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suzy_g's review against another edition
3.0
Actual rating: 3.5 stars
Forget Tom Cruise - Ken Liu is the man who achieved mission impossible when he had me rating his other short story anthology ([b:The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories|24885533|The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories|Ken Liu|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1511290092l/24885533._SY75_.jpg|44534169]) five well-earned stars. I therefore had high hopes for this, his second collection of shorts.
In the spirit of this blockbuster simile I've got going on: cue the movie montage where it all goes a bit wrong.
I guess it was inevitable that I'd struggle to find another five star gem, but even so - this offering is more than decent. 'The Hidden Girl and Other Stories' is still full of interesting concepts, is very well written, is exceptionally accessible (without ever being condescending) and full of glimmering moments of brilliance.
'The Hidden Girl...' is more thematic in its approach than was the case in 'The Paper Menagerie...'. A large proportion of the stories within this collection deal with the question of advancing technology, AI and, specifically, the uploading of human consciousness into machine based entities/networks in the face of organic destruction. It is more sci-fi heavy than the previous outing, but (as inferred above), Liu has an uncanny knack of describing scientific processes without ever making me (a person who got a good-but-certainly-not-great C Grade in GCSE Science many, many moons ago) feel stupid. It's a gift really, as I make myself feel stupid on a daily basis to be honest.
I liked the interplay between the stories that resulted from the shared theme that appeared throughout many of them, however the flip side was that it started to feel same-y. That said, there were a couple of stories that explored other themes and this kept me from feeling any real sense of fatigue in terms of the subject matter. My overall feeling, however, was that the content missed the mark in terms of balance.
I'm still very much a fan of Liu's work and would encourage anyone to pick up his books, as I truly believe they hold something for everyone and that his writing very much deserves to be read. This book was by no means a fall from grace; it just didn't quite reach the dizzying heights of his earlier offering for me.
Forget Tom Cruise - Ken Liu is the man who achieved mission impossible when he had me rating his other short story anthology ([b:The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories|24885533|The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories|Ken Liu|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1511290092l/24885533._SY75_.jpg|44534169]) five well-earned stars. I therefore had high hopes for this, his second collection of shorts.
In the spirit of this blockbuster simile I've got going on: cue the movie montage where it all goes a bit wrong.
I guess it was inevitable that I'd struggle to find another five star gem, but even so - this offering is more than decent. 'The Hidden Girl and Other Stories' is still full of interesting concepts, is very well written, is exceptionally accessible (without ever being condescending) and full of glimmering moments of brilliance.
'The Hidden Girl...' is more thematic in its approach than was the case in 'The Paper Menagerie...'. A large proportion of the stories within this collection deal with the question of advancing technology, AI and, specifically, the uploading of human consciousness into machine based entities/networks in the face of organic destruction. It is more sci-fi heavy than the previous outing, but (as inferred above), Liu has an uncanny knack of describing scientific processes without ever making me (a person who got a good-but-certainly-not-great C Grade in GCSE Science many, many moons ago) feel stupid. It's a gift really, as I make myself feel stupid on a daily basis to be honest.
I liked the interplay between the stories that resulted from the shared theme that appeared throughout many of them, however the flip side was that it started to feel same-y. That said, there were a couple of stories that explored other themes and this kept me from feeling any real sense of fatigue in terms of the subject matter. My overall feeling, however, was that the content missed the mark in terms of balance.
I'm still very much a fan of Liu's work and would encourage anyone to pick up his books, as I truly believe they hold something for everyone and that his writing very much deserves to be read. This book was by no means a fall from grace; it just didn't quite reach the dizzying heights of his earlier offering for me.
mardzipan's review against another edition
4.0
Ken Liu's second collection of SFF short stories has some strong ideas and narratives woven into it. Unlike his first collection, [b:The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories|24885533|The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories|Ken Liu|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1511290092l/24885533._SY75_.jpg|44534169], that was knitted together with Asian mythology, this collection appears to focus strongly on digitisation, the Singularity and climate change.
Personally, I enjoyed his previous collection a little bit more. This one had a few short stories that didn't quite sustain my interest as much. But overall, it's a solid collection, and I give it an overall 4 stars.
