Review: The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, by Ken Liu

NB: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review. 

In this book, Ken Liu has put together a collection of truly excellent short stories. Combining science-fiction, fantasy, Chinese folklore, and speculative/futuristic concepts, this collection offers something for every kind of reader. Most startling, to me, was the accuracy of his vision in seeing not just our world as it is, but the world as it could be on our current technological trajectory and moral values. 

For example, 'The Gods Will Not Be Chained' offers a view on the melding of mind and machine, where AI companies take the brains of their most valuable workers when they are terminally ill, and upload them in order to make them make them eternal workers. 

Another story poses an interesting, existential dilemma - if you had the choice, would you upload your consciousness into a global database in which you could exist forever, albeit on a virtual platform only? Or would you choose to die with your mortal body?

Short stories seem an extremely difficult kind of writing to master, but Liu has achieved it with every story in this collection. Some of them, as you see the further you read on, are linked, but others stand out on their own. Every arc and character within each story packs a punch, whether quietly or loudly, and even within such short forms good plot twists abound. 

For all the AI jargon and futuristic concepts that Liu manages to handle so deftly and intelligently - there were a good few portions that I had to re-read to get my head around the technical concepts - he doesn't lose sight of what matters most to a lot of readers: Do I care about these characters? Or, if they're intentionally villainous, do these characters provoke strong feelings in me? The answer is yes, in every one. Try as I might, I could not find one story with a flat note or an unresolved arc or a lukewarm character. 

This collection of stories will challenge the reader and make them think about not just where we are as a world today but what it could be. Technology is racing ahead of social progression and, if left unchecked, it's not too unrealistic to think we could end up with some of the structures Liu proposes in some of these stories.