Ken Liu, Writer

Author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie

Ken

Taking Care of God

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My translation of Li Cixin (刘慈欣)’s “Taking Care of God” (《赡养上帝》) is now out in Pathlight, an English-language publication of People’s Literature Magazine (人民文学). You can download a free electronic copy of the magazine on their web site.

It’s a science fiction story with a lot of heart. I really recommend it.

Some context for readers who don’t know much about China’s literary history: Liu Cixin is among China’s most prominent science fiction authors, and People’s Literature is something like a Chinese version of Ploughshares. It’s very rare for a literary magazine like People’s Literature to go genre — but with Pathlight, edited by a Western staff, the idea is to introduce Chinese authors who’re a bit more outside the well-trodden path to English readers.

I’m really honored to have been given a chance to translate this work. Liu is a literary hero of mine and influenced me more than a little.

Hope you enjoy!

Fireside

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My story, “To the Moon,” appears in the inaugural issue of Fireside magazine. The founder and publisher, Brian White, has been amazing to work with. And I really like his vision for Fireside as a magazine of “many genres, no limits, just good stories.”

And it’s not just real. It’s really good. The first story, To the Moon by Ken Liu, follows the struggles of a young lawyer and the stories we tell ourselves to validate our illusions. Next is Chuck Wendig’s Emerald Lakes, a prequel to his Atlanta Burns novella Shotgun Gravy. In our story, Atlanta is dealing out more justice with a mix of brains and blood. Our comic, Snow Ninjas of the Himalayas, written by Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbride, drawn by Michael Lee Harris, and lettered by Frank Cvetkovic, is a story about why some secrets are best left unrevealed. Then we have Christie Yant’s Temperance, a story about a drunk, an intolerant town, and a mysterious woman. And we close with Press Enter to Execute by Tobias Buckell, a near-future sci-fi thriller set in a world where someone is finally doing something about all that spam in our inboxes.

Please consider supporting him and the writers and artists appearing in the magazine by purchasing the first issue.

“To the Moon” is a little unusual for me because it’s not a fantasy/scifi story at all. But the themes it explores are ones that have long fascinated me. It’s mainly based on my experiences working on asylum cases and my thoughts about what it means to be American.

I’m really pleased that artist Amy Houser did the cover image based on “To the Moon.” It’s gorgeous and lovely and captures exactly the mood I wanted for the story.

fireside cover

The Hugos

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I’m really honored to announce that two of my works, “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary”, a novella, and “The Paper Menagerie”, a short story, have been nominated for the Hugo Awards.

Like many SF writers, I’ve dreamed about a moment like this since I started writing. And now that it’s actually happening, I’m having trouble believing it.

Thank you to everyone who supported me over the years so that I didn’t quit writing. You’re the best, the real stars.

Congrats to all the nominees and best of luck!

Craig Mod on the Digital and the Physical

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Craig Mod, who has written some very insightful things about the future of books, has put up a new essay on the importance of edges to our sense of the scale of the act of creation.

Mod is one of the creators of Flipboard for the iPhone. He turned the digital record behind the first release of this app — git commit messages, design mockups, launch party photos — into a physical book, giving the intangible bits that form the trail of modern creative efforts tangible form.

This is a way to combat what Mod calls the “feeling of thinness” in modern digital life:

Put in more concrete terms: a folder with one item looks just like a folder with a billion items. Feels just like a folder with a billion items. And even then, when open, with most of our current interfaces, we see at best only a screenful of information, a handful of items at a time.

The whole essay is chock full of great insights like this. I’m particularly enamored of this bit, on the ways that the digital creative process will give us new ways to appreciate art as a performance:

Perhaps the next Carver’s manuscript will contain the entire typing history of the document including GPS data of where he was when he wrote it. We will be able to replay the entire composition process. Shadow, if you so desire, a particular Hemingway through a certain Spain as he writes a new The Sun Also Rises.

Now that’s an truly SFnal idea. I love it.

Do give the essay a read. You’ll thank me.

Children

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Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Arkfall

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“Arkfall,” by Carolyn Ives Gilman, was a Nebula nominee for 2009. It’s good, really good.

One thing that annoys me is a belief by some that stories are only interesting if they have “active” heroes who change the world. Passive heroes who let things happen to them and are then forced to change themselves are just as interesting to me. We have to do both in life. Why should fiction be different?

“Arkfall” takes place in the seas of an ice-covered planet. It involves a technology culture that is largely based on biology, a social culture centered on conflict-avoidance, a hero tied down with family obligations, and vehicles that follow the current and cannot be steered. It is richly imagined and realistic in the best sense of that word. And the theme of balance between active and passive modes of engagement with the world is very much at its center. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Rachel Swirsky for recommending this to me.