Ken Liu's Blog, page 5

Dandelion Dynasty Concludes in 2021

Happy September!

Big update and a couple of really interesting links for you in this one.

The Veiled Throne and Speaking Bones

Those of you who have been following me for a while may remember when I turned in the manuscript for the conclusion of the Dandelion Dynasty a year ago. Things have been quiet since then but I’ve been working nonstop on them in the interim. Finally, I have news to report: the end of the saga is now in copyediting and will be coming out in 2021!

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When I first started the Dandelion Dynasty more than a decade ago, I didn’t know how the story would end except for a few stark scenes, lit harshly and seen but briefly, like distant islands glimpsed through a storm. That didn’t bother me. Such has always been my method: I don’t outline or plan, preferring to follow the lead of my characters as they plunge into the unknown, guided by nothing but faith in their own ideals and the competence to realize them.

Although the Dandelion Dynasty was originally conceived of as a trilogy, I hit a snag after finishing The Grace of Kings and The Wall of Storms. The world had changed drastically, and I had become a different writer. I had learned much about the pain of grief and the joy of new life. I had lost and then renewed my faith in the power of story as my people, the people of the United States, fought over what it meant to be an American and the direction of our ship of state.

No writer can be completely isolated from their environment, nor can any product of the imagination be free from the reality that sustains it. As America continued its quest of self-examination and Americans struggled for the soul of the nation, my story could not help but become part of that renewing of our national mythology, that quest, undertaken by every generation, to redefine who gets to tell the American story and what that story is.

Thus, what had once been an epic fantasy about psychomachia in an imagined land had swerved, without my conscious planning, into a re-imagining of the foundational mythology of America—and indeed, of the foundational mythologies of all peoples who self-consciously see nation-building as an act of collective storytelling, who conceive of their constitution as not merely a document, but a living story to interrogate, to add to, to redeem, and ultimately, to rally around through constitutive acts.

I wrote and wrote. I deleted and wrote some more. My characters struggled across vast continents and tempest-tost oceans as they fought for the future, for the past, for the redemption of history and the reification of ideals. The Ano sages did not know everything, but neither did the gods who had no understanding of the grandeur of mortality nor the demagogues who twisted the darkest impulses of their followers to fuel vain quests for power and glory. My characters—no less than myself—had to discover how to hold onto the faith that even when the nation wasn’t perfect, it could still be perfected, that it was possible to fight for freedom without becoming oppressors themselves.

What was meant to be the third book grew longer and longer, until it surpassed the length of the first two books put together. Still, I wrote on. My characters overcame impossible challenges only to see more obstacles in their way. They fought alongside hope only to discover despair. No matter. They fought on and I wrote on. A grand national myth demands grandness of spirit. The battle for the soul of a people could never be easy, and the cruelty of the gods was nothing compared to the depravity of humankind toward humankind, as reality reminds us daily. But we will not yield. We will not.

At long last, the book was done.

When I was informed, in terms that left no room for doubt, that what I wrote could not be published as a single book—not even a great engineer like Luan Zya could have found a way to bind so many pages together into a single volume—I could not honestly claim to be surprised. It’s not ideal to have to break a story meant to be read as a single unit into two pieces, but sometimes that is the best and only choice. The worthiest fights brook no abridgments.

And so, the trilogy has become a quartet. The final two volumes, The Veiled Throne and Speaking Bones, form a single narrative cleaved right down the middle, to be published months apart in 2021 as two separate tomes.

While working on the series, there were many moments when I felt overwhelmed by the task. The story simply seemed too big for me, too much. (We all probably felt like that in the last few years with … *gestures at everything*) I had lost all sense of perspective and could no longer tell if anything was working. But now that it’s done, I can truly look upon it and feel a sense of pride. It is the best thing I’ve ever written. It is filled with everything I’ve ever wanted to say about books, storytelling, mythologies, law, institutions, constitutionalism, democracy, writing, love, faith, the evolution and nature of technology, the joy of making, the abiding wonder of nature, family, friendship, my utter revulsion for war … I put all of myself into the series, and left my teeth on the board.

(You’ll understand that last sentence when you finish the series.)

