Ken Liu (original) (raw)
Liu has also written an epic fantasy novel series, The Dandelion Dynasty, which he describes as silkpunk. The series is published by Simon & Schuster.[3]
Liu was born in 1976 in Lanzhou, China.[4] He spent his childhood with his grandparents.[5] His mother, who received her Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States, is a pharmaceutical chemist, while his father is a computer engineer.[6] The family immigrated to the United States when Liu was 11 years old.[4] They lived in California and Stonington, Connecticut before settling in Waterford, Connecticut. Liu graduated from Waterford High School in 1994, where he ran cross-country and track.[7] At Harvard College, he studied English Literature and Computer Science, receiving his A. B. in 1998.[7][8]
After graduation, Liu worked as a software engineer for Microsoft, and then joined a start-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He later received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2004 and after working as a corporate lawyer, eventually became a high-tech litigation consultant.[7][8]
Liu has said he wanted to become a writer so he could make stories that “turn values upside down and inside out to gain new perspectives”.[10]
After a long career writing and publishing short fiction, Liu turned to epic fantasy novels, starting with The Grace of Kings (2015).[11] He has also written for the Star Wars universe, with The Legends of Luke Skywalker (2017).[12]
Along with his original work, Liu has translated the works of multiple Chinese authors into English, including Liu Cixin, Hao Jingfang, Chen Qiufan, and Xia Jia.[13] His translation of The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin helped the book become a best seller to English readers.[14] He has also worked as an editor. While editing the anthology Invisible Planets, Ken Liu translated the stories contained within it from Chinese into English.[15]
Some of Liu's work have been adapted into visual media. His short story "Memories of My Mother" was the basis of Beautiful Dreamer (2016) by David Gaddie.[16] His short story "Real Artists" was adapted into the short film Real Artists (2017) by Cameo Wood.[17] His short story "Good Hunting" was adapted into an animated short as part of Netflix's Love, Death & Robots series (2019).[18] Several of the stories in The Hidden Girl and Other Stories were adapted for the animated Pantheon.[19]
Liu's short story collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories (2020) explores ideas such as tradition and progress, the fallibility of memory, and the essence of what it means to be human.[10]
Liu's short story "The Paper Menagerie" is the first work of fiction, of any length, to win all of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards.[1] In addition, his short story, "Mono no aware" won the 2013 Hugo Award,[21][22] and his novella "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary" was also nominated for a Hugo.[23] The first novel in his The Dandelion Dynasty series, The Grace of Kings, was a 2016 Nebula Award finalist.[24] The novel was the 2016 Locus Award Best First Novel winner.[25]
One of Liu's short stories, "Thoughts and Prayers", is a part of Jonathan Strahan's The Year's Best Science Fiction (2020), Vol 1.
Title
Year
First published
Collected
Notes
Carthaginian Rose
2002
Empire of Dreams and Miracles: The Phobos Science Fiction Anthology Volume 1, edited by Orson Scott Card and Keith Olexa, 2002.
Gossamer
2003
Writers of the Future, Vol. 19, 2003; reprinted in Semaphore Magazine, March 1, 2011.
The Algorithms for Love
2004
(online) Archived 2012-11-02 at the Wayback Machine, Strange Horizons, July 2004; reprinted in Issue #4 of International Speculative Fiction, edited by Roberto Mendes, July 2012.
State Change
2004
Polyphony 4, edited by Deborah Layne and Jay Lake, September 2004; reprinted by Lightspeed, August 2014.
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Beneath the Language
2007
(online), On the Premises, July 2007 (Issue 2)
Single-Bit Error
2009
Thoughtcrime Experiments, edited by Sumana Harihareswara and Leonard Richardson, 2009; International Speculative Fiction, edited by Roberto Mendes, December 2013;
Beidou
2010
The Dragon and the Stars, edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi, May 2010.
The Phoenix
2010
(online), On the Premises, July 2010 (Issue 11)
The Literomancer
2010
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2010
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Novelette
The Letter
2010
(online), Every Day Fiction, December 5, 2010
Saving Face
2011
(online), Crossed Genres, January 1, 2011
co-written with Shelly Li
Tying Knots
2011
(online), Clarkesworld Magazine, January 2011
The Chase
2011
Every Day Fiction, January 28, 2011
To the Stars
2011
(online), Nature's * "Futures" feature, , February 3, 2011
co-written with Shelly Li
Simulacrum
2011
(online), Lightspeed Magazine, February 15, 2011
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
2011
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011.
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
The Visit
2011
(online), On the Premises, March 2011 (Issue 13)
Ad Block
2011
(online) Archived 2020-04-20 at the Wayback Machine, Kasma SF, March 19, 2011
Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer
2011
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2011.
