50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know, by Ken Liu

It seems like the other reviewers did not connect to this story but I really did. I think it may not be clear how much you have to know about AI development in order to write this story the way he did. The segment about including weird "spice" that looks like garbage in a training dataset is, well, Uncanny. And for me many of those 50 things an AI needs to know approach profundity. I compare it with work from Ted Chiang, and in my mind that is a high compliment.

My Goodreads Review

A Whisper of Blue by Ken Liu

This is a fun story in The Book of Dragons.  Dragons are a regular part of the fauna of the world, and humanity becomes dependent upon them for energy.  It seems this is as much for fascination with dragons as for practicality, since the dragons have to be both fed and coaxed to produce that energy.  In fact the cost of that energy is very high.  The story is fully fleshed out around this, with characters that hate what has happened and others that are enchanted.  It feels both practical and magical throughout, with very interesting reveals along the way.  One of my favorites this year.

Thoughts and Prayers, by Ken Liu

This story was commissioned for Slate Magazine's Future Tense project.  It's a pretty straight-line projection of how intense trolling is going to get in the future, focusing on a mass shooting victim's family where the mother decides to go public and try to change things.  Seems like a much more intense version of what we do today, and much more intensely ignored.  

I don't think we're going to go in a straight line.  We are going to adjust to how social media works and put it in its place--I think ordinary people are already moving in this direction.  The terminally outraged will become more so, though and that is going to lead to more trouble and pain.  

Quality Time, by Ken Liu

Quality Time is part of the anthology Robots vs. Fairies, and was a finalist for the Locus award for novellas this year.  Liu is a master storyteller at this length, and in this one he takes on Silicon Valley.  The protagonist is a liberal arts major hired on as a project manager at a robot company.  It's got all the tropes--engineers going forward heedless of the problems their inventions are causing, founder worship, and an older female engineer providing a needed dose of skepticism.  But it's a more positive story than many in this vein.  I think Liu believes that technology is on balance going to continue to be a force for good, if we watch over it.  I hope so.  A strong 3 stars.

The Hidden Girl, by Ken Liu

The Hidden Girl was nominated for a Locus award last year and is part of The Book of Swords anthology, edited by Gardner Dozios.  The protagonist is a daughter of a high ranking noble in China, one just under the warlords that run the country in lieu of the emperor.  A wandering Buddhist monk, who is really a head of a supernatural girls' combat academy, steals her away against her will for training.

The story is pretty much set in a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon universe, with young women fighting while swinging on vines.  Their special power comes from being able to go into a "space that is not a space", and access our three dimensions as though through a fourth spatial one.  At heart, it's a superhero birth story.  Decently fun to read, with a self contained plot but it still doesn't stand alone all that well.  3 stars from me.

Placebo, by Charles Yu

The machines do all the doctoring.  Our protagonist is a "doctor" hired to provide bedside manor.  His actions are strictly prescribed by what the client pays for.

I see this happening.  At some point in the not too distant future computers will be more consistent diagnosticians than actual doctors, as long as they have data.  For most conditions it doesn't even take AI.  Bedside manor will be provided in a more clever and better way though, most likely with someone posing as a nurse (or a real one, they will be harder to automate).

The Trustless, by Ken Liu

The Trustless centers on de-skilled legal work--law clerking, lawyering, even adjudication.  The protagonist does work just above AI level on smart contracts--automatic execution once conditions are met, so no issues with fulfillment.  But it's pretty menial work, and there are plenty in the same boat.  The effect of the gig work is to push people apart, making everyone think they are alone fighting to stay afloat.  Any chance of pulling together?

Understated but affecting, it's a pretty good Ken Liu piece.

Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu

Grace of Kings has been referred to as an Asian Game of Thrones (by Wes Chu, in the reviews at the beginning of the book.  I think he's right on.

If anything, it's really more Game of Thrones than Game of Thrones--but fewer characters and a lot less blood.  Otherwise, the parallels are very strong.  The speculative elements are not highly important in either series, though I'd say they are barely even present in Grace of Kings.  The main drivers are the protagonists--and Liu has the skill to manage two of them.

We have Kuni Garu, a carouser and gangster with a heart of gold, and Mata Zyndu, a man born royal in every sense of the word--noble birth, and a giant (eight feet tall).  They work together to overthrow the ambitious and cruel Emperor Mapidere, who unified Dara with blood.  Once they succeed, sad and somewhat predictable things happen.  Politics is a hard thing.

Ken Liu is an excellent writer, so the story was not difficult to read.  One feels for the characters as they succeed and suffer.  But I guess I'm something of an outlier in that while I like A Song of Ice and Fire (haven't seen the TV series), I don't think it's going to be a series for the ages in the fantasy genre.  It's basically a soap opera.  Grace of Kings is a somewhat lesser version of Game of Thrones, and suffers from the comparison.  It's a nice story, but it pretty much could take place on earth, somewhere we cannot see.  In a larger-than-life series like The Wheel of Time, magic and its constraints form a compelling part of the story.  Grace of Kings is not larger than life--though it operates on a continental scale it is still merely life size.