The rest of my review will be ordering the short stories from my least favourite to my most favourite. The numbers at the start correspond to its order in the collection.
19 - Cutting - 3 stars
A really short short story - like really short. And the last in the collection. Monks annually cut out words from a holy book they feel are unnecessary. It's interesting to think about conceptually - but there isn't really much else to it other than an idea.
17 - Seven Birthdays - 3 stars
Tracing the mother and daughter relationship in our strange future where the singularity and terraforming are achievable. The sheer scale of this short story expands exponentially as it progresses. Sadly, just could not find myself invested in it.
13 - Dispatches from the Cradle - 3 stars
“Nostalgia is a wound that we refuse time to heal.”
In an earth ravaged by climate change, Asa, a hermit, explores the refugee countries and cities, writing essays of her voyages. More atmospheric and conceptual than plot-driven. I feel like some sci-fi readers may love this one but I, sadly, couldn't engage in the way this was written. Inspired by Walden, whom I love as a writer and philosopher, Asa’s excerpts come off a lot more convoluted than I thought was necessary.
14 - Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard - 3.5 stars
Certainly more fantasy than sci-fi, this is perhaps the longest in the collection and was the most difficult for me to get into initially. But after the first few pages, it becomes quite an engaging story. In this world, there are the Revealed and the Rotten, humans that can unleash their animal form. Everyone wishes to be Revealed but not everyone is chosen, especially that don't come from privileged backgrounds. Ava and her brother have very differing opinions on how to survive in the society, but when her brother runs away, Ava is forced to confront her past attempt to be Revealed in order to get him back. The ending for this packs a solid punch but I was pretty disappointed at how it fell into some really commonplace fantasy tropes.
8 - Real Artists - 3.5 stars
“A real artist will do whatever it takes to make a great vision come true.”
This story explores what it would be like if AI generates movies based on emotional responses of the audience. Overall a pretty fascinating short story concept. But the concept of AIs conquering artistic feats is not all that new to our modern world.
16 - The Hidden Girl - 3.75 stars
The eponymous fantasy story of this collection. Rooted in Buddhism, the general’s daughter is kidnapped by a nun and on her assigned mission she is left with a moral dilemma. It has a fascinating sci-fi element to it but it appears too late in the collection; I have a terrible habit of losing my interest in the short stories towards the later half of the collection so I sadly felt like this one was a bit of a letdown.
12 - Memories of My Mother - 3.75 stars
A very short yet sweet story of a strange relationship between a mother and daughter that uses the concept of time dilation. More of a plot skeleton than anything. But I was won over by sentimentality.
7 - Staying Behind - 3.75 stars
“The limited time given to each of us makes what we do meaningful. We die to make place for our children, and through our children a piece of us lives on, the only form of immortality that is real.”
People are choosing to be uploaded into the Singularity yet there are also the few who refuse to believe that an incorporeal life is worth living. An interesting exploration of what it would be like living in the Singularity and the world we leave behind.
2 - Maxwell’s Demon - 3.75 stars
“A war opened a door in men, and whatever was inside just tumbled out.”
A reimagining of the war between Japan and US in the 1940s. A young Japanese-American is sent back as a spy to Japan where she makes use of her Okinawan supernatural powers as a yuta to figure out the thought experiment. Some interesting glimpses at sexism on both the American and Japanese end as well as dehumanization. Love the parallel between Maxwell's Demon and the savage nature of war. Sadly, I felt this one ended far too abruptly.
6 - The Gods Will Not Be Chained - 3.75 stars
“Sticks and stones. But the digital world, the world of bits and electrons, of words and images—it had brought her so much joy, felt so intimate that she thought of it a part of herself. And it hurt.”
The first in a three-part series of short stories. A girl who is badly bullied by a few of her classmates in school finds a surprising protector through a string of emoji messages. The concept of this story is not as strong as the others before it but the news headlines scattered throughout this story show Liu’s ever-creative mind on the potentials of technology.
9 - The Gods Will Not Be Slain - 4 stars
“Everything developed in layers ... The cables that make up the internet with pulses of light follow the right-of-way of nineteenth-century railroads, and those followed the wagon trails of pioneers, who followed the paths of the Indians before them. When the world falls apart, it falls apart in layers, too. We’re peeling away the skin of the present to live on the bones of the past.”
