Ken Liu, Writer

Author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie

Ken

The Book of Swords Release Day

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Just for today: there’s a Reddit AMA with Gardner Dozois and the authors in the anthology from 10/12-10/13. Go and ask everything!

My story, “The Hidden Girl,” is part of Gardner Dozois’s epic fantasy anthology, The Book of Swords, published yesterday. This book contains stories from George R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb, Kate Elliott, Garth Nix, Elizabeth Bear, and many other awesome authors.

The Book of Swords

“The Hidden Girl” is about a young woman taken away from her home to be trained to become an assassin who can move between worlds. It is, like much of my fiction, an assassin of the guards posted on the borders between genres.

Capclave 2017

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I just had the most amazing weekend at Capclave with fellow GOH Neil Clarke: caught up with old friends (one I haven’t seen in person in 20 years) and made new ones; talked about books and writing and worldbuilding with brilliant fellow panelists and fans; read my Star Wars story from A Certain Point of View (“The Sith of Datawork”); cheered on winners and finalists at the WSFA Small Press Award ceremony; even ran off to enjoy the legendary Peruvian restaurant La Canela (twice! thanks to Lawrence Schoen and Alex Shvartsman).

And look at what they did with the program book. How cool is that???

The Dodo Dynasty

Many thanks to Steve Stiles for this amazing image, Alex Shvartsman for a super kind appreciation write-up, Cathy Green and the whole con committee for putting on such a great show, Kathi Overton for saving me from technology, and to Bill Lawhorn and Sarah Mitchell for taking care of me all weekend.

The Washington Science Fiction Association did an amazing job at putting on a con that felt at once inclusive, comprehensive, and intimate. If you haven’t been to Capclave, I highly highly recommend it.

LeVar Burton Reads “The Paper Menagerie”

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LeVar Burton (Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Reading Rainbow) is a hero of mine. TNG is my favorite Trek, and Geordi was the greatest engineer in the galaxy. (Remember, my silkpunk epic fantasy series is all about engineers as magicians and poets.)

LeVar Burton Reads podcast

He has a new podcast, “LeVar Burton Reads” (alternate iTunes link), in which he narrates pieces of short fiction.

He’s already performed works by Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami, Daisy Johnson, among others. And this week’s selection is “The Paper Menagerie”. Go ahead and give it a listen. It’s an amazing performance.

Sometimes my life is unbelievable.

More on The Legends of Luke Skywalker

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Want to know more about the Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi books by Delilah S. Dawson, Claudia Gray, and me? EW has you covered:

“For kids coming out of that movie, for casual fans coming out of that movie, you hear about Luke Skywalker for that whole film, but you only see him for two seconds at the end. He doesn’t even say anything,” Siglain says. “This book is a book that goes into some of those stories that were told, some of those legends of Luke Skywalker. Are they true? Well, maybe. Maybe not.”

Did Luke Skywalker actually take down 20 AT-ATs in the Battle of Hoth? Was he just a charlatan who made up the story of his Death Star run? Is it possible he was at the Battle of Jakku chronicled in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath novels?

“What are those stories that Rey has been hearing, that the rest of the galaxy has been hearing, and what has Luke been doing since then?” Siglain says. “The framing device for this is there are a bunch of kids on a cargo ship that’s traveling to the casino world of Canto Bight. Someone says something about Luke Skywalker, and they say, ‘Oh, he was just a myth. That’s just a legend.’ And others say, ‘No, no, no. I know a story about him.’”

 Click here for the whole story.