The Hidden Girl and Other Short Stories by Ken Lui, 432 pages. SHORT STORIES, LGBTQIA+
Saga Press, 2020. $26.
Language: R (17 swears, 2 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG13
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
The future is uncertain. Will we end up destroying our planet? Will we continue to progress and evolve until we no longer recognize where we came from? How involved will technology be? In these 19 short stories, Lui explores avenues of a future that might be and highlights problems that we will face if we aren’t careful with our present.
These scifi and fantasy stories filled my mind with food for thought, and the element of tragedy that permeates most of them only made them feel more realistic and relatable. I found that I could not sit down to read several of the stories in one sitting because of the thought I wanted to give them, and I enjoyed reading most of the stories. Stories later in the book became more exciting to read as I started to notice connecting threads and wanted to know what came first in these imagined futures. The mature content rating is for nudity, mentions of pornography and rape, and implied sex; the violence rating is for war, suicide, and murder.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

If you haven't heard of Ken Liu yet, I promise that you'll hear his name everywhere soon.

This collection is breathtaking. I read (and enjoyed) Liu's first collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. It's excellent, but this assembly of stories enthralled me. I cried on an airplane, in a coffee shop, on the beach. Hope, for the future, for humanity, for the possibility that we can be better people is the throughline through all these stories. I simply can't say enough positive things about this book and I'm sure I'll annoy everyone I know by singing its praises.

If you are in the mood for some hopeful, soul-searching sci-fi this is the collection for you. Even if his Dandelion Dynasty series didn't appeal to you, give this a shot.


For fans of Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, This review is based on the Netgalley ARC.

A very strong set of stories from a very talented and increasingly well-known author. It has a good variety of stories and characters and settings. You don't have to be a sci-fi fan to enjoy. Recommended.

I really appreciate the advanced copy for review!!

This is, I think, THE best book I've read in years -- which is saying a lot, since I read many books! Each of these stories is a stand-alone gem, and they intertwine in a way I haven't seen before in short story collections.

These short stories are so realistically crafted (even if set in the future) that I'd love to ask the author where he met all these interesting people and how he convinced them to tell him their tales...except, of course, the people are all characters inside his head. I highly recommend this book!

I was first introduced to Ken Liu through his translations of Chinese SciFi short stories when we were preparing potential classes on comparative universes as one of our teaching units, so I was very interested to read The Hidden Girl and Other Stories and gain a better understanding of his own original work. Ken Liu fits in that section of SciFi that I really prefer to classify in the speculative fiction range since a lot of his developments are based on real (or at least in the research phase!) movements, inventions, and concepts.

Through his stories, Liu explores the ideas behind what the future for the human race holds, the role of digital technology in our lives and in the potential to save our world, manipulate our galaxy, explore the universe, including the question of whether we should.

The book itself is wonderfully structured with a novella divided up into chapters scattered throughout. Returning to this story was an absolute delight each time. The title story, The Hidden Girl, is perhaps the most 'odd one out', and borderlines on fantasy. Despite the difference it provides, or perhaps also because of it, it is a delightful tale. I have read/heard that is has been optioned for film/series, so make sure you read the original first! While there does seem to be a distinct genre difference between The Hidden Girl and much of the rest of the short stories, there is one commonality between all of them - the exploration of our humanity and what it means to be human. Since I finished the stories, they have stayed with me (despite reading other books in between!) and I have made so many links to many of the stories in conversations. This book is a must-read.