From the publisher:
The long-awaited next collection by the master of short stories and author of the award-winning Paper Menagerie and Other Stories.
Thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and wonderous are some of the many ways the fifteen stories in this collection will engage readers. Ken Liu continues to delight and challenge your perceptions as one of the most accomplished and lauded American short story writers of our time.
The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories was released on September 8, 2026, in the US and on September 3, 2026, in the UK.
If the theme of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is “what does it mean to live in time?” and the theme of The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is “what does it mean to be human?” then the theme of this newest collection is “what does it mean to talk and listen?”
At the heart of this collection is the title story, born in the aftermath of the pandemic. As hatred and paranoia inundated the world and dark conspiracy theories became the new religions—one could argue that we’re still suffering the aftershocks of that crack in the crystalline spheres—I lost faith in the very act of communication, of storytelling and storylistening. What was the point of art, I thought in despair, when the very nature of art required the artist to accept being misunderstood?
If you see a dragon, you want to tell everyone about it. But what if no one wants to hear about the dragon? What if they only care about the mushrooms at its feet?
To climb out of that abyss required … storytelling. Fiction is how I work out the knotty puzzles of the world for myself; it’s my nature.
“The Passing of the Dragon,” a novelette, was my attempt to reconcile the artist’s impulse to gesture at the transcendent with each viewer’s need to tell her own story. This entire collection is an extended meditation on that gap: between wonder and attention, longing and misreading, art and our selfish, hungry heart.
I don’t know if I succeeded, but by writing the stories in this collection, spring returned to my heart. If there’s one thing I can say about the stories in this collection, it’s that they are stubbornly hopeful. Without hope, storytelling is impossible.
Praise for The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories
A beautifully written collection from Liu, sure to grow empathy for all intelligences while it nourishes creativity and perspective.
—Library Journal starred review
[A] a stirring paean to human connection and an impressive showcase for a writer at the top of his game.
—Publishers Weekly starred review
Several of these stories are set in futures so distant that even the stars are no longer recognizable, though others are near enough to be right around the corner. There’s plenty here for both old fans and new readers.
—Booklist starred review
The more I think about it, the more Liu reminds me oddly of Dostoyevsky, or rather Bakhtin’s The Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics. Bakhtin argues that Fyodor’s greatness lay in holding opposing arguments or positions in suspension. That is exactly what Liu does: he is neither a Luddite nor a Utopian, a sceptic or a zealot.
—Stuart Kelly for The Scotsman
Order Links
Remember that you can always preorder with your favorite local bookstore. They’d love the business.
Thank you, as always, for your support.
Full Table of Contents
- Three Views of a Parking Lot
- The Passing of the Dragon
- The Moon Carver
- Good Spells
- Idols
- Ice Wraith
- A Whisper of Blue
- The Cleaners
- The Armies of Those I Love
- Arc
- Cosmic Spring
- Timekeeper’s Symphony
- 50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know