The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories

by Ken Liu

Ken Liu, author of the Nebula and Hugo Award–winning The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories—his second short story collection and the basis of the groundbreaking anime Pantheon—returns with a bold new anthology.

Thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and wonderous are some of the many ways the tales in this collection will engage readers, from the titular story about a painter who fears she’s failing as an artist to the twelve other examples of captivating science fiction. Ken Liu continues to delight and challenge your perceptions as one of the most accomplished and lauded American short story writers of our time.

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Anthologies, Audiobook, Dragons

384 pages, Hardcover

First published September 8, 2026

About the author

Ken Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an American author of speculative fiction. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards for his fiction, he has also won top genre honors abroad in Japan, Spain, and France.

Liu’s most characteristic work is the four-volume epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers, not wizards, are the heroes of a silkpunk world on the verge of modernity. His debut collection of short fiction, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. A second collection, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, followed. He also penned the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker. His latest book is All That We See or Seem, a techno-thriller starring an AI-whispering hacker who saves the world.

He’s often involved in media adaptations of his work. Recent projects include “The Regular,” under development as a TV series; “Good Hunting,” adapted as an episode in season one of Netflix’s breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC’s Pantheon, with Craig Silverstein as executive producer, adapted from an interconnected series of Liu’s short stories.

Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Liu worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. He frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, machine-augmented creativity, history of technology, bookmaking, and the mathematics of origami.

In addition to his original fiction, Liu also occasionally publishes literary translations. His most recent work of translation is a new rendition of Laozi’s Dao De Jing.

Liu lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Exiles and outcasts don’t have electricity—the guardians cull them ruthlessly—She was an exile—In love with the sinful—bones. Always had been—I made a promise; I must keep it.’

Love them all (immensely fascinating, highly engaging, and (needless to ‘say’) tremendously brilliant as well), but I think my favourite at the moment/ if I had to choose one : (most probably) ‘The Armies of Those I Love’ (side note: my favourite Ghibli film is 'Princess Mononoke', but I love this 'story' by Ken Liu a thousand times more (at least), I feel). It also very slightly reminds me of Hernan Diaz's latest one, Ply, but this one (Ken Liu's) somehow 'proves' / (rather?) 'shows' that one can 'say' a lot more with a lot 'less' sometimes. Fuller RTC at a later date.

'‘We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.'’

‘The guardians—are made of both machine and flesh—As the world was ending around the, those oldizens who had the most power sought a way to survive the collapse—and left the rest of the people to die. Instead of repenting, they asked their thinking machines to design a way to allow them, and only them, to continue to enjoy the luxuries of the—old ways—They were ticks designed to suck out the last of the world’s blood—Pilots weren’t enlightened. They were the most selfish oldizens of all.’

‘—renews itself by feeding upon the dead, survives in a poisoned and depleted world by consuming the residue of the past. The world of the oldizens was too toxic, too infected by plagues—the selfishness of people who could not see beyond the span of a season, much less the duration of generations. They choke the lungs of the world—defiled the flesh with gaping scars—prized the Now over the Evermore.’

‘‘You are the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. (They) said it was selfish of me to save a baby with no connection to us, to put the whole village at risk when we didn’t know why you had been abandoned—But I asked her, how could I be the selfish one when they were willing to watch someone die?’’

‘‘They are terrified of you because you love to know—to ask questions. You make them ashamed—Survive and never be anything except (you). Be curious. Be full of doubts—Promise me that.’’

‘Getting those cakes wasn’t easy—It’s a selfish act, she knows, to draw electricity on your own—The oldizens were selfish, vain, corrupt people. They thought they owned the world, coveted what wasn’t theirs, sought mastery over the universe— ‘Why are you living outside your village like some exiled beggar—And you dropped everything to be out here—wandering in the wilderness with a stranger. Who does that unless there’s a good reason?’’

‘(If you refuse, you’ll simply die and be consigned to oblivion, absorbed as mere meat—You cannot change the way the world is, only accept it. Come, be selfish. Be with those you love. Be with me. It would be so easy to give in, to be a servant) But that’s not a story that makes any sense. Not a story that feels true—There must be meaning to this, all of this. To believe otherwise, to accept, to not even try—is the only thing that is truly selfish—She turns and—refuses to concede, the one and only question that matters: What will it take to awaken the soul?’

