THE HIDDEN GIRL

Revealing the present

RELEASED OUT NOW! 432 pages | Hardback/ebook

Author Ken Liu

Publisher Head Of Zeus

The idea that science fiction is always about the present is such a truism within the field that it hardly needs stating – and yet in recent months, the idea has seemed to recur in author interviews. Perhaps it’s that we’re at a point where a combination of technology, social change and political forces have collided with anxiety about the future – and writers are reflecting on this.

If that’s the case, the second short story collection from Ken Liu – multiple award winner for his own fiction, and translator of Cixin Liu – certainly adds nuance to the debate. That’s partly because Liu’s best short stories seem so often rooted in looking at emerging issues and difficult problems. More importantly, they look past the way these kinds of issues are treated as an exciting novelty to look at the moral questions they throw up.

Take a story like “Staying Behind”, which covers some of the same ground as Neal Stephenson’s Fall; Or, Dodge In Hell in dealing with what happens when more people want to be uploaded than exist in a corporeal state, and the world becomes “a garden inherited from the dead”. Liu’s succinct treatment of this possibility hones in on a troubling question: can you ever be truly alive if you don’t have to face the prospect of ceasing to be? Other highlights includes opening story “Ghost Days”, which explores racism and what it means to belong; and “Real Artists”, which considers the idea of creativity in an age where machines can “learn” about what moves us.

Liu’s own wish, expressed in his preface, is that readers will find stories to make “their home”. In his cyberpunk-tinged visions, our homes are so often on fire – but the flames illuminate our difficult present in unexpected ways. A hugely accomplished collection. Jonathan Wright

Rooted in looking at emerging issues