“What about us? Have we also developed in layers so that we’re falling back down the ladder of civilization?”
The sequel to The Gods Will Not Be Chained - a digital war between simulacrums of people uploaded into the digital ether. The “villain” felt a little one-dimensional in this story but the concepts were more developed than the first.
3 - The Reborn - 4 stars
“You humans think you are what you’ve done ... But you’re really what you remember.”
A crime scene investigation story set in a world where an alien race called the Tawnin attempt to co-exist with humans after The Conquest. For the Tawnin it is easier to erase the memories of the past - literally. But for humans it is far more difficult to forget. This is a short story that examines the link between memory and identity and the illusion of a unified self. This one has a really interesting plot structure and concepts though the former was a little bit messy in my opinion.
11 - The Gods Have Not Died in Vain - 4.5 stars
“The world has become too fragile for us to count on people, and so our only choice is to make it even more fragile.”
A solid albeit depressing conclusion to the Singularity triptych.
5 - Byzantine Empathy - 4.5 stars
“Empathy for you is but another weapon to be wielded, instead of a fundamental value of being human. You reward some with your empathy and punish others by withholding it. Reasons can always be found.”
Perhaps not for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. This short story felt most like an episode of Black Mirror with a fully realised technological concept that has ramifications on human behaviour. The creation of an Empathium blockchain network that seeks to provide humanitarian aid directly from individuals to benefactors without a third-party through smart contracts. But the technology gets a bit muddied by VR tapping on people’s emotional reactions to violence and brutality in order to donate. I personally thought Liu's writing and innovativeness really shined through in this short story.
18 - The Message - 5 stars
“I care. It matters to me that they be remembered and understood. A man wants to leave behind his name, and a civilization wants to leave behind its stories.”
An estranged father and daughter reunite and attempt to uncover the mystery behind a dead alien civilisation's structure. This one gives off Alien vibes with its dabbling in xenoarcheology - and I was pretty much won over by that. Really really enjoyed this one.
10 - Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeers - 5 stars
“Something has been lost to humanity since we gained this immortal command over an imagined existence. We have turned inward and become complacent. We’ve forgotten the stars and the worlds out there."
This one’s a bit more alien to grasp but follows the idea of when humans are finally part of the Singularity and become literally digital natives. It explores the idea of families and children existing in the Singularity and what earth has become. I actually quite loved this one for its dreamy atmosphere. I know that not everyone is going to like this one - some may read it and not even giving it a second thought - but, I don't know, I thought there was something really special about it.
4 - Thoughts and Prayers - 5 stars
“When they try to remember the captured moment, do they recall what they saw, or what the camera crafted for them?”
This short story! THIS SHORT STORY! This one felt like a sucker-punch to the gut. A daughter ends up dead from a music festival shooting. This short story is an examination of grief juxtaposed with the possibilities and dangers of technology in preserving memory. The baseline is how cruel humanity can be. There’s an almost beautiful parallel between gun violence and how digital content can assault the senses. There's also a consideration of how far terms like democracy and “freedom” be manipulated to enact harm on others, whether it's fair enough (it's not) to abandon the social contract.
1 - Ghost Days - 5 stars
“Parents fear to be forgotten, to not be understood by their children.”
Yup, the first short story in the collection was the one I loved the most. (It's testament to the fact that I really get "short story fatigue" as I continue reading a collection.) This short story explores the significance of the history of another planet (Earth) when humans migrate to an exoplanet that has created a generation of children that are no longer fully human anymore. The story is a familiar sentiment of second-generation children displaced from their homelands, more at home in their new environment. The short story is spliced into three narratives that go back and forward in time, echoing the same sentiment of the potential loss of connection with the past. Some strong Becky Chamber vibes with this one. And I loved it.
N/b: I've excluded A Chase Beyond the Storms because I haven't read The Dandelion Dynasty
Personally, I enjoyed his previous collection a little bit more. This one had a few short stories that didn't quite sustain my interest as much. But overall, it's a solid collection, and I give it an overall 4 stars.
The rest of my review will be ordering the short stories from my least favourite to my most favourite. The numbers at the start correspond to its order in the collection.
19 - Cutting - 3 stars
A really short short story - like really short. And the last in the collection. Monks annually cut out words from a holy book they feel are unnecessary. It's interesting to think about conceptually - but there isn't really much else to it other than an idea.
17 - Seven Birthdays - 3 stars
Tracing the mother and daughter relationship in our strange future where the singularity and terraforming are achievable. The sheer scale of this short story expands exponentially as it progresses. Sadly, just could not find myself invested in it.
13 - Dispatches from the Cradle - 3 stars
“Nostalgia is a wound that we refuse time to heal.”
In an earth ravaged by climate change, Asa, a hermit, explores the refugee countries and cities, writing essays of her voyages. More atmospheric and conceptual than plot-driven. I feel like some sci-fi readers may love this one but I, sadly, couldn't engage in the way this was written. Inspired by Walden, whom I love as a writer and philosopher, Asa’s excerpts come off a lot more convoluted than I thought was necessary.
14 - Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard - 3.5 stars
Certainly more fantasy than sci-fi, this is perhaps the longest in the collection and was the most difficult for me to get into initially. But after the first few pages, it becomes quite an engaging story. In this world, there are the Revealed and the Rotten, humans that can unleash their animal form. Everyone wishes to be Revealed but not everyone is chosen, especially that don't come from privileged backgrounds. Ava and her brother have very differing opinions on how to survive in the society, but when her brother runs away, Ava is forced to confront her past attempt to be Revealed in order to get him back. The ending for this packs a solid punch but I was pretty disappointed at how it fell into some really commonplace fantasy tropes.
8 - Real Artists - 3.5 stars
“A real artist will do whatever it takes to make a great vision come true.”
This story explores what it would be like if AI generates movies based on emotional responses of the audience. Overall a pretty fascinating short story concept. But the concept of AIs conquering artistic feats is not all that new to our modern world.
16 - The Hidden Girl - 3.75 stars
The eponymous fantasy story of this collection. Rooted in Buddhism, the general’s daughter is kidnapped by a nun and on her assigned mission she is left with a moral dilemma. It has a fascinating sci-fi element to it but it appears too late in the collection; I have a terrible habit of losing my interest in the short stories towards the later half of the collection so I sadly felt like this one was a bit of a letdown.
12 - Memories of My Mother - 3.75 stars
A very short yet sweet story of a strange relationship between a mother and daughter that uses the concept of time dilation. More of a plot skeleton than anything. But I was won over by sentimentality.
7 - Staying Behind - 3.75 stars
“The limited time given to each of us makes what we do meaningful. We die to make place for our children, and through our children a piece of us lives on, the only form of immortality that is real.”
People are choosing to be uploaded into the Singularity yet there are also the few who refuse to believe that an incorporeal life is worth living. An interesting exploration of what it would be like living in the Singularity and the world we leave behind.
2 - Maxwell’s Demon - 3.75 stars
“A war opened a door in men, and whatever was inside just tumbled out.”
A reimagining of the war between Japan and US in the 1940s. A young Japanese-American is sent back as a spy to Japan where she makes use of her Okinawan supernatural powers as a yuta to figure out the thought experiment. Some interesting glimpses at sexism on both the American and Japanese end as well as dehumanization. Love the parallel between Maxwell's Demon and the savage nature of war. Sadly, I felt this one ended far too abruptly.
6 - The Gods Will Not Be Chained - 3.75 stars
“Sticks and stones. But the digital world, the world of bits and electrons, of words and images—it had brought her so much joy, felt so intimate that she thought of it a part of herself. And it hurt.”
The first in a three-part series of short stories. A girl who is badly bullied by a few of her classmates in school finds a surprising protector through a string of emoji messages. The concept of this story is not as strong as the others before it but the news headlines scattered throughout this story show Liu’s ever-creative mind on the potentials of technology.
9 - The Gods Will Not Be Slain - 4 stars
“Everything developed in layers ... The cables that make up the internet with pulses of light follow the right-of-way of nineteenth-century railroads, and those followed the wagon trails of pioneers, who followed the paths of the Indians before them. When the world falls apart, it falls apart in layers, too. We’re peeling away the skin of the present to live on the bones of the past.”
“What about us? Have we also developed in layers so that we’re falling back down the ladder of civilization?”
The sequel to The Gods Will Not Be Chained - a digital war between simulacrums of people uploaded into the digital ether. The “villain” felt a little one-dimensional in this story but the concepts were more developed than the first.
3 - The Reborn - 4 stars
“You humans think you are what you’ve done ... But you’re really what you remember.”
A crime scene investigation story set in a world where an alien race called the Tawnin attempt to co-exist with humans after The Conquest. For the Tawnin it is easier to erase the memories of the past - literally. But for humans it is far more difficult to forget. This is a short story that examines the link between memory and identity and the illusion of a unified self. This one has a really interesting plot structure and concepts though the former was a little bit messy in my opinion.
11 - The Gods Have Not Died in Vain - 4.5 stars
“The world has become too fragile for us to count on people, and so our only choice is to make it even more fragile.”
A solid albeit depressing conclusion to the Singularity triptych.
5 - Byzantine Empathy - 4.5 stars
“Empathy for you is but another weapon to be wielded, instead of a fundamental value of being human. You reward some with your empathy and punish others by withholding it. Reasons can always be found.”
Perhaps not for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. This short story felt most like an episode of Black Mirror with a fully realised technological concept that has ramifications on human behaviour. The creation of an Empathium blockchain network that seeks to provide humanitarian aid directly from individuals to benefactors without a third-party through smart contracts. But the technology gets a bit muddied by VR tapping on people’s emotional reactions to violence and brutality in order to donate. I personally thought Liu's writing and innovativeness really shined through in this short story.
18 - The Message - 5 stars
“I care. It matters to me that they be remembered and understood. A man wants to leave behind his name, and a civilization wants to leave behind its stories.”
An estranged father and daughter reunite and attempt to uncover the mystery behind a dead alien civilisation's structure. This one gives off Alien vibes with its dabbling in xenoarcheology - and I was pretty much won over by that. Really really enjoyed this one.
10 - Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeers - 5 stars
“Something has been lost to humanity since we gained this immortal command over an imagined existence. We have turned inward and become complacent. We’ve forgotten the stars and the worlds out there."
This one’s a bit more alien to grasp but follows the idea of when humans are finally part of the Singularity and become literally digital natives. It explores the idea of families and children existing in the Singularity and what earth has become. I actually quite loved this one for its dreamy atmosphere. I know that not everyone is going to like this one - some may read it and not even giving it a second thought - but, I don't know, I thought there was something really special about it.
4 - Thoughts and Prayers - 5 stars
“When they try to remember the captured moment, do they recall what they saw, or what the camera crafted for them?”
This short story! THIS SHORT STORY! This one felt like a sucker-punch to the gut. A daughter ends up dead from a music festival shooting. This short story is an examination of grief juxtaposed with the possibilities and dangers of technology in preserving memory. The baseline is how cruel humanity can be. There’s an almost beautiful parallel between gun violence and how digital content can assault the senses. There's also a consideration of how far terms like democracy and “freedom” be manipulated to enact harm on others, whether it's fair enough (it's not) to abandon the social contract.
1 - Ghost Days - 5 stars
“Parents fear to be forgotten, to not be understood by their children.”
Yup, the first short story in the collection was the one I loved the most. (It's testament to the fact that I really get "short story fatigue" as I continue reading a collection.) This short story explores the significance of the history of another planet (Earth) when humans migrate to an exoplanet that has created a generation of children that are no longer fully human anymore. The story is a familiar sentiment of second-generation children displaced from their homelands, more at home in their new environment. The short story is spliced into three narratives that go back and forward in time, echoing the same sentiment of the potential loss of connection with the past. Some strong Becky Chamber vibes with this one. And I loved it.
N/b: I've excluded A Chase Beyond the Storms because I haven't read The Dandelion Dynasty
catblank10's review against another edition
4.0
Like The Paper Menagerie collection, these short stories get better and better as the book goes on and the end packs a punch.
I really liked the continual return to the idea of digital consciousnesses and imagining earth once humanity has (mostly) left. My favourite stories of the collection were Ghost Days, Real Artists, Despatches from the Cradle, Grey Rabbit.., The Hidden Girl, The Message and Cutting.