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
The Caretaker
2011
Digital Science Fiction, June 2011
Hark! Listen to the Animals
2011
The ePocalypse: e-mails at the end, August 2011; revised Galaxy's Edge, Issue 9, July 2014
co-written with Lisa Tang Liu
The Box That Eats Memories
2011
(online), Daily Science Fiction, August 10, 2011
Music of the Spheres
2011
Mirror Shards: Exploring the Edges of Augmented Reality (Volume One), 2011
The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary
2011
Panverse Three, edited by Dario Ciriello, September 2011
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Novella
The Last Seed
2011
(online), Daily Science Fiction, September 26, 2011
Real Artists
2011
TRSF (September 2011), a special publication of MIT's Technology Review
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Golden Years in the Paleozoic
2011
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Issue #52, September 2011
Staying Behind
2011
(online), Clarkesworld Magazine, October 1, 2011
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
The Countable
2011
Asimov's, December 2011
Safe Empathy
2011
Daily Science Fiction, November 21, 2011
Life Plus Seventy
2011
(online), Kasma SF, November 23, 2011
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Justice Fairbot
2011
140 And Counting, edited by Joanne Merriam, December 11, 2011
The Necrocracy
2011
Penumbra, December 2011
The Last Summer
2012
10 Flash, January 2012
The People of Pele
2012
Asimov's, February 2012
Maxwell's Demon
2012
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2012
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
The Five Elements of the Heart Mind
2012
(online), Lightspeed Magazine, January 24, 2012
All the Flavors
2012
(online), GigaNotoSaurus, February 2012
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Novella
Memories of My Mother
2012
(online), Daily Science Fiction, March 19, 2012
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Exotic Pets
2012
Buzzy Mag, March 25, 2012
To the Moon
2012
Fireside, April 17, 2012
Monkeys
2012
(online), Nature's * "Futures" feature, April 19, 2012
Intelligent Design
2012
(online) Archived 2018-07-17 at the Wayback Machine, Schrodinger's Mouse, April 2012
The Shadowcrafter
2012
Nine, Issue 1, April 2012
The Tome of Tourmaline
2012
(online), Daily Science Fiction, May 9, 2012
Mono no aware
2012
The Future is Japanese, May 15, 2012; republished (online), Lightspeed Magazine, June 2013
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
The Illusionist
2012
(online), Goldfish Grimm's Spicy Fiction Sushi, Issue 4, June 2, 2012
Real Faces
2012
F&SF, July/August issue, June 22, 2012
Celestial Bodies
2012
Nature, June 28, 2012
The Silk Merchant
2012
Apex, Issue 38, July 3, 2012
Ask Emily
2012
The Memory Eater Anthology, July 5, 2012
You'll Always Have the Burden With You
2012
In Situ, Dagan Books, July 10, 2012; republished, Perihelion Science Fiction, December 2013
Cutting
2012
Electric Velocipede, Issue 24, July 30, 2012
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species
2012
Lightspeed, Issue 27, August 7, 2012
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Arc
2012
F&SF, September/October issue, September 2012
Summer Reading
2012
Daily Science Fiction, September 4, 2012
The Waves
2012
Liu, Ken (December 2012). "The Waves". Asimov's Science Fiction. 36 (12): 38–51.
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Novelette
The Perfect Book
2012
Analog, December 2012 issue, September 22, 2012
Drilling
2012
Kasma SF, October 2012
Pattern Recognition
2012
Diverse Energies, edited by Tobias Buckell and Joe Monti, October 2012.
The Message
2012
Interzone Issue 242, September 2012.
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Good Hunting
2012
(online), Strange Horizons, October 9, 2012
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
The Tides
2012
Daily Science Fiction, November 1, 2012.
Always Here
2012
Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Issue 31, November 2012
The Postman
2012
Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Issue 31, November 2012
The Perfect Match
2012
(online), Lightspeed Magazine, December 2012
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Novelette
Love Thy Neighbors
2012
Unidentified Funny Objects, December 16, 2012
The Messenger's Tale
2012
Aoife's Kiss, Issue 43, Winter 2012/2013 issue, December 2012
A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel
2013
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan/Feb 2013
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
The mMod
2013
Daily Science Fiction, January 18, 2013.
The Veiled Shanghai
2013
Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond, edited by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen, February 26, 2013.
The Oracle
2013
Liu, Ken (Apr–May 2013). "The Oracle". Asimov's Science Fiction. 37 (4&5): 144–152.
Linger
2013
Daily Science Fiction, March 12, 2013
The Clean War
2013
Buzzy Mag, March 15, 2013
co-written with Shelly Li
How Do You Know If a Fish Is Happy?