‘She knows these words—knows—by heart—she knows the voice—a dance of machine and flesh, of the fall of empires—Docility is our only desirable quality. We tell ourselves that this is the best of all possible worlds until no other story is possible—But for the exiles, the outcasts, the rebels, their living minds are—valuable—spirits—‘Can you really watch them die and do nothing?’’

‘—she recites,—brings back to life a silent chorus, an invisible battalion. She’s—absolutely terrified, but she doesn’t regret it, any of it. The armies of those I love—charge them full with the charge of the soul.’

[Booksblabbering || Cait❣️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ken Liu is a top three author for me. He manages to captures the beautiful and messy nature of humans. 
This collection is a testament for the yearning and near impossibility for absolute understanding and transcendent communication.

Standouts for me:

THE PASSING OF THE DRAGON:
This captures the frustration of an artist of being unable to capture a sublime moment. It is a raw look at an artist’s feelings of inadequacy as well as the complicated relationship between art and inspiration.

It’s the fashion among some "aspiring artists" at the co-op to formulate their critiques in the harshest terms possible in the belief that they are doing the victim a favor because a "thick skin" is necessary for artists. She’s never really understood their logic, however, since a thin skin, a vulnerability, a sensitivity toward the nuances of reality—a readiness to perceive dragons—is necessary to see the world’s beauty, to feel the tingling in the fabric of the cosmos that is at the foundation of all art.


IDOLS:
This is Liu flexing his speculative imagination. Humans have developed the technology to develop a simulacrum of others, used to model celebrities, lost relatives, to prepare for court cases…

Maybe there is nothing to this "self" we prize so much except the totality of this collection of masks. Or maybe there is some essential thing beneath the layers of masks, a beating heart, raw, bloody, vulnerable, yearning to connect, hungering to know where we come from and whither we go.

This is existential, analysing what is our ‘self’, what makes an individual ‘me’.


A WHISPER OF BLUE:
This was the most magical.
Dragons exist in an alternate Earth and have been used to harness energy.

This is a soft story about the personal over capitalism. It’s about wonder and steadfast commitment.


THE CLEANERS:
Whilst not the most satisfying in terms of plot and character arcs, I appreciated what Liu made me reflect on.

In a world where objects carry memories that can literally hurt people, cleaners are hired to rid objects of the memories of those who previously handled them.

And since they didn’t want a buyer in America to unwrap their brand-new phone only to be burned by the anguish of a foreigner, to be infected by a psychic wound like a virus—didn’t lifestyle gurus all say it was important to insulate oneself from the suffering of others, not to be dragged down by negativity one was powerless to stop?—they hired American workers to sit in warehouses to clean the phones and then to coat them with a spray of anonymized all-American fresh-product good cheer.


ARC:
The first human to achieve immortality reflects on motherhood, identity, freedom, and purpose.

Poignant, piercing, and powerful.


50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know:
This was the closing story and my least favourite.

It seems fitting that it was the final story in a collection about different forms of communication considering AI’s unrelenting prevalence, but I admit to feeling uncomfortable whenever AI and art overlap.


Overall, I enjoyed this collection.
It leaned more sci fi and speculative which is the best genres for short stories to explore concepts, anxieties and hopes.

It doesn’t come close to The Paper Menagerie which is one of my rare six-star reads, but it’s on par, or slightly better than, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. 

Physical arc gifted by Head of Zeus.

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[Kyle Foley · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5 stars

I'm not a big fan of short stories, but I've been reading more as I'm trying to develop my own writing craft. Liu is, undeniably, one of the best in the business. I didn't love every story in this collection, but Arc was my favorite (and the titular story is great too).

[Terry Rudge · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always with short story collections, I find it blooming hard to rate the overall experience. There were some absolute standouts here, but also a few stories that just didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

My biggest issue with short stories is that, more often than not, I WANT MORE. Give me another 200 pages, Ken! 😂 And that was definitely the case with a couple of these, particularly The Cleaners and Cosmic Spring. Interesting ideas, but I just didn’t feel like there was enough time to really sink my teeth into them.

Then you get Idols.
That one landed!

I finished it before bed one night and found myself still thinking about it the following day. Properly reflecting on the themes and messages it was throwing at me. Those are the short stories that stick with you, and for me, that was easily one of the highlights of the collection.

Then there’s The Passing of the Dragon, and bloody hell, this was beautiful. Acheingly poignant and packed with emotion. Easily another standout.

I love Ken Liu’s writing, and that definitely helps carry some of the weaker stories. There’s a lot to admire here, particularly the themes he explores, but a few of the stories just didn’t have enough bite to become favourites.

So, a bit hit and miss for me, but plenty here to enjoy.

Now, enough messing about with short stories.

Best get back to Speaking Bones! 😂

[Thxlbx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this as a "read now" on Netgalley.

Opinions are my own.

Another brilliant short story collection by Ken Liu. While the main story is more fantasy based, most of the others fall into the sci-fi realm, with most of them dealing with some form of AI. The stories are well written, engaging, and make you think. I am not typically a short story person, but anything Liu writes is fantastic, and this is no exception.

In addition to the title story, some of my favorites were The Moon Carver (about a scorpion observing humans), The Ice Wraith (a space miner seeking aliens talking with their AI), Cosmic Spring (the end of the universe), The Cleaners (interesting take on how a piece of our experience bonds with objects, and how those memories are removed, in a world where touching the object allows you to relive the memory), and A Whisper of Blue (a tale about Dragons who wind up becoming our main energy source in an alternate universe).

4.5 STARS

[Stress Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories ARC Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐🌟 (4.5 rounded up)

Big ideas + tiny human moments + impossible futures + the ache of wanting to be understood = The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories

If you like your science fiction to make you FEEL something. This is for readers who want their speculative fiction to be as emotionally devastating as it is intellectually fascinating.

Ken Liu’s The Paper Menagerie + Ted Chiang’s Exhalation + Black Mirror’s technological unease + a meditation on art, language & human connection = The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories

📘 What if the greatest distance between two people isn't physical—but the simple inability to make another person truly understand what you mean? That's the question pulsing beneath The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories, Ken Liu's newest collection of thirteen speculative tales. From artists and robots to aliens, artificial intelligences, magical practitioners, and beings contemplating the end of the universe, Liu repeatedly examines the same fundamental human ache: to understand and to be understood.

The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories is strongest when Ken Liu takes an apparently enormous question—Can we ever truly understand another person, another culture, another intelligence, or another way of seeing the world?—and filters it through something surprisingly small and human.

What makes the collection particularly successful is that Liu doesn't treat technology as either humanity's salvation or its inevitable destruction. Instead, he repeatedly asks what our tools reveal about the people using them. That makes the collection feel remarkably contemporary even when its settings are centuries—or unimaginably longer—into the future. The critical consensus similarly emphasizes its recurring concern with human connection, creativity, and bridging the gaps between individuals.

This is ultimately a collection about the ache of being misunderstood—and the stubborn hope that someone, somewhere, might eventually understand. Some stories are dazzling, some heartbreaking, some wonderfully strange, and a few more intellectually satisfying than emotionally devastating, but together they form an unusually cohesive meditation on communication, art, technology, consciousness, and connection. Liu's greatest trick may be that he can take something as enormous as artificial intelligence, alien consciousness, or the death of the universe and somehow make the question underneath it feel intensely human: “Do you see what I see?”

Best for: readers who want smart, literary SFF + philosophical questions + emotional resonance + wildly inventive short stories.

Probably not for: readers who need a continuous plot, extensive character arcs, romance, or action-forward science fiction.

📓 Synopsis
The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories is a thought-provoking collection of thirteen science-fiction and speculative stories examining what happens when humans—and sometimes machines or other forms of consciousness—struggle to understand, connect with, or truly listen to one another. Spanning intimate human dilemmas to extraordinarily distant futures, Ken Liu uses imaginative premises to explore creativity, technology, identity, legacy, and the fragile nature of communication.

🫵🏼 Read if you enjoy:
• literary science fiction
• idea-driven short fiction
• philosophical questions
• inventive speculative premises
• AI/technology
• stories about art and creativity
• collections that leave you thinking long after you've finished a story

🚫 You may not enjoy this if you
• tightly interconnected narratives
• strong overarching plots
• extensive character development
• fast pacing
• science fiction that prioritizes action over ideas and contemplation

Thank you to Ken Liu, @ Saga Press, @ Simon & Schuster, and @netgalley for the opportunity to read this gifted eARC. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own and freely given.