For all that, I do give it 3 stars because it held my interest all the way through. 

P.S. Kuni Garu is an appealing protagonist, strong when he needs to be and tender when he can be.  You can't help but like him.  If you enjoy your men strong and positive, I can recommend the works of Rusty Rhoad.

Folding Beijing, by Hao Jingfang, trans. by Ken Liu

This is the second translation I've seen by Ken Liu that is getting an award nomination, the first being The Three Body Problem.  Folding Beijing has a lot of the same flavor as that one.  The latter has a novella nomination for Hugo this year.

China has many more potential fans of SF than the US, or probably all english-speaking countries put together, so I'm interested in their SF.  The story is an interesting setup for social commentary on inequality--which unfolds (ha) differently than it would with an American author, I think.  The technology speculation here is that China has solved Beijing's space problem by constructing the city so that it will literally fold up, exposing three different parts of the city.  The high-class folks (10%) get half the time, and the two lower levels split the other half.  When one's part of the city is folded, one is in hibernation until it's time to come back.

But there are ways to travel between the spaces, since it's mechanical.  Our protagonist, a middle-aged, single man working as a recycler, is prepared to make that journey for money.  As these stories go it's a well-worn path, but pretty radical for China.  The fact that the protagonist is older and never married stood out for me, even though that's not that unusual in classic SF.   Made me think about their one child policy and preference for males. 

The premise seems a stretch (at one point the author describes the construction, seems like bricks and wood), until I remembered James Blish's popular Cities in Flight series and figure maybe it's no worse than that.  It's worth checking out for cross cultural interest.  3 stars from me

The Regular, by Ken Liu

Ken Liu is an extremely hot property in SF right now.  Last year he had a couple of stories nominated, and this year he has one novella and one editor nomination (by Cixin Liu, no relation so far as I can tell).  The Regular is a typically strong entry from him.  The protagonist is a private detective, and this is a pretty straight up noir crime story.  But the characters set it apart and get the award nomination.  Ruth Law appears caucasian but lives in Chinatown, and there's enough Chinese in her to allow for limited speaking.  She left the police force after a traumatic decision and has since had several personal enhancements.  In the afterword Liu says he is indeed playing with the "cyborg" concept, noting how far we've come along that line.  I'd say it's somewhat true, at least.  And an enhancement is the turning point in the story.  I won't quite spoil it, but the author might have gone further and had the criminal write or commission an app to detect his victims, since it seems quite possible.  3 stars from me.  It has a good helping of everything you'd want--characters, action, science.  Check it out.

The Litigation Master and the Monkey King, by Ken Liu

And now for something completely different.  Ken Liu usually writes pretty serious fiction.  That continues here, and The Litigation Master... is somewhat dark stuff.  Tian Haoli is a lawyer (songgun) in Manchu China. Law and the ability to argue at court was a pretty disrespected profession, but while today's lawyers can be wealthy, Tian is rather poor.  Probably because he helps the poor himself.  The Monkey King is a demon from that time that seems to talk to or appear to Tian.  That's the speculative part.  Helping the poor against the powerful is always a dangerous proposition, and that's no different here.

Liu likes to teach a bit in his fiction, and Tian is apparently based on a real character.  It's not a light read, but you will come away knowing more than before.  3 stars, because it's a bit more straight-up than his previous work.

Mono No Aware, by Ken Liu

Ken Liu is one of the very best emerging authors in science fiction.  I have reviewed a couple of other fine works of his (search for them yourself--see the tech note below).  This year he is nominated for a Hugo for the short story Mono No Aware, just out in Lightspeed.  A lot of really good SF is cultural exposition that is current but set in a plausible future.  This story is a great example, and a very good quick read.  The protagonist is Japanese, and is in fact the last Japanese person alive, so far as they know.  The story is told in a very simple and moving way.  It may in fact be slightly over the top as a cultural exemplar, but I really didn't mind.  Take 20 minutes and read it.  Strong 3 stars from me, and probably my favorite for the Hugo this year.

I am writing this on an iPad, and pretty much had a fail on the Blogspot site using the Safari browser.  Could not create a post at all.  That was cured by installing Chrome (who'd a thunk it?).  Still pretty hard to select text in it, but I'm getting used to it.  Am parsimonious with links, though.

