Ken Liu is an excellent writer with a fantastically imaginative mind. In this short story collection, he uses that imagination to great effect, intertwining fantasy and sci-fi ideas with the very real history and cultural issues the Chinese (of all times/places) have faced. As with any collection like this, some of the stories are absolute bangers of speculative fiction and others are simply okay. 

I was reading this as part of my Discord book club for May, so below are my thoughts on each short story as I read and commented on them. No cohesion or grammar here, just a copy & paste of my raw reactions on Discord. 

Putting all my thoughts on the stories behind a spoiler tag because a) it's a long entry and b) some of them have minor spoilers for the contents or theming of the short story.

The Book Making Habits of Select Species: this was a perfect start to this collection, I think? a nice taster to get a feel for Liu’s writing and imagination

State Change: just finished this one in the car on my drive home today (forgot i had this on audio too???), i just stopped listening and went back to music for my last 15 minutes home because i needed to think about it. what a great little story that just creeps up on you

The Perfect Match: this story felt soooo clunky. compared to everything else it feels like being hit in the face with a hammer with the theming and morals. like it could have been an interesting black mirror story, but just turned into another "tech giants like google are bad, actually. their excuses are lame. okay that's all."

Good Hunting: an example of great theme work without smashing you in the face with it!! loved the thoughts on moving on and surviving with the inevitable progress of technology, and omg the end when he helps Yan change into what she used to be, but for the current times. yes!! loved this. i'll have to check out the Love, Death & Robots episode for it now

The Literomancer: the way my jaw dropped in the car at the horror this threw at us out of nowhere, omfgggg. the only thing was that it felt highly weird that her father would just describe every single literal detail of the torture like that to his wife...like wtf. it just felt like an unnatural way to get the story of it out. i wish there was a tiny bit more from Lilly in the end, i think it just fell a bit flat.

Simulacrum: didn't care about this one. it was fine and i understood what he was going for, but meh.

The Regular: Ken Liu spent 50 pages writing a mystery thriller way more compelling than most whole novels i've read lmaoooo

An Advanced Readers' Picture Book of Comparative Cognition: very much disliked this one. my brain just kept skating away and losing focus during the audio of this, and i found it very hard to care about anything. i'm not sure what the entire point even was.

whoops, skipped by The Paper Menagerie: obviously the most straightforward in its theme and message, but probably the most viscerally emotional??? that last letter hit so hard.

The Waves: This was just fine. I don't have much to say about it otherwise, lol

Mono No Aware: this worked really well for me, especially the emotional beats it was trying to hit. like. <i>Mono no aware is an empathy with the universe.</i> UGH. my heart.

All the Flavors: this was SO freaking long and i think the length did it a disservice in this collection. while i was completely engaged because Liu's writing is always good, i just kept thinking i could be moving on to another story by the half way point. and this is another story with another young american girl named Lily that befriends a Chinese man who is unjustly arrested that ends abruptly...hmm

A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel: i think this was a GREAT story that used the same backdrop of the previous story (working on the railroad/tunnel) but worked in a way that was more interesting and felt closer to the character and the events despite the way its told. loved the last bit too.

The Litigation Master and the Monkey King: ha ha ha ha can i stop hearing about fucked up torture, thanks

The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary: so, i really liked this one and what Liu was going for, but i felt like it went on way too long. the themes he was working with about history, remembering it, the way countries and cultures and peoples have changed is wildly interesting. but oh my god, this was also so long. and after a while i just felt like i was being lectured to over and over again, and wanted out of the classroom.