A nice mingling of stories that derive from myth and fable and futuristic tales (although they are all sci-fi). I like Ken Liu's ability to find relatable humanity in such far flung space and time.
I really liked the continual return to the idea of digital consciousnesses and imagining earth once humanity has (mostly) left. My favourite stories of the collection were Ghost Days, Real Artists, Despatches from the Cradle, Grey Rabbit.., The Hidden Girl, The Message and Cutting.
A nice mingling of stories that derive from myth and fable and futuristic tales (although they are all sci-fi). I like Ken Liu's ability to find relatable humanity in such far flung space and time.
robbishreads's review against another edition
4.0
My most love/hate book of the year, by a long shot. The ideas are amazing, the stories heartfelt, terrifying, riveting, bizarre, tragic...I could go on. The formatting is a bit of a shot in the foot- the Singularity and related stories should have been their own novella, the Dandelion Dynasty excerpt should never have been included, and the rest published separately with a few more stories.
It's a hard book to recommend, because it's a difficult ride. Liu channels his strongest Black Mirror here, taking an idea or technology wondering "how can I make this into a an emotionally harrowing tragedy?" I mean, he's really good at it, but I'm not convinced I needed to go through that.
It's a hard book to recommend, because it's a difficult ride. Liu channels his strongest Black Mirror here, taking an idea or technology wondering "how can I make this into a an emotionally harrowing tragedy?" I mean, he's really good at it, but I'm not convinced I needed to go through that.
claiirelu's review against another edition
3.0
i think my expectations were too high since paper menagerie and other short stories is one of my fav books ever, but this fell a little short for me. this is a darker, more cautionary collection that poses a lot of important/relevant questions about humanity and survival/preservation, but the emotional resonance i love ken liu for felt more forced and juvenile in this.
i appreciate how a lot of the stories revolve around a common theme (the “singularity” or this idea of uploading human consciousness), which gave the collection cohesion but still managed to introduce something new with each story. he approaches transhumanism from many different angles while grounding his explorations in human stories, which i enjoyed.
sometimes it felt like i was reading one of those books i used to read as a kid that tries to make technical/scientific concepts fun and understandable, though, like there was this really long exchange explaining how smart contracts on blockchain work, and sometimes the inclusion of technical concepts felt silly like that one story where recursion was used as a weapon for the uploaded humans.
i appreciate how a lot of the stories revolve around a common theme (the “singularity” or this idea of uploading human consciousness), which gave the collection cohesion but still managed to introduce something new with each story. he approaches transhumanism from many different angles while grounding his explorations in human stories, which i enjoyed.
sometimes it felt like i was reading one of those books i used to read as a kid that tries to make technical/scientific concepts fun and understandable, though, like there was this really long exchange explaining how smart contracts on blockchain work, and sometimes the inclusion of technical concepts felt silly like that one story where recursion was used as a weapon for the uploaded humans.
nsaphra's review against another edition
2.0
Some of these stories were really good, but it got dragged down by the singularity stories, which were just not very interesting or innovative if you're familiar with that particular religion. But the others were really good!
robertwmcclure's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. Loved this book. The intertwined stories from multiple perspectives about what it means to be human, uploading to the cloud, what is consciousness, and then familiar stories of children/parents with loss/love was simply brilliant.
mrajan13's review against another edition
4.0
Ken Liu is a master of the short story format. With the exception of the one excerpt from his upcoming novel, each story is masterfully crafted for length. None seem incomplete or unable to stand alone.
Many of the stories in this collection are interconnected, which makes the collection seem a bit repetitive. They are also more political (rather than just beautifully written) then I remember his collection being. It's a little hard to read stories of the death and destruction during COVID-19, but that's not Liu's fault.
Many of the stories in this collection are interconnected, which makes the collection seem a bit repetitive. They are also more political (rather than just beautifully written) then I remember his collection being. It's a little hard to read stories of the death and destruction during COVID-19, but that's not Liu's fault.
mike_diamond's review against another edition
My second attempt at listening to a Liu book - and still I didn’t find the writing particularly engaging. Narrator was okay.