In the months to come, there will be cover reveals and more concrete announcements of publication dates and other celebrations, but I wanted you to hear the news from me first, you who have supported me from that first book, when Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu were but children dreaming of a world reborn because of a single question: Why can’t we be better?

Thank you.

I’m very very tired, but also incredibly, deliriously happy. Can’t wait till you have these books in your hands.

Co-writing with Machines

I spoke to you last time of robo_ken, the neural network that helped me break out of a period of time when I couldn’t write at all. I may still tell that story at some point.

But meanwhile, I wanted to point you toward a few other ingenious attempts at leveraging computing power to help humans tell more interesting stories.

First, there’s sudowrite, created by Amit Gupta and James Yu. Built on top of GPT-3, sudowrite is like a brainstorming partner for writers with a penchant for provocations. (Full disclosure: I was one of the system’s early beta testers, but I have no other connections to it.) You can put your WIP into it and play with various tools to get ideas for characters and plot twists, try to continue your story in a new tonal direction, spin out possibilities … It’s just … fun. If you’re at all interested in GPT-3 and how machines can become part of the creative process, definitely give this a try.

Next, as many of you probably already know, writer Robin Sloan is a pioneer in machine-human collaborative writing and has thought and published extensively on this subject. One of my favorite talks by him is his session at Eyeo 2017, “Writing with the Machine.” If you haven’t seen him speak before or didn’t know about his experiments in this area, I strongly recommend this one. Robin evokes the wonders and possibilities in this space with a skill that few can match, and his experiments are super interesting.

Other News

“Thoughts and Prayers” (which I brought up last time) is also a selection in Jonathan Strahan’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Vol 1. Absolutely thrilled to be in the company of so many fantastic authors and stories.

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Broken Stars is one of the nominees in the inaugural Ignyte Awards this year (under the Anthology/Collected Works category). This is an incredible honor—just look at the list of nominees on that ballot! I wish all the nominees luck and can’t wait to celebrate the winners in October as part of FIYAHCON.

As reported by numerous media outlets, Liu Cixin’s epic SF series, Remembrance of Earth’s Past, is going to be adapted by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (Game of Thrones) and Alexander Woo (The Terror: Infamy, True Blood) into a TV series for Netflix. Very excited for the author and fans!

I’m scheduled to have events in the next few months with R. F. Kuang, Rebecca Roanhorse, and many other stars! More details to come as the dates get closer.

Thank you so much for your support. Stay safe and may we all get to tell the stories we want to tell.

Pantheon, Dragons, robo-ken

Hi Everyone,

I hope this August is treating you as well as can be expected given the strange times we’re living through. I have lots of news to share.

Pantheon Cast

The AMC show based on the “Uploaded Intelligence” stories in The Hidden Girl and Other Stories has announced the full cast!

From Deadline’s report:

Pantheon, AMC’s first hourlong animated primetime drama series has announced its full cast. Daniel Dae Kim (Hawaii Five-O), Katie Chang (The Bling Ring), Ron Livingston (Loudermilk),Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley), Raza Jaffrey (Homeland) and Scoot McNairy(Narcos: Mexico) are set as leads, along with Anika Noni Rose (Little Fires Everywhere), Grey Griffin (Star Wars Resistance), SungWon Cho(Anime Crimes Division), Kevin Durand (Ballers), Samuel Roukin(A Call To Spy) and Krystina Alabado (Broadway’s Mean Girls). They join previously announced Taylor Schilling, Paul Dano, Rosemarie DeWitt and Aaron Eckhart in the series which hails from Turn creator/executive producer Craig Silverstein and AMC Studios.

“Ken’s engaging and thought-provoking short stories pave the way for a deeply gripping series, and I couldn’t ask for a greater group of talented voices to bring these complex characters to life,” said Silverstein.

The series has already been picked up for two seasons. I love what Craig and the writers have done, and now we have a fantastic cast! And the animation from Titmouse will blow you away.

Can’t. Wait.

“A Whisper of Blue” in Book of Dragons

The Book of Dragons, an all-original anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan and published by Harper Voyager, came out on July 7. It includes works by R.F. Kuang, Kate Elliott, Amal El-Mohtar, Garth Nix, Peter S. Beagle, and many, many others. You’ve never seen dragons like these portrayals, I promise you.

