Hidden Girl

The Hidden Girl and Other Stories

Ken Liu, the first author to win the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards

Cleverly blending Eastern and Western elements with hard and soft science, this book blends knowledge, legends, family ties, social reflections, and personal identity to explore the future of the Earth, the nature of love, and its limits, creating a unique reading experience.

•The world has become too fragile and we can no longer rely on people.
•Why would we heat up a planet for a dream and cool it down for nostalgia?

The highly anticipated second collection of short stories after "Origami Zoo"

With his unparalleled creativity, he takes stories across time and light years, letting his thoughts penetrate history and memory, making the hidden wounds gradually clear.

Ken Liu is one of the most acclaimed short story writers of our time. This book collects a selection of his science fiction and fantasy works from 2015 to 2020, including sixteen brilliant short stories, a new novella, and excerpts from The Masked Throne, the third volume in his Dandelion Dynasty series.

"Are we a malignant tumor on this planet?"
"We are not the problem," Adam said.
Matty looked at him.
"Our bodies are," Adam said.

※The above is excerpted from "Gods Who Did Not Die in Vain", a book containing three episodes in the "Gods" series, which has been adapted into the AMC series "Pantheon".

"How long have you been traveling since you set out?" I asked.
"It's been two years, and it's still going on," she said. "I'm not leaving this time."
Hearing her say that made me sad and happy at the same time. It was so confusing.
"Is it worth it?"

※The above excerpt is from "Memories of My Mother," which forms the basis for Hirokazu Koreeda's first overseas film, "Truth."

"You think learning to speak English makes you someone different. There seems to be something wrong with the minds of Asians. They just can't understand the basic differences between the West and the East. I'm not here to negotiate with you, but to assert my rights, a concept that seems foreign to your mental habits. If you don't fix my stuff and give it to me, we're going to destroy everything here."

※The above is excerpted from "Ghost Days"

"Many mediums claim to be able to communicate with the spirits of those who suffered violent or untimely deaths. Unfortunately, we've had bad luck with mediums. We can't actually get the dead to do anything through them. They lack the scientific understanding. But now we have you."

※The above is excerpted from "Maxwell's Little Devil"

Every time I watch the video of her sixth birthday, I hear porn moans in my head. Every time I look at photos of her high school graduation, I see her bloody animated corpse dancing to the tune of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Every time I try to flip through an old photo album of fond memories, I jump up in my chair, expecting an augmented reality ghost with a face as grotesquely distorted as Munch's "The Scream" to pounce on me, giggling, "Mommy, my new piercing hurts!"

※The above is excerpted from "Remembrance and Prayer"

The VR experience spoke to participants in a way that no words, photos, or videos could. Walking barefoot for miles through war-torn cities, seeing dismembered babies and mothers scattered around, being interrogated and threatened by men and boys armed with machetes and guns—the VR experience was terrifying and overwhelming for participants. Some were even hospitalized.

※The above is excerpted from "Byzantine Analogy"

Big Language doesn't deal with scripts or storyboards, nor does it consider subject matter, symbolism, homage, or any of the other jargon you might find in a film studies syllabus. It doesn't complain about having to use digital actors and digital sets, because it doesn't know any other way. It simply evaluates each test screening, sees where the response curve still deviates from the target, and then makes major and minor adjustments and tests again. Big Language doesn't think. It has no pet political ideals, no personal baggage, and no narrative obsessions or prejudices to force upon its films.

Indeed, Da Yu is the perfect film director.

※The above is excerpted from "True Artist"

"Imagine space as a piece of paper," Master said. "An ant crawling on the paper knows the width and depth, but not the height."
I looked expectantly at the ants she had drawn on the paper.
"The ant, fearing danger, builds a wall around itself, thinking that such an impenetrable barrier will keep it safe."
The master drew a circle to trap the ant.
"What the ant doesn't know is that there's a knife hanging above it. Knives don't exist in the ant's world, so it can't see them. If the attack comes from a hidden direction, the wall it built won't protect it at all—"

*The above is excerpted from "The Invisible Girl." This story is currently being developed into a television series by FilmNation.

Celebrity recommendations

Novelist Gao Yifeng, writer Ma Xin, writer Lin Xinhui,
Recommended by film critic Kristin Waltz, film critic The Point is in the Parentheses, copyright agent Tan Guanglei, and writer Wo Fu.

Good reviews and recommendations

Ken Liu's fantasies may be more whimsical than his science fiction, but "The Invisible Girl" leaves us yearning for more of both. --Gary K. Wolfe, LOCUS magazine.

Yes, reading this book will set your unopened, marble-cold brain into motion, letting it swirl in the Klein bottle of the universe. --Sarah Fallon, writing for WIRED

As the story unfolds, the posthumans of "The Invisible Woman" begin to question their long-held assumptions about themselves and nature, about the roles of incarnation and parenthood...Like critic Nancy Katherine Hayles, Ken Liu's story creates a vast universe teeming with human thought, in which the only question is: Has Hayles's vision of "how we should think about posthumanity" become reality? — Ben Berman Ghan, writing for Strange Horizons magazine

2022-04-08

新經典文化

488

9786267061183