"The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories" by Ken Liu (short stories; collected 2016)

**One of the finest speculative fiction short story collections of this millennium**

Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe. 

And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly. Does the thought not make the universe seem just a bit kinder, a bit brighter, a bit warmer and more human? We live for such miracles.

I absolutely adore Ken Liu's short fiction.  The funny part is that for much of it, it was literally his side project.  He was a software engineer at Microsoft in the late 90s, and later got his law degree and worked as a high-tech litigation consultant until he retired in 2017

If you know the name Ken Liu, it might be because he has been the preeminent translator (and overall ambassador) of Chinese Science Fiction.  He translated "The Three-Body Problem" and a number of other works, almost single-handedly bringing this body of work to the awareness of Western and English-speaking audiences.  And yes, his work as a translator deserves praise beyond words.  I remember reading his Translator's Note in "The Three-Body Problem" and thinking, for this alone, I love the guy:

Overly literal translations, far from being faithful, actually distort meaning by obscuring sense. But translations can also pay so little attention to the integrity of the source that almost nothing of the original’s flavor or voice survives. Neither of these approaches is a responsible fulfillment of the translator’s duty. In a sense, translating may be harder than writing original fiction because a translator must strive to satisfy the same aesthetic demands while being subjected to much more restrictive creative constraints. 

In translating, my goal is to act as a faithful interpreter, preserving as much of the original’s nuances of meaning as possible without embellishment or omission. Yet a translator must also balance fidelity to the source, aptness of expression, and beauty of style. 

The best translations into English do not, in fact, read as if they were originally written in English. The English words are arranged in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture’s patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another language’s rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people’s gestures and movements. I may not have succeeded, but these were the standards I had in mind as I set about my task.

Yeah.  Pretty outstanding guy

And so compared to these other two things, writing original fiction was just his side project.  I guess when "The Paper Menagerie" became the first (and still only) work to win the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards . . . that was not bad for his third-most important job

(that said if you haven't read that story, please take a moment, I'll wait.  Here it is in print:
https://gizmodo.com/read-ken-lius-amazing-story-that-swept-the-hugo-nebula-5958919

And here it is read by LaVar Burton, who has repeatedly said it's one of his favorites he's ever read for his podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0eBrWYk1Y28T9drZcpTiB0

Warning though, I've never seen anyone make it through this story without crying)

I guess the warning in that parenthetical phrase above applies to a lot of his work.  He does not shy away from heavy issues or melodrama.  But god damn, is it beautiful

In this collection, Ken Liu draws from an absolutely dizzying array of inspirations:  Real-world history, mythologies and traditions across Asia, and his own background on the forefront of computer technology

I loved this book because, no matter what idea made Liu reach for pen and paper, in the end his only goal was to create a real world (even if it only exists for a dozen pages) full of real people with very real things to say.  Dealing with very real emotions.  As in his quote above, he just wants our minds to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly

Some highlights from this collection include . . .

"The Literomancer", a magical realist story set in postwar Taiwan.  A young girl is living in "Formosa" as her father works for the US military, and she meets an old man who shows her a little bit of magic.  This story is the reason, when my friend and I were in Taipei, I took us to the memorial to the White Terror and said, "ok, as Americans, what we need to do is stand here silently feeling bad for a few minutes.  Then after, we can go back to eating street food"

"All the Flavors", a tale of Guan Yu, the Chinese God of War, coming to America.  It's inspired by the very real stories of many Chinese miners up and down the West Coast--there are many small mining towns in Idaho that still celebrate Chinese New Year.  And well, it's just plain fun:  "'You feel it?' asked Lao Guan. 'You feel that lift in your heart? That lightness in your head? That is the taste of whiskey, the essence of America. We have been wrong to be drunk and asleep. We should be drunk and fighting.'"

"Good Hunting", in which transforming fox spirits adapting to the changing world, set in a steampunk Hong Kong.  You might remember it from "Love, Death and Robots" Season One!  I still am not giving up hope on that being picked up and made into a full tv series, no really, it could be amazing.  Who doesn't want to see a badass steampunk fox spirit hunting up and down the hills of Hong Kong?

"Mono no Aware", about a ship carrying the last survivors of humanity out into the stars, leaving behind an Earth that has been destroyed.  The culture they carry with them, the memories of their home planet, and the sacrifices necessary to keep humanity going, one way or another:  "We are defined by the places we hold in the web of others’ lives."

"The Man Who Ended History:  A Documentary" a truly horrifying look at some of the worst atrocities committed during World War II.  A discussion of trauma, and of pain, and of all the ways that history survives . . . and the times that it doesn't.  A masterwork, but not in any way an easy read

Simply put, Ken Liu is a master.  High tech, ancient traditions, history, and ties it all together with compelling characters and terrifyingly true emotion.  Oh, and the ability to deliver an absolute haymaker of a line

This collection is worth a pickup, I promise.  You won't be disappointed

I loved this book

Thus are our memories compressed, integrated into sparkling jewels to be embedded in the limited space of our minds. A scene is turned into a mnemonic, a conversation reduced to a single phrase, a day distilled to a fleeting feeling of joy. Time’s arrow is the loss of fidelity in compression. A sketch, not a photograph. A memory is a re-creation, precious because it is both more and less than the original.