The Hidden Girl and Other Stories

I first read Ken Liu's The Paper Menagerie last year and like thousands of other readers, fell in love with his writing and depiction of inter-cultural, inter-generational relationships. The themes of history, identity, culture, and family feature in this collection, albeit in more futuristic settings.

A lot of the stories deal with earth's inevitable demise as a habitable place for humans. The first, Ghost Days, tells of mutant human children on a distant planet, while a series of inter-connected tales starting withThe Gods Will Not Be Chained deal with the possibility of eternal (digital life) when human minds (and personalities) can be uploaded. Other favourites are The Reborn which deals with memory (and murder) in a world inhabited by aliens and humans, Byzantine Empathy which gives an interesting twist to human compassion, and the short and poignant father-and-estranged-daughter story that is The Message.

There are some fantasy shorts included, including the titular tale, The Hidden Girl, which is a meld of fantasy and sci-fi in feudalistic China. There is even an excerpt from Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty series. These tales, though, were not the standout pieces for me. I found his stories of humans and technology far more interesting.

This is an enthralling collection of (mostly) sci-fi short stories told within the context of human relationships, history, and identity.