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My own contribution is “A Whisper of Blue,” which is set in a world in which dragons aren’t just real, they form the basis for modern industrial civilization. Hero of Alexandria’s aeolipile, as you’ll find out, was powered by a little dragon that crawled into the bronze sphere and began to breathe fire in a panic, and Harvard didn’t become Harvard without attracting a lot of dragons with Widener Library’s mind-hoard. (If you know my story, “State Change,” then you have a sense of this world’s mood.)

Then, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Maine, a small town is suddenly infected by lots and lots of tiny dragons, and a young woman has to figure out what to do about them…

It’s a story about dragons, of course, but it’s also about grief, Maxwell’s Demon, the geopolitics of energy addiction, the opioid crisis, the importance of empathy, the complexities of pain, and ultimately, hope in the face of despair.

I hope you pick up a copy.

“Thoughts and Prayers” Selected for Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020@Writer_DG):

johnjosephadams.com/best-american/…

johnjosephadams.com/best-american/…

Coming October 6, 2020. Pre-order now!

July 13th 2020

70 Retweets245 Likes

You can read “Thoughts and Prayers” on Slate.

Story about Stories

Finally, I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing the last few months. I finished three pieces of short fiction in June and July, and I’ll be sharing news about them soon.

But how I wrote them is a little different from my past process: I’ve been experimenting with using a neural network called “robo_ken”— it’s trained on my own work — and exploring what it means to collaborate with a machine.

I’ve been thinking about starting a subscriber-based publication on the intersection of art and technology. The story of how I ended up collaborating with “robo_ken” to write stories could be perfect for such a substack. Please let me know if this is something you’d want to read so I can gauge interest.

Thanks again for all your support, and please, stay safe!

New Essay, Interview, Events, and Film

Happy summer! I hope all of you are doing as well as possible (given everything). I spent all of June working on a new novella (set in an entirely new world not connected with any of my past stories). It’s been good to work on it because since the beginning of March, I went through a period of about 3 months where I couldn’t write anything new. Just getting through the day took all my mental energy. Hopefully this story heralds a new era as I adjust to the realities of this unprecedented time.

More on this new novella over time, but I’m super excited about it.

Meanwhile, I wanted to tell you about a few new projects I’m involved in.

“Hand-Knit Sweater”

I wrote “Hand-Knit Sweater,” a personal essay about my grandmother, for Guernica’s “Fashion in Isolation” issue.

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I didn’t learn to knit until decades later, after it was no longer possible to tell her everything I wanted to say.

My grandmother taught me much about love, work, courage, and hope. I was glad to get this chance to talk about her. Special thanks to Mary Wang for asking me to write it.

Star Wars Show Book Club

The Star Wars Show Book Club is featuring The Legends of Luke Skywalker this week (with panelists Jenny Ely, Cavan Scott, and Christopher Sean), and I got to chat with host Kristin Baver in an interview about Luke Skywalker, what is “canon,” the power of storytelling, and lots of other topics near and dear to my heart.

July Events

I’ve got two (virtual) events coming up in July.

First, I’m one of the special guest authors at Dallas Public Library’s FanCentral. My interview (registration page), which will be open to the public, is on July 11 at noon Eastern / 11:00 AM Central. I’ll be talking about books, books, and more books!

Next, on July 15, at 7:00 PM Eastern, I’ll be talking (RSVP on Facebook) with the incomparable Kate Elliott about her brilliant new book, Unconquerable Sun, which comes out tomorrow (July 7). My thanks to Astoria Bookshop for sponsoring this event, which is going to be streamed to Facebook and YouTube live via Streamyard for free.

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As Kate describes it, Unconquerable Sun starts a new series which is “GENDER-SPUN ALEXANDER THE GREAT ON AN INTERSTELLAR SCALE.” Do you really need any more than that?

