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A lot of really imaginative sci-fi concepts; I especially love the first short story, which follows in the Invisible Cities tradition of a society/universe? sketched out by its constituents, by its minor details. It's really magical and a great introduction to the series. I'm not really sure what to make of "The Regular"; it does feel a little like the conclusion is that cops should shoot people faster when they feel justified, but a lot more of the story is bound up in both the stresses that policing introduces on police as well as the biases that exist even in an "objective" world. I also felt a little weird about "Simulacrum", mostly because of my own contested feelings around fatherhood.
There were a lot of stories that I think are stereotypically "diasporic"; I also cried 3-4 times while reading this book, which has to count for something.
Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Gun violence, Infidelity, Sexual content, Kidnapping, Colonisation
Minor: Addiction, Dementia
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Genocide, Racial slurs, Slavery, Death of parent, Colonisation
Minor: Cancer, Infidelity, Sexual content, Suicide, Excrement, Alcohol
As a warning, there is a ton of *extremely* graphic content in here. In fact, I think this may be the most explicitly graphic book I have ever read.
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Rape, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Gun violence, Racism, Sexual content, Death of parent, Murder, War
Minor: Bullying, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexism, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury
It's hard to describe Ken Liu's writing style and subject matter. It's an easy to read, sci-fi, magical realism, literary, historical fiction, kind of genre. There were several times I looked up specific events referenced and learnt about Chinese and pan-Asian history. I found this incredibly enjoyable, the way history and culture are presented is informative, but in an appeasing way because it's told almost like a fairy tale. I also greatly appeciated the author's notes at the end of the stories with historical features explaining the references and pointing to further reading.
The stories cover difficult themes such as imperialism, industrialisation, migration and immigrant experience, ethical use/misuse and philosophical development of technology, revolution and nationalism, militarianism, philosophy of communication and memory, and censorship, all with respect to Chinese people.
"Every act of communication is a miracle of translation"
The book making habits of select species 4.25⭐
State change 4.75⭐
The perfect match 4.25⭐
Good hunting 4⭐
The literomancer 4.5⭐
Simulacrum 5⭐
The regular 4⭐
The paper menagerie 5⭐
An advanced reader's picture book of comparative cognition 4.25⭐
The waves 4.5⭐
Mono no aware 4.5⭐
All the flavours 3.5⭐
A brief history of the trans Pacific tunnel 4.25⭐
The litigation master and the monkey king 4.75⭐
The man who ended history: a documentary 5⭐
Average = 4.43
Moderate: Colonisation, Classism
Minor: Bullying, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Violence, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
I think the themes of communication, story telling and heritage are some that I really love to read about. I also loved how Ken Liu obviously did his research on some of the topics - I am now really interested to know more about them.
some stories (especially the last one!) made me want to throw up. some were sad. some were really interesting thought processes. all in all, I can't say anything else about this book that that reading it was an experience (and that maybe you shouldn't do it like me and plan to read one story each before going to sleep - that's not going to work for different reasons)
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder