Ken Liu's Blog, page 2

November

I know. There are much more important things happening today.

But is refreshing your favorite news sites really the only (or even best) way to spend the day? I prefer to think about books and art and what it means to be human. Especially on a day like this.

So, my updates:

The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction

It was a great honor for me to be part of the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize panel (along with Margaret Atwood, Omar El Akkad, Megan Giddings, and Carmen Maria Machado). Le Guin is probably the single author/critic I quote the most often, and a great deal of what I think about SFF can be traced back to her influence.

We had a phenomenal shortlist of ten books (see the page linked above and the screenshot below), and I think this summer ranks among my best summers in terms of what I got to read.

We ended up giving the prize to Anne de Marcken for It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over. It’s a devastatingly beautiful, moving, funny, chewy book. I am changed for having read it. Please go read it.

But don’t neglect the other books on the shortlist either. I could go on and on and sing the praises of each and every one of them. This shortlist is incredible. The books restored my faith in the power of fiction to tell the truth, to say with words what cannot be said in words.

A New Life for Pantheon

Pantheon is a show by Craig Silverstein for AMC+ based on a series of linked stories in The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. It was extremely well reviewed and the few fans who got to see it absolutely loved it. I was really proud to be involved in its making. Unfortunately, it was a victim of cost-cutting and soon became impossible to find, especially if you’re in the US.

Until now.

On November 22, 2024, Pantheon will be available on Netflix in the US (for now, just the first season). If you didn’t get to see it before, this is finally your chance. Please check it out. If you enjoy my fiction, I think you’ll love it.

Signed Books and Appearances

I have more books available in my Etsy shop, including copies of the Dandelion Dynasty books and the Korean edition of The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. I can personalize these to your specification. They make great gifts.

On November 12, 2024, from 6:00-7:00 PM ET, I’ll be doing a virtual event with The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) to discuss my translation of Laozi’s Dao De Jing. The event is open to the public, so please register via the link above and I’ll see you on Zoom!

On November 13, 2024, from 5:00-6:30 PM ET, I’ll be doing an in-person reading and talk at MassArt in Boston. The event is free and open to the public. If you’re around, I’d love to see you! I’ll be reading a bit from my fiction and talking about my conception of the kind of SFF I enjoy writing.

I hope to be able to announce some major projects soon … it’s killing me to have to remain quiet about them but I promise the wait will be worth it.

Thank you again for your support!

Publication Day and Salem Lit Fest

Publication Day

It’s publication day for Laozi's Dao De Jing: A New Interpretation for a Transformative Time! As of today, you can grab it from your favorite book store in the US and Canada. (The UK release will be next year.) I’ll be celebrating the launch at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge tonight at 7:00 PM. If you’re in the area, please come!

Salem Literary Festival

I’ll be part of the Salem Literary Festival in Salem, Massachusetts this year.

On Sunday, September 7, at 2:00 PM, I’ll be part of a panel on short fiction with Daphne Kalotay and Shubha Sunder, moderated by JoeAnn Hart. I’d love to see you!

That’s all for now. Next time, I’ll have something very exciting to announce. Stay tuned.

Launch Event for Laozi's Dao De Jing

My new book, Laozi’s Dao De Jing, A New Interpretation for a Transformative Time, is scheduled to be published by Scribner on August 20, 2024 in the US. Previously available only as an audiobook, this is the first time it will appear in print, and I think it’s beautiful.

I’ve talked about the genesis of the book and its special meaning before. As always, I really appreciate your support if you’d consider preordering a copy.

To celebrate the publication, I’ll be doing a book launch at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It takes place on August 20, 2024, at 7:00 PM ET. If you’re in the area, I hope to see you there. I’ll be talking about the book and its meaning for me, especially in light of what I’ve learned since I first crafted the translation a few years ago.

Thank you and see you soon!

Year End

Looking Back…

This isn’t a summary of everything I’ve done (not enough) and all the wonderful things that happened to me (incredible) this year. I don’t enjoy looking back on a year near its end and summing up all the “accomplishments” — I much prefer the Belichickian “We’re on to 2024” — but I do want to take a moment to be grateful for all the wonderful things that happened to me in my last 12 months as a writer.

I got to go to several amazing gatherings, meeting scientists, artists, writers, technologists, entrepreneurs … and learning from all of them. This is by far my favorite part of the job. I got to be part of a workshop where we discussed whether math is invented or discovered and another workshop where I was bombarded by new theories of life, the universe, and everything. Eight-year-old me would not have believed that such a cool life is even possible.

I got to do a lot more teaching. I saw my students (in various writings programs as well as in one-off classes) find their voice and tell the stories they wanted to tell — the highest achievement for any writer. I’m so thankful for knowing them and for learning from them.

I got to do some thinking about AI, and how it challenges us to be more human. I worked with other writers on advising our political leaders on regulating AI, and I came up with some new ideas that have been infused into my fiction and the talks I give (we need new metaphors for thinking about AI). Rather than fearful, I’m excited about how we can be creative in the age of cogitating machines.

I got to revisit Le Guin’s work as a critic and as a novelist. I’m in awe of her mind, and I think about her wisdom daily.

I got to work on rebooting a series of films as a TV show — the most fun I’ve ever had in media work (the project is on hold for now, alas). As well, the Dandelion Dynasty found readers all over the world who love Dara, and Pantheon, long after I thought it was gone forever, returned to streaming so that at least some people in some parts of the world could see it. Along with these big memories were many, many little triumphs and lovely notes from readers that made me appreciate my life more than ever.

Last but not least, I published a few pieces of fiction, which you can find a full listing of . Of these, the one I’m most pleased by is “The Passing of the Dragon” (Tor.com), a story that I wrote to understand what it means to make art and to take in art. And the one that is most fun is “Collaboration?” (Uncanny), a piece I co-wrote with Caroline Yoachim to explore all the pleasures afforded by fiction.

Looking Forward

The future is always uncertain, but the one thing that is certain is that I’ll have a new book out next year.

My translation of Laozi’s Dao De Jing will be published by Simon & Schuster (Scribner) on August 20, 2024. Laozi’s Dao De Jing: A New Interpretation for a Transformative Time will be the first time this book, previously available in audio from Audible, is published in text. I wrote about the genesis of this book here. You can pre-order it from your favorite retailer (the publisher’s page, linked above, has more details).

I really enjoyed working with Kathryn Belden of Scribner on the text of this book, and the cover, by Jaya Miceli, and the design, by Kyle Kabel, are exquisite. I’m so pleased with how it turned out.

What will the next year hold? I have no idea, but I can’t wait to find out.

Grand Opening of My Bookshop

Hello!

I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive response to “The Passing of the Dragon.” For me, connecting with readers like this will always be the best part of being an author.

The big news this time is the opening of my bookshop on Etsy, DandelionStoriesShop.

Like a lot of authors, I’ve accumulated a small collection of my own books over time. They’re just taking up space right now, and I’d much rather they be read.

I’m pricing them as stated on the cover, and I’ll ship them anywhere Etsy is set up to handle (though please be aware that international shipping can be pricey, and I’m charging a small handling fee to compensate my wife’s time, as she’s helping me with this work). If you wish to have them personalized, please put your request in the note to the seller during checkout. In any event, I’ll sign every copy.

There’s not much stock, so first come first served. Thank you in advance for your generous support!

A New Story: The Passing of the Dragon

The Passing of the Dragon

The top news item this time is a new story from me, titled as above, edited by Jonathan Strahan and published by Tor.com. It’s my favorite story I’ve written since the conclusion of the Dandelion Dynasty. Read it here.

Here’s the beautiful illustration by Mary Haasdyk. I love it because it captures the mood of the piece perfectly. It says everything by not saying any particular thing; it paints the dragon by not painting the dragon.

This is a story about a woman who sees a dragon and tries to tell the world about it; it’s about poetry and painting and being an artist in the world; it’s about dragons and Dao and how sometimes the world is so beautiful it hurts; it’s about friendship and artist co-ops and Connecticut and swimming next to nuclear submarines; it’s about Twitter and hot takes and performative communications…

No. Those statements are all true. But they are not what the story is about.

I’ve often talked about this essential ambivalence in art: is it communicative or not? On the one hand, artists have something to say in their art. I’m not just babbling into the void when I write a story. There’s an intent to articulate something about the world, about human nature, about what it’s like to be a consciousness in the universe. But on the other hand, readers (and audiences) don’t engage with a piece of art (solely, or even primarily) to discern that “something” that motivated the artist to create the art in the first place. (Btw, the idea that art can be boiled down to a statement is why so many people despise “literary analysis” as practiced in badly taught literature classes.) The aesthetic experience they have is an act of re-creation, in which the artwork is merely a departure point for the reader’s own journey of self-discovery.

The metaphor I often use is the construction of a house. The artist builds a house that fits the shape of her own vision of humanity, that contains the echoes and shadows of her own experiences, that embodies a particular understanding of the ineluctable flow of reality. The reader then moves in, carrying their own baggage of lived experience, laden with their own hard-won interpretive frameworks and stained-glass reality filters, weighed down (as well as lifted up) by their own personal mythologies and multi-tongued memories. The reader must then turn the house into a home, a place to dwell, to live, to think. The reader explores the house’s nooks and crannies, puts up their own pictures and Post-It notes, rearranges the furniture to suit the mood and the season, and makes a life for themself.

This movement of the artwork from author to reader, this collaborative dance, this co-creation, is nothing like the prototypical communicative act, in which Alice sends a “message” to Bob, and the success of the communication is measured by the degree to which that message passed without “distortion” or “loss.” But in art, “loss” and “distortion” are inevitable, for they are the price of “gain” and “revelation” — the very purpose of art is only achieved when we read beyond the lines. Perhaps the entire point of art is to misunderstand the artist.

And yet … and yet … that feels unsatisfying; it’s not right. If an artwork succeeded in creating an aesthetic experience, we would feel incomplete if that experience were utterly devoid of connection with what motivated the artist to create it in the first place. I cannot enjoy Paradise Lost without thinking about what Milton was “trying to say” — however inadequate that phrase may be at capturing all the complicated, ineffable sparks, all the strange, contradictory impulses that animate an artist. We cannot, in fact, completely separate the artwork from the artist, for in consuming a work of art, we also incorporate a bit of the artist’s soul into ourselves. Le Guin once noted that novelists try to say in words what cannot be said in words. This is why we read. We yearn to understand, to know (and feel) the inarticulable passion that moved the author as she put the tip of her pen to paper.

If this story is “about” anything, that’s it.

On AI and Creativity

Outside of dragons, I’ve also been thinking and writing a lot about AI and creativity. I’m not particularly interested in whether AI-written books will “replace” human-authored books, whatever “replace” means. Machines imitating humans … I just can’t get all that excited about it.

I am, however, interested in how machines can help us be more human, be more us. (This is old news to those of you who have been reading me for a while).

So, onto some of my recent publications around this topic.

First, “Good Spells” in The Book of Witches, edited by Jonathan Strahan. The anthology includes contributions from fantastic authors like P. Djèlí Clark, Amal El Mohtar, Garth Nix, Sheree Renée Thomas, and others, and I highly recommend it. My story is a take on the idea of a witch in a world of technology (magic is essential for technology, I would argue). Embedded in the story is also a specific scenario of machines collaboratively writing books with people — not as a way to generate massive profits, but as a kind of magic mirror to allow individuals to voice the stories they need to hear.

Second, Orion published an essay from me, “The Magic in the Machine,” in which I try to co-write a fairytale with an AI and reflect on meaning and intentionality in art. I’m happy with the idea, even if the current level of AI falls so short of achieving it.

Third, over the summer, Slate published a fun story by Jeff Hewitt, “The Big Four vs. ORWELL,” in which a group of publishers sue an AI that has become a bestselling author after reading the books they publish. I wrote a response essay to the story, “The Imitation Game,” in which I reflect on the story as well as my own hopes and fears about generative AI in the arts.

One last thing: I’m about to set up a bookshop (like all novelists, I end up with more copies of my books than I know what do with). I’m excited to sign copies for readers who want them, so stay tuned for an announcement in the next update.

Pantheon is now available on Apple TV (and elsewhere)

I have some exciting news to share.

Pantheon, the AMC Plus show based on the “uploaded intelligence” stories in The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, is now available on Apple TV! (Edited to add: also on Amazon Prime and probably other places — check your favorite source.)

Created by Craig Silverstein and animated by Titmouse Animation, Pantheon got great reviews but was cancelled (victim of the streaming pullback) before season two could air. Until now, there was basically no way to watch it, despite a stellar cast and a fantastic storyline exploring what it means to be “uploaded.” (Only season 1 is available on Apple TV, unfortunately.)

Please do check out the show. And if you want to find out what would have happened in season 2 and beyond, you can read . The relevant stories are:

“The Gods Will Not Be Chained,”

“The Gods Will Not Be Slain”

“The Gods Have Not Died in Vain”

“Staying Behind”

“Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer”

Season 1 really just covers the time period of the first story. Craig and I and the writers had so much planned …

Still, it’s great to have this show available now to viewers who didn’t get to see it.

A little teaser about the next update: I’ll have a story up on Tor.com in September. It’s a very special story to me and focuses on a subject that has consumed my interest for the last few years.

Until then, may you be as well as possible.

Pantheon is now available on Apple TV

I have some exciting news to share.

Pantheon, the AMC Plus show based on the “uploaded intelligence” stories in The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, is now available on Apple TV!

Created by Craig Silverstein and animated by Titmouse Animation, Pantheon got great reviews but was cancelled (victim of the streaming pullback) before season two could air. Until now, there was basically no way to watch it, despite a stellar cast and a fantastic storyline exploring what it means to be “uploaded.” (Only season 1 is available on Apple TV, unfortunately.)

Please do check out the show. And if you want to find out what would have happened in season 2 and beyond, you can read . The relevant stories are:

“The Gods Will Not Be Chained,”

“The Gods Will Not Be Slain”

“The Gods Have Not Died in Vain”

“Staying Behind”

“Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer”

Season 1 really just covers the time period of the first story. Craig and I and the writers had so much planned …

Still, it’s great to have this show available now to viewers who didn’t get to see it.

A little teaser about the next update: I’ll have a story up on Tor.com in September. It’s a very special story to me and focuses on a subject that has consumed my interest for the last few years.

Until then, may you be as well as possible.

A New Book: Laozi's Dao De Jing

Hello, I have a new book out today.

Let me tell you a story.

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, I suffered a crisis of faith. As a writer, I’ve always believed in the power of storytelling. Stories are how we reify and recommit to our deepest values, personal as well as collective. They’re at the core of what it means to be human. Everything beautiful and true, everything that we find to be worth fighting for and dying for, is found in and ultimately founded on, stories.

The pandemic, however, destroyed that faith. All around me, lies passed as truth, and fear gave birth to hatred. Conspiracy theories were the most popular stories of all, a testament to the power of storytelling for ill. We are not creatures of data or evidence. We are incapable of seeing the world except through narratives. I celebrated the good stories, and I suppose I forgot about the terrible ones, which seemed even more powerful.

I could no longer write.

I turned to repairing broken video game consoles, devices for a more innocent kind of storytelling, for stories of my childhood. I ran the tip of my heated soldering iron over the LCD ribbon again and again, hoping to reflow the aged solder, remove the broken lines on the screen, call forth the dead magic. I traced the lines etched into the PCB, probing for a good connection, for the nostalgic pathways, for the noise to be filtered away by a fresh set of capacitors. It was good to work with my hands, but the stories refused to come.

So I began to read the Dao De Jing.

In the millennia since its composition, Laozi’s book has become the source of countless allusions, metaphors, fixed expressions, idioms. But I had never read the book from start to finish. Like many other classics, I simply assumed I knew it through its translations, quotations, imitations, dead metaphors.

I read the Dao De Jing because I could no longer tell stories. I read it hoping to find a way out of the darkness.

And it was nothing like I expected. In the Dao De Jing, Laozi is not the kind and wise sage of Orientalist fairy tales, spewing platitudes that say nothing. He’s sharp but doesn’t cut; he’s righteous but doesn’t judge; he’s hopeful but not sweet.

The root of lightness is weight;

The master of recklessness is repose.

Why does a lord of ten thousand chariots treat the fate of the world so lightly?

Sometimes his words can seem like clichés, but that’s only because they’re so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness. Sometimes he can come across as a provocateur, almost trolling, but that’s because he doesn’t think language itself makes much sense.

If it’s not laughed at, it isn’t worthy of being Dao.

The advancing Dao appears to retreat;

The straight Dao appears twisted.

Laozi doesn’t comfort. He doesn’t persuade. He doesn’t offer solace.

Heaven and earth are not benevolent. To them, all things in the cosmos are straw dogs.

The Dao-aware are not benevolent. To them, the people are straw dogs..

He simply makes observations about Dao, the path of providence, of grace, of life itself. There’s no need for Laozi to convince you of anything, for he’s not trying to sell you anything. You can take his words or leave them; it’s all the same to him.

Instead, he invites the reader to have a conversation with his text, through which the reader must discover their own way. The text is not what matters, but the attempt to see the shimmering water flowing beyond the channels of the text. Again and again, Laozi insists: Dao cannot be taught; you must come to it yourself.

In that refusal to confront, to judge, to direct, Laozi did comfort me, persuade me, give me solace. What can be more comforting than to have a conversation with a mind that has transcended mortality, a voice that has survived the ages?

