There’s something for everyone in this collection: fantasy that evolves into silk-punk (Good hunting), a great science fiction concept (State change), cyberpunk (The regular), a western (All the flavors), an alternate timeline (A brief history of the trans-pacific tunnel), magical realism (The paper menagerie), and a few more.

There are some stories I wouldn’t know how to classify and they weren’t my kind of thing (The bookmaking habits of select species, An advanced reader picture of cognitive fiction). A couple of other stories felt too much like an essay to work as a story (The man who ended history: a documentary, The perfect match). A few had great potential and the topic was interesting, but the development was weird (The waves) or too bland (Mono no aware) for my taste. And then, some others I couldn’t take my eyes off the book (Good hunting, The regular, The litigation master and the monkey king). I like many of them, though none blew me away.

There are some common themes: parent-child relationships (Simulacrum, The paper menagerie), events related to China’s history that aren’t well-known in the West (The literomancer, The man who ended history: a documentary, etc.), race issues (All the flavors, The paper menagerie), identity in a changing world (Good hunting, Mono no aware). It felt refreshing that almost all of the stories centered on an Asian character, setup, or parable; and I enjoyed very much how Liu weaved China’s mythology into the stories (“The litigation master and the monkey king” is a funny example).

If there’s one thing that ties the collection together is bringing an Eastern viewpoint to the mainstream of the West. I’m not sure it’ll be fair to say this is Ken Liu’s personal mission, though he’s done a great deal to popularize chinese authors in the anglosphere — he translated Liu Cixin and published collections of scifi authors from China. Perhaps it’s best to say that, as an author, Ken Liu brings his own viewpoint: the viewpoint of someone who has experienced China and USA cultures from within, and so can navigate them both as a native. He uses this superpower to talk about global issues and to create small windows into the East for Westerners.

Here’s the whole list of stories. My favorites are in bold:

• The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species
• State Change
• The Perfect Match
• Good Hunting
• The Literomancer
• Simulacrum
• The Regular
• The Paper Menagerie
• An Advanced Reader’s Picture Book of Comparative Cognition
• The Waves
• Mono no aware
• All the Flavors
• A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel
• The Litigation Master and the Monkey King
• The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary