Ken Liu, Writer

Author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie

Ken

First Contact: Digital Science Fiction Anthology 1

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First Contact: Digital Science Fiction Anthology 1 is now available from Amazon. My story, “The Caretaker,” is in it.

From the publisher:

We are pleased to present in this exciting anthology a rich range of compelling stories from established authors. First Contact includes science fiction short stories by Ian Creasey, Ed Greenwood, Ken Liu, Jennifer R. Povey, Rob Jacobsen, Edward J. Knight, Jessi Rita Hoffman, Kenneth Schneyer, David Tallerman, and Curtis James McConnell. … We know these science fiction tales will not only entertain, but will offer something extra as well: an aesthetic pleasure, a beauty, or a thought-provoking quality that renders them timeless.

Now available for the Kindle. I hope you enjoy the stories.

Standing Desk

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Inspired by a friend, and prompted by the fact that we’re doing some furniture re-arranging, I’ve taken the plunge and switched to a standing desk.

standing desk

Now as you can see from the picture, it’s nothing fancy. Indeed, it’s jury-rigged from bits and pieces we happen to have lying around the house. Not going to win any design awards, this one, but it works well enough for my purposes.

(I actually sort of like the going-to-fall-apart-any-minute aesthetic.)

I’ve actually been thinking about doing this for a while, and I’m glad that the example of other writers finally made me go through with it.

A Favorable Review of the Paper Menagerie

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One of the nicest things in the life of a writer must be hearing from a reader who really got what you were trying to do.

I saw this review of “The Paper Menagerie” in the F&SF forums:

Liu manages to create emotions so subtly you almost miss how they’re creeping up on you. Thus, when the climax of the story comes, it delivers a surprisingly strong emotional punch.

Thank you, Geoff Hart. I’m lucky that GVG took a chance on this story and got it in front of some great readers.

Now I have to go and try harder.

Dinosaurs vs. Aliens

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There’s a Dinosaurs vs. Aliens movie concept being developed.

I was chatting with a friend about what the script for this would look like. If the dinosaurs speak English, that would be layering magic on top of magic. So maybe the dinosaurs don’t talk and just grunt? Then you’d end up with something like this:

DINO 1
Rawwwwwwr, ROOOOOaaaRRRRRRRr.

DINO 2
(nods)
Raw raw rooooar.

Dino 1 cocks head.

DINO 1
(through flaring nostrils)
WOOOOOOshhhhhhhh?

DINO 2
(enthusiastic)
SLLLLLLLLLLLLURP.

The alternative is to have the dinosaurs grunt and roar in an “intelligent” manner and subtitle the expressions. The dinosaur subtitles can be soulful, angsty, full of doubt. Then you’d have a high-concept/art-house crossover hit.

That is a movie we’d pay to see.

DropCopy

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Lisa was working on a story, and I was giving her some comments. Since I like reading and commenting on the screen, normally Lisa would have to email the documents to me and I’d have to email the commented copy back. Very inefficient.

DropCopy is designed just for this kind of LAN file transfer. We tried it and it worked great. A little “black hole” sits on the desktop; you drag and drop files into it, and it shows up on the other person’s desktop. Magical. This is the feeling all software should evoke.