Well, I’m reading it, and oh-wow-wow-wow is about all I can muster right now. It’s EVERYTHING you ever wanted: nuanced characters, rich relationships, exciting space battles, gorgeous worldbuilding, thoughtful meditations on human nature … I don’t blame you for abandoning this newsletter to hit the BUY button as quickly as you can. It’s okay, I’ll wait until you’re done with ordering.

The Truth (La vérité)

Director Hirokazu Koreeda’s French-language film, The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, and Ethan Hawke, is now available on streaming. Here’s the IMDB description:

A stormy reunion between scriptwriter Lumir with her famous mother and actress, Fabienne, against the backdrop of Fabienne's autobiographic book and her latest role in a Sci-Fi picture as a mother who never grows old.

That “Sci-Fi picture” film-within-a-film? It’s an adaptation of my story, “Memories of My Mother” (also collected in The Hidden Girl and Other Stories).

Kore-eda’s work is unique, beautiful, and sharp; I think there’s a lot to chew over in this film.

(“Memories of My Mother” was also adapted separately by David Gaddie as a short film, Beautiful Dreamer, available via streaming.)

Stay safe, and as always, thank you for supporting my work!

A Discussion on “The Paper Menagerie” with Me

“The Paper Menagerie” recently won the short story tournament in the Tournament of Books Goodreads group. The group is hosting a one-hour Zoom meeting with me so that members can ask me questions about the story. They’ve generously offered to open it up to other readers who aren’t in the Goodreads group.

Time: June 14, 2020 (Sunday), 1:00 PM Central Time (US/Canada)

If you’d like to attend, please register.

Shortstory.club Appearance on May 12

One of the stories that have meant the most to me in The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is “Reborn,” which was originally published by Tor.com and still available on the web. David Hartwell had commissioned it from me, using a painting by Richard Anderson as the prompt (see the illustration at Tor.com).

It’s a story about many things: what it means to be a person; to have moral agency and responsibility; to strive for justice; to do the right thing when everyone around you has forgotten and moved on. It is, in some ways, a companion piece to “The Man Who Ended History,” the most important story in The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories.

Short Story Club (like a book club, with with short stories) has invited me to do a live Q&A session about “Reborn” on May 12 at 5:30PM PST / 8:30PM EST. You can register for the event now. The registration fee is entirely optional, but if you do pay, know that all proceeds are donated to Covid-19 relief causes.

Looking forward to talking to all of you.

Tonight, LeVar Burton Will Read My Stories Live

A quick update: Tonight (4/17), LeVar Burton is going to read two of my stories, “Golden Years in the Paleozoic” and “Summer Reading,” as a part of his live reading series during the pandemic. You can catch the reading with the Twitter and Periscope apps. (The recorded stream will be up for a couple of days afterwards as well.)

Update: the stories LeVar read are:

“Golden Years in the Paleozoic,” first published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Issue #52, September 2011

“Summer Reading,” (about 2000 words) first published in Daily Science Fiction, September 4, 2012. 

When: April 17, 2020 6:00 PM PT / 9:00 PM ET

Account: @levarburton

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LeVar will be reading stories from Sarah Pinsker and Issac Fitzgerald in upcoming sessions. Don’t miss these!

Dispatches from a silkpunk

Welcome to The Lion's Teeth by me, Ken Liu. Author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories.

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Star Wars: Legends of Luke Skywalker

Today is release day for The Legends of Luke Skywalker, a set of tall tales about the Jedi Knight that have been passing from cantina to freighter and from mouth to audio receptor ever since a certain farm boy left Tatooine for the wider galaxy far, far away… I’ve been waiting forever to share this …

Beautiful Dreamer

David Gaddie’s short film “Beautiful Dreamer”, based on my short story, “Memories of My Mother,” is now available for viewing online. Beautiful Dreamer is a sci-fi, time travel tale set in a striking near future world of drones, robots, holograms and transport pods. But it’s also a personal story. A mother, facing a terminal disease, …

The Book of Swords Release Day

Just for today: there’s a Reddit AMA with Gardner Dozois and the authors in the anthology from 10/12-10/13. Go and ask everything! My story, “The Hidden Girl,” is part of Gardner Dozois’s epic fantasy anthology, The Book of Swords, published yesterday. This book contains stories from George R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb, Kate Elliott, Garth …