The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species, by Ken Liu

The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species is a type of short story I've seen a few times, and liked all of them.  I cannot recall exactly where I have seen them before--somehow Michael Swanwick comes to mind, he would do something like this, but I can't remember exactly.  Anyway, the form is a kind of geography of bookmaking.  Not the gambling kind, the making of actual books.  Various species make their books in different ways, some with deliberate acts, a few simply by living and remembering.  Ken Liu is really taking off, I expect to see him soon in the novel category.  I reviewed a couple stories by him last year for awards, and this year he is up for two more.  Good stuff here, come read it and enjoy a few minutes of fun.  4 stars.

Liu, Ken - The Waves

The Waves is a type of SF story I particularly like--the eternity/galaxy spanner.  There are many like this, but my introduction was Mike Resnick's Birthright: The Book of Man.  It's tough to pull off in some ways, because there are so few constraints--pretty much anything might happen.  And none of it is particularly likely, because I don't think we have the capacity to imagine what such post-human life would be like.  But it's great to make the attempt.

Liu's story explores how star exploration would proceed, given that technology would continue to advance back home and the generation ships might get passed.  I recall reading a classic SF story with this theme, but the name is not coming back to me--another time, perhaps.  In any case, Liu handles the tensions and choices very deftly, through telling stories within stories.  It's a very satisfying story to read, and I can heartily recommend it.  4 stars from me.

All the Flavors, by Ken Liu

I make a point of reading as much of the award nominated fiction cited on Free SF Online as possible.  The Nebula award nominees have been announced, and Ken Liu's story All the Flavors is my first read in the novella category.  And what a fine story it is.

This one is not particularly speculative--unless you count reader speculation about the identity of the lead character, in which case it is speculative enough.  Really, it's a writer's story.  The protagonist is a little girl living in Idaho City, Idaho in 1865.  A gold rush is under way, and some Chinese miners have come to cash in.  They also bring along a large helping of their culture.  The hero is Li Guan, or Logan, a large man from Northern China, who befriends the little girl.  They deal with cruelty and prejudice in the local population, even unto murder.  If it stopped there it would be formulaic.  But the story weaves this into a growing acceptance of the Chinese by the locals, particularly through the ambassadorship of Li Guan.  Some of the customs are hard to swallow.  While Liu clearly favors openness, the disruption the foreigners cause is dealt with forthrightly.  The historical references really sold me--the interactions are based in truth, on how the influx of Chinese influenced local culture in Idaho.  Really good stuff, I enjoyed it quite a lot.  4 stars from me.

The Paper Menagerie, by Ken Liu

The Paper Menagerie is Ken Liu's second Nebula entry this year, he is also up in the Novella category (scroll down).  Pretty good for a new guy, there's plenty to look forward to.  This story is probably not as strong a contender, but it's a good and touching read.  The speculative part is nice but is not a driver for the story--the significance here is the relationship between the boy and his mother.  She is a mail-order bride from China, and just doesn't really fit in the United States.  It's pretty classic, the boy doesn't really know how good he has it--stable home and all--he just wants to fit in and not be teased.  It doesn't help that his mother makes his toys out of origami that comes to life, though that is actually pretty cool.  A nice sentimental tale that I will give 3 stars.

The Man Who Ended History, by Ken Liu

And now for the second "The Man Who..." title nominated for a Nebula this year, The Man Who Ended History, by Ken Liu.  But jokes seem a bit out of place here, for the story is serious as a heart attack.  The driver is an expose of the Japanese Army's infamous Unit 731, which committed many atrocities in WWII in China.  The SF portion is a method of time travel that does not interact with the past--interception of the "Bohm-Kirino" particles emanating from a past event.  In this way it echoes Pat Forde's In Spirit, which I recently reviewed.  The protagonists of the story, a historian and his physicist wife (Kirino) work to preserve the memory of these events against deniers.  The story is written in documentary form as a discussion of history, and in that way it's extremely interesting.  The protagonists' decision to rely on human memory as the documentation is given thorough examining.  In the story, the revival efforts serve to "turn history into religion" by forcing one to decide whether one believes eyewitnesses.  In the story the point is made that we distrust eyewitnesses these days.

And surely we do, for good reason.  Research done during the first decade of this century indicates clearly that memories are rewritten by the act of remembering them, and in the process changed.  A person's recollection of events tells us more about what the person believes than what happened, even for what appears to be merely factual information.  Read that linked article for a glimpse of why our children's world will be unutterably strange to us.

As for Unit 731 itself, the story seems to indicate that the deniers are winning even today.  It doesn't seem so from my brief research--there's a lot of well-documented work exposing it in detail.  The story claims no one was tried for war crimes--Macarthur let them off to keep their work from the Russians.  But the Wikipedia article above says at least some of the doctors were tried, and that the Russians did in fact get hold of the research. 

As you can see, a very thought provoking tale.  Might not be my favorite, but I think it's a pretty strong contender and wouldn't be surprised if if won.  I give it 3 stars, but recommend reading it.