The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Lay, 2020

Rating: 4/5

This is a collection of 19 short stories that span genres and centuries – from ancient China to distant, post-human futures. Like The Paper Menagerie, the first thing that strikes you about Ken Liu’s work is the audacity and range of his imagination. But compared to that earlier collection, this one leans more toward science fiction, with many stories exploring uploading, artificial intelligence, and digital consciousness. There are still glimmers of Chinese myth and fantasy, but the speculative here feels more tech-driven than a collection of myths.

Among the standout stories for me was The Reborn, a tightly woven tale of alien colonization, memory manipulation, and rebellion. Another highlight was The Hidden Girl, which blends Tang dynasty history with speculative action. On the more emotional side, Memories of My Mother and The Message were moving stories about the fraught dynamics between parents and children – especially when that relationship is strained.

Not all stories landed equally well for me. Like most short story collections, this one has its weaker links. Some stories feel too abstract, or conceptually interesting but emotionally flat. Thoughts and Prayers, while powerful, was deeply disturbing. The three-part series beginning with The Gods Will Not Be Chained and concluding with The Gods Have Not Died in Vain didn’t resonate with me as much as the others. Though rich in worldbuilding, I found these stories emotionally disengaging.

Overall, this book is worth a read for its highs and its continued testament to Liu’s unique ability to humanize the speculative. It’s always difficult to rank stories in a collection like this, where each piece might resonate differently with each reader. Still, if I had to pick a few that stood out: (1) The Reborn for its imaginative exploration of identity and colonialism, (2) The Hidden Girl for its unique blend of historical fantasy and moral growth, (3) Memories of My Mother for its elegant and affecting time-bending portrait of maternal love, and (4) The Message for its quiet and redemptive take on estrangement and reconciliation.

Pros: Inventive ideas, emotional depth in select stories, and a range of tones – from action to meditation.

Cons: Several stories, particularly in the uploading/digital consciousness arc, felt repetitive or slow.

The Paper Menagerie & Other Stories, Ken Liu, 2011

Rating: 5/5

This is a collection of 15 short stories, many of them which won awards or were at least nominated, covering a gamut of subjects. The thing that strikes one the most about this collection is the staggering scope of Liu's imagination, and set in different time periods — the stories one about different methods of writing books by different species in the universe, a world in which a person's soul resides in external objects, Chinese legends and magic, a typical serial-killer-detective story, space travel, engineering marvels, atrocities during WWII, and even about a Google-like company. The second thing that strikes the reader is the fact that Liu does not allow his imagination to take precedence over everything else — ultimately, his stories are about sacrifice, awareness, optimism, love, respect for different cultures, and undoing injustices — the magic and the science fiction are just props for the story.

It's extremely difficult to rank the stories in a collection like this, and this ranking would differ from one reader to another. If I had to choose four stories (in the order in which they appear in this collection), the first would be State Change, where everyone has her soul in an object and die when that object ceases to exist. It is a metaphor on how humans never live to their fullest in fear of death, and only when that fear is overcome can they maximise their potential. The second is Literomancy where a young American girl in Taiwan, Lily, meets a young Chinese boy and his kind grandfather who teaches her the art of literomancy (seeking messages from symbols). Lily inadvertently brings bad luck to them but hopes to keep the art alive. The Paper Menagerie explores the relationship between a mother and a son, who have nothing in common, and who are finally bound together by a menagerie of paper animals that magically come to life. And The Litigation Master and the Monkey King is a story of an ordinary man, Tian Haoli, who turns into a hero after protecting a fugitive and preserving a secret that eventually overthrows the Manchu empire. The Monkey King is his imaginary guide and symbolises his conscience all along.

Collections like these usually have some stories that were probably not worth being included. The amazing part of this collection, however, was the fact that I enjoyed 14 of the 15 stories. The only exception for me was The Perfect Match, about a Google-like company called Centillion that started off as a search engine but now controls all aspects of life through AI and data mining. This story discusses the perils of having AI control our lives, a topic that has been done to death in other books and media.