2013
Fish, March 2013 from Dagan Books
Build-A-Dolly
2013
Apex, April 2, 2013
The Shape of Thought
2013
The Other Half of the Sky, edited by Athena Andreadis and Kay Holt, April 2013.
Sungrazers
2013
Kasma SF, May 2013
Effect and Cause
2013
Galaxy’s Edge, Issue 2, May 2013.
The Plague
2013
Nature, May 16, 2013
The City of Chrysanthemum
2013
Daily Science Fiction, June 12, 2013
Prosopagnosia
2013
Drabblecast, June 30, 2013
Echoes in the Dark
2013
Mythic Delirium, Issue 0.1, July-September 2013
The Litigatrix
2013
GigaNotoSaurus, August 2013
Nova Verba, Mundus Novus
2013
Daily Science Fiction, August 13, 2013
The Litigation Master and the Monkey King
2013
(online), Lightspeed Magazine, August 2013
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Novelette
The Call of the Pancake Factory
2013
Drabblecast, August 23, 2013; reprinted in The Cackle of Cthulhu, edited by Alex Shvartsman.
The Journal
2013
Fireside, Issue 5, September 12, 2013
The MSG Golem
2013
Unidentified Funny Objects 2, edited by Alex Shvartsman, October 2013
Ghost Days
2013
Lightspeed, October 22, 2013
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Novelette
Here-and-Now
2013
Kasma SF, November 1, 2013
Before and After
2013
Apex, December 2013
The Clockwork Soldier
2014
(online), Clarkesworld Magazine, January 2014
Second Chance
2014
(online), Nature, January 2014
The Plantimal
2014
Resnick, Mike & Ken Liu (March 2014). "The Plantimal". Asimov's Science Fiction. 38 (3): 13–24.
co-written with Mike Resnick
The Reborn
2014
(online), Tor.com, January 2014
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Novelette
What Is Expected of a Wedding Host
2014
(online), Daily Science Fiction, February 2014
None Owns the Air
2014
Lightspeed Magazine, February 2014
The Gods Will Not Be Chained
2014
The End is Nigh (Book I of the Apocalypse Triptych), edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, March 2014
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
The Ten Suns
2014
Dark Expanse: Surviving the Collapse, March 2014
Lecture 14: Concerning the Event Cloaking Device and Practical Applications Thereof
2014
(online), Cosmos, April 2014
Knotting Grass, Holding Ring
2014
Long Hidden, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, May 2014
What I Assume You Shall Assume
2014
Dead Man's Hand, edited by John Joseph Adams, May 2014
Seventh Day of the Seventh Moon
2014
(online), Kaleidoscope, edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios, August 2014
In the Loop
2014
War Stories, edited by Andrew Liptak and Jaym Gates, August 2014
Homo Florensis
2014
Solaris Rising 3, August 2014
Running Shoes
2014
(online), SQ Mag, Issue 16, September 2014
The Gods Will Not Be Slain
2014
The End is Now (Book II of the Apocalypse Triptych), edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, September 2014
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
The Regular
2014
Upgraded, edited by Neil Clarke, September 2014
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Novella
The Ussuri Bear
2014
(online), Beast Within 4: Gears and Growls, edited by Jennifer Brozek, October 2014
Saboteur
2014
Liu, Ken (December 2014). "Saboteur". Analog Science Fiction and Fact. 134 (12): 68–70.
Presence
2014
(online), Uncanny, November/December 2014
The Long Haul: From the Annals of Transportation, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009
2014
(online), Clarkesworld Magazine, November 2014
The Dust Garden
2014
SFComet, December 2014
Cassandra
2015
Clarkesworld, March 1, 2015.
The Gods Have Not Died in Vain
2015
The End Has Come (Book III of the Apocalypse Triptych), edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, May 1, 2015
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Crystal
2015
Daily Science Fiction, October 15, 2015
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11
2015
War Stories From the Future, edited by August Cole, November 2015.
Compatibility
2015
Ecotones, December 2015.
White Hempen Sleeves
2016
After the Fall, edited by Jaym Gates, 2016
Of Trees
2016
Part of Herman Chong's exhibit "Ifs, Ands, or Buts" (January 23 to May 3, 2016 at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai)
An Advanced Reader's Picture Book of Comparative Cognition
2016
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, March 8, 2016
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
The Snow Train
2016
Genius Loci: the Spirit of Place, edited by Jaym Gates, June 2016
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit — Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts
2016
Drowned Worlds: Tales from the Anthropocene and Beyond, edited by Jonathan Strahan, 2016.
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
A Brief And Inaccurate But True Account of the Origin of Living Books
2016
Tales of Our Time, November 4, 2016.
Seven Birthdays
2016
Bridging Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan, November 8, 2016
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Shanghai in 48 Hours, a Weekend Itinerary for International Visitors by Roaming Planets Guides, 2116
2017
Part of the Shanghai Project, an exhibit by the Shanghai Zendai Himalayas Museum, April 22, 2017; reprinted in Deep Signal, June 2019.
Ticket
2017
Stanford Anthology for Youth, June 2017.
An Open Letter to the Sentient AI Who Has Announced Its Intention to Take Over the Earth
2017
Unidentified Funny Objects 6, edited by Alex Shvartsman, October 2017
The Sith of Datawork
2017
From a Certain Point of View (Star Wars), October 3, 2017
The Hidden Girl
2017
The Book of Swords, edited by Gardner Dozois, October 2017
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Novelette
Alter
2017
The Eugene Studio, Japan, published on November 20, 2017; reprinted in subTerrain, 2020.
The Explainer
2017
CBN Weekly, published on December 21, 2017; English version published in Lightspeed's special 100th issue, September 2018.
Quality Time
2018
Robots vs. Fairies, edited by Navah Wolfe and Dominik Parisien, January 2018
Novelette
Cosmic Spring
2018
Lightspeed, March 15, 2018
The Magic Paintbrush
2018
Jali, edited by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey for Audible, April 2018
Byzantine Empathy
2018
MIT Technology Review’s Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Wade Roush, May 2018
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Novelette
The Trustless
2018
Wired, December 17, 2018
Thoughts and Prayers
2019
Slate, January 26, 2019
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Love's Mirror
2019
Deep Signal, June 2019
BookSavr
2019
F&SF, September/October 2019.
The Moon Carver
2019
The Other Animals, Audible Original edited by Rachel Hamburg, November 14, 2019.
How to Survive the Next Science Fictional Disaster, A Guide for the Wise
2020
L'Uomo, February 2020.
How to Build a Dragon at the End of Time
2020
Sub-Q, February 2020
Interactive fiction
Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard
2020
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, February 25, 2020.
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Novelette
Uma
2020
Avatars, Inc, from XPrize, edited by Ann VanderMeer, March 13, 2020.
Idols
2020
Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, edited by Jonathan Strahan, March 17, 2020.
A Whisper of Blue
2020
The Book of Dragons, edited by Jonathan Strahan, July 7, 2020
Novelette
50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know
2020
Uncanny, November 3, 2020
The Cleaners
2020
Liu, Ken (2 December 2020). "A Time to Reflect". kenliu.substack.com. Retrieved 2020-12-07.
Excerpt from Theuth, an Oral History of Work in the Age of Machine-Assisted Cognition
2021
Philosophy Through Science Fiction Stories, Bloomsbury Press, edited by Helen De Cruz, Johan De Smedt, and Eric Schwitzgebel, January 2021.
The Armies of Those I Love
2021
Audible Original (February 25, 2021)
Novella
Jaunt
2021
Make Shift: Dispatches from the Post-Pandemic Future, edited by Gideon Lichfield, published by MIT Press (part of the Twelve Tomorrows series), March 2021.
Evaluative Soliloquies
2022
Part of Google’s experimental AI Wordcraft Writers Workshop, November 2, 2022.
Timekeeper's Symphony
2022
Clarkesworld, September 2022
Invasive Species
2023
Newsweek Japan (Japanese translation), February 7, 2023.
Collaboration?
2023
Uncanny, January 3, 2023
co-written with Caroline M. Yoachim
The Emperor’s New Servers
2023
The Oracle, Story Summit 2022, hosted by Alexandria Labs, March 27, 2023.
The Edges of Wilderness
2023
The Continental Literary Magazine, April 18, 2023.
Good Spells
2023
Book of Witches, edited by Jonathan Strahan, August 1 2023.
The Passing of the Dragon
2023
Tor.com, September 13, 2023
Good Stories
2023
The Digital Aesthete: Human Musings on the Intersection of Art and AI, edited by Alex Shvartsman, November 2023.
The Ice Wraith
2023
Mythopoesis for Techno-Living Systems, edited by Ursula Mayer and Rachel Hill, December 2023.
Many of Liu's short stories have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, and multiple other languages and published in short stories collections:[42]
Pantheon is an animated television series based on Liu's sci-fi short stories "The Gods Will Not Be Chained", "The Gods Will Not Be Slain", "The Gods Have Not Died in Vain", "Staying Behind" and "Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer" from the short fictions collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. It premiered on AMC+ in 2022.[43][44]