellovers dot wordpress dot come

Beautiful short stories, variations in appeal/quality but I imagine it’s partly due to taste.His best stories are on par with Ted Chiang but the lower tiers are almost average.

An excellent collection of short stories, some hit more with me than others but as a collective it was an extremely enjoyable read and has moved The Grace of King's higher up my TBR, highly recommend

This collection of short stories is at once thought-provoking and touching, without ever veering into sentimentality. The stories span the past, present and future. Some would be classed as science fiction, others historical fiction, some are family or relationship dramas, but as Liu makes clear in his introduction, for him genre is unimportant and secondary to the act of "prizing the logic of metaphors...over reality, which is irreducibly random and senseless.". His other identity as a translator is also clearly at work in many of the stories, as characters translate alien cultures, new technologies and difficult or unexpected relationships into their lives. As he notes, "Every act of communication is a miracle of translation.".I especially enjoyed the suggestions for further reading around a theme or topic which appeared at the end of each story.