A bonus: don't miss out the episode of the Netflix show, Love, Death & Robots based on the story, Good Hunting. This is a story incorporating Chinese legends and magic, about hulijings who could change their shape from a fox to a bewitching woman and about their hunters. It’s also a story about the transformation of old customs and practices to modern ones. But the story ends on an optimistic note where modernity is used to keep the old traditions alive.

Pros: The wide heterogenity in the stories, the focus on human emotions first and foremost

Cons: One of the stories is jaded (but that's just one of fifteen)

Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri, 2008

 

Rating: 5/5

Lahiri derives the title of this collection of short stories from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s quote in The Custom House where he argues that humans, like potatoes, need to be transplanted into “unaccustomed earth” every now and then for them to flourish. The eponymous first story, and the others as well, explore this concept delightfully.

The book has six stories, the last of which is a novella in three parts. While all of them deal with Indian Bengali immigrants in the US and deal with the cultural challenges faced by them (except for Nobody's Business which could have been based on anyone), they deal with different aspects, ranging from guilt, fragility of marriages, a secret romance, alcoholism, cowardice, and redemption. Some of them end on an optimistic note, some end tragically while Lahiri has kept other endings open.

I find it very difficult to rank these stories but if I had to choose the one I enjoyed the most, it would be the eponymous one. Unaccustomed Earth explores the dynamics between a retired first-generation US immigrant, and his daughter, Ruma, who is married to an American and settled in Seattle. Ruma resents her father’s impersonal relationship with his family and her forced relocation to a new city. Her father, on the other hand, feels guilty about the lack of intimacy with his children and the fact that he seems to enjoy life more after his wife’s death. He finds redemption through the advice that he gives his daughter during a week-long stay with her and through his relationship with his young grandson. Ruma’s simple action in the last two lines of the story indicates that she may have put some of her own ghosts to rest as well.

One of the complaints that I’ve come across about her writing is that she’s somewhat monotonous. Her stories are usually centred around Bengali immigrants in the US, the inherent conflicts created by this dual identity and the dynamics of inter-generational relationships. While that is true to some extent, it does not detract from the enjoyment of her writing as each story explores different facets of human relationships. Overall, Lahiri’s writing is simple yet elegant and her stories have several nuances that makes even repeated readings enjoyable. I also found it easy to place myself in the shoes of the various characters and wondered how I would have reacted to similar situations. This book is ideal for a book-reading club.

Pros: Simple and elegant writing, even repeated readings are enjoyable

Cons: Her universe seems limited to immigrant Bengalis in the US

Exhalation, Ted Chiang, 2019

Rating: 4/5

Exhalation is a collection of nine short stories with varying lengths, from 3 pages to over 100 pages. Each of them combines science fiction with human emotions such as longing, love, greed, regret and redemption, and that combination makes many of these stories incredible reads.

Most of these short stories had been published previously, but nevertheless, the range of ideas that these stories explore and the imagination behind them is extremely impressive. These nine stories cover a gamut of ideas that include a doorway that allows one to travel 20 years, intelligent digital objects, a robotic nanny, the ability to recall any memory instantly, and a device to communicate with oneself in other branches of the universe.

My favourite stories include The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, written like an Arabian Nights story, that uses time travel to explore lessons learnt by the protagonists from their experiences. In The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, Chiang explores the delicate balance between mimi (what one considers right) and vough (a precise fact) through two sub-stories involving colonised tribesmen's struggles with written words replacing oral memories and a modern world where humans can recall any memory instantly. Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom explores greed, regret and redemption using the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which humans can communicate and collaborate with versions of their self in other branches of the universe.  

The problem with anthologies, as to be expected, is one of mixed quality of the stories. For example, and the reason for only a 4-star rating, The Lifecycle Of Software Objects takes up a third of the book and fails to grip. It talks about the gradual maturing of AI objects (called digients) and their ability to experience love, independence and even sexual attractions. But overall, Chiang's imagination, the variety in the stories, and the underlying messages in them make Exhalation a satisfying read.

Pros: Very imaginative, wide range of ideas, couples science fiction with human nature, well-written

Cons: Disparate quality with a less interesting story taking a third of the book