Between heaven and earth is a bellows, empty but inexhaustible. The more movement, the more powerful the flow.

The more I read, the more I wanted to argue, to contend, to dispute, and then, later, to yield, to accept, to imagine. In that conversation with Laozi’s text, I began to see the shape of my own life, the questions that opened seams, the patterns that pooled and shimmered. I began to feel the desire to write again—though that would have to wait for another book.

Meanwhile, a record of my conversation with him could be set down, which might be more conventionally termed a translation. In addition to Laozi’s words, the book also contains a series of mini-essays from me as well as retellings of some of Zhuangzi’s stories. All translations are, ultimately, a record of the translator’s trials to discern the spirit of the text within its shadowy mirror. This translation merely makes that struggle obvious instead of hiding it, a foolish honesty that I think Laozi would appreciate.

That is how this book came to be.

For now, Laozi’s Dao De Jing: A Plain Translation is available exclusively from Audible in a beautiful narration by the wonderful BD Wong, enhanced with original music by Xinyan Li. (There may be plans for a print version, but not for a while.)

Thank you, as always, for supporting my work.

May you also become aware of Dao.

Where You Can See Me + A New Story

Happy 2023!

A new year brings a sense of optimism, doesn’t it? You’ve got your new goals, resolution lists, piles of books you vow to get through, your pristine Hobonichi (oops, did I just cross over into hipster territory?), your novel file tagging system for Finder (no? Just me?) … and everything feels like it’s going to work out. I wish every day felt like that.

(And maybe it will.)

I’m here to announce two big things.

First, I have …

A New Story: “Collaboration?”

“Collaboration?” is a new story for the fiftieth issue of Uncanny Magazine coauthored by Caroline M. Yoachim and myself. I’m so proud to return to its pages.

It’s about anti-muses, bored gods, apostrophic robots, ƨnoiɈɔlɘʇɘɿ, literary-flavored wines (good to consume on wine-colored seas), art that requires a bigger brain to understand … and above all, what it means to collaborate.

Cover by Galen Dara

Worlds pop into existence, composed by clicking keyboards or in spraying foam on waves of thought; tucked away in spells, algorithms, entangled particles, recipes; evoked by waving wands; sketched by twirling ley-line brushes; assembled by spinning quantum mundistructors. They’ve been doing it for eons.

But recently, there has been a pause.

Writing this story was intense. Caroline and I pushed each other to try things we wouldn’t have done otherwise. The result is a very writerly story, as it takes full advantage of the written form to merge medium with message, to craft something that cannot exist apart from its written-ness. Writing it, I understood what Barthes meant by the jouissance of the writerly text.

I love this story so much and hope it delights you, perhaps even tossing a few pebbles into your mind to inspire you to your own collaborations. (All texts are collaborations, not just between the authors, but also between the writer and the reader.)

Also, since this story leans so heavily into the expressive possibilities of the written word, the complex formatting may give screen readers difficulty. We produced an accessible version of the story as well.

Finally, if you want to learn more about the story behind the story, read Tina Connolly’s interview of Caroline and me.

Let me know what you think about this tale!

Next, let’s talk about my …

Mini Book Tour for Speaking Bones

The paperback edition of Speaking Bones will be released on January 5 in the UK (from Head of Zeus) and January 31 in the US (from Saga), thereby marking a formal end to the decade+ of my writing life devoted to the Dandelion Dynasty.

It’s time to celebrate!

I’ll be going on a mini book tour, and you can join me at the following venues, in person or virtually, to share in this special moment for the silkpunk world of Dara. Register for the events (if necessary) at the links below.

Book People (Austin, TX): I’ll be there in person on Tuesday, January 31, at 7:00 PM CST.

Mysterious Galaxy: I’ll be there virtually on Saturday, February 4, at 3:00 PM Pacific/6:00 PM Eastern with the amazing Kate Elliott!

Literati Bookstore: I’ll be there virtually on Thursday, February 9, at 7:00 PM Eastern with the incomparable Tochi Onyebuchi!

WhimsyCon (Denver, CO): I’ll be there in person from March 31 to April 2 as the author guest of honor (and talk a lot about the Dandelion Dynasty).

And that’s it for this time.

Thank you, as always, for supporting my work. Without you, Dara would still only be an idea in my head, and the constitutive acts of its people mere fancy—but you, your imagination and love and joy and care for the world is what brings it to life and makes this work I do meaningful.

Until next time, I remain,

Your faithful author,

Ken