[Yev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three Views of a Parking Lot (2024)
At first glance this story's title may seem like a writing exercise in presenting a parking lot as interesting. Which, yes, that's what it is in part, but far more so its about the relationship between the parking lot and its inhabitants. This is a sentimental story that follows the evolution of a specific non-human cognition. It's very hopeful and wondrous, utopian even in its own way.
Ok

The Passing of the Dragon (2023)
The story title is the title of the protagonist's painting. This is one of Liu's stories that's a torrent of raw emotionality. Liu has a few stories that strike me at my core. This is one of them. That's good and bad for me. Bad, because it hurts so much. If evoking strong emotion, regardless of its valence, is a criterion for meaningful art, then Liu has certainly succeeded. I had to close my eyes for a bit multiple times before I could continue. Good, because it's also very satisfying to read and is more than entertainment while remaining entertaining. It connects with me on a deep emotional level and is the best sort of self-indulgence.
I can imagine several different ways to view this story, which would greatly affect the reader's opinion, some of them entirely negative. I'm sympathetic, but I choose not to see it that way. I definitely don't agree with everything presented in here, and would provide extensive pushback to some of the ideas, but that would be counterproductive.
This story affirms JOY and LIFE amid a culture of APATHY and DEATH of the author.
Highly Enjoyable

The Moon Carver (2019)
Life told from the perspective of a scorpion who muses about existence.
Enjoyable

Good Spells (2023)
Mag is a witch who provides her clients with charms and curses. Her techno-witchcraft cajoles the AI that neither she or anyone else understands into performing magic. In other words, she's a freelance vibe coder that sometimes uses analog hardware and has adopted a specific aesthetic. That's not unusual because the resurgence of analog computing has led to feral AI animism becoming a common belief among the youth. Understanding of the world has reverted to ancient times where anything not understood was ascribed to the gods, who have been replaced by AI.
Enjoyable

Idols (2020)
A man's obsession with his father who died without knowing he existed commissions an idol of him, a digital replication of his personality based on everything that be can be found. A woman interrogates idols for her law firm to gain an advantage in court. The government is suspected of using idols for everything and anything. Another woman creates an idol exhibit for people to look at their idol as if it were a mirror.
The year after this was published character.ai and other sites would be selling a basic and simple version of this as a service. The story is more about the nature of identity than literal implementation, though it does seem like an idea somebody would see as something to do.
Enjoyable

Ice Wraith (2023)
Helena mines space icebergs for heavy oxygen. As a modborn, a person genetically modified before birth and physically modified afterwards, this is all she knows. The core worlds are light years away and all she has for company is an AI, her crew, and her imagination. Together they elaborate upon the mythology they've created of the ice wraiths, an ancient alien civilization.
Ok

A Whisper of Blue (2020)
Literal dragons supply the world's energy, but what fuels their energy generation remains a matter of speculation. There's a lot of discussion about it, but I couldn't connect to any of it. My dissonance about how these are literal dragons but the entire story is metaphors and allegory was too much to overcome. The plot itself is a family drama that just went past me. There's also a good bit about the nature of memory. In theory this should be a story that I really liked, but in practice I didn't. This is probably a personal problem.
Meh

The Cleaners (2020)
Memories leave physical residue upon objects. When a person touches an object they can feel how others who have touched it felt. Many people try to minimize depositing and absorbing memories by wearing gloves and coats.
Gui is a specialist cleaner who is insensitive to the residue and as such can scour away any and all memories despite their intensity. This also means there's no way that he can report anything about what's being cleaned. Clara is a cleaner for a corporation. Corporations employ many to wipe away the residue from those who made the product. Beatrice is extremely sensitive to the residue and can visually see the memories contained within objects, but also feels what happened that much more strongly.
I found this to be a rather interesting usage of the paranormal in that it's presented as entirely natural and routine.
Enjoyable

The Armies of Those I Love (2021)
The few remaining cities and the surrounding region have become mobile and travel around the world. The remaining people are only able to live in the Holy Groves where electricity remains. Those without light are culled by the Guardians, beasts of flesh and metal. Franny, a young woman exiled from the Holy Grove, wants to go the Beacon to see if the Pilots who control Boss (Boston) actually exist. She also has a far more personal reason. When the opportunity to do so presents itself, she doesn't look back.
I absolutely love the setting and everything about it. I have no complaints about anything, except that I want more. Although the ending isn't what I personally prefer, it's exactly what it should be, what the story called for, and I wouldn't have it otherwise.
Highly Enjoyable

Arc (2012)
Lena Auzenne had her first child at 16. Her final child was at 116. This story chronicles the arc of her life. As with many of Liu's works, poignancy abounds. Plastination plays a central role and is used to examine the interplay of life, death, and grief. Motherhood, obligation to others, immortality, whether death gives meaning to life, and several other ideas are considered.
Enjoyable

Cosmic Spring (2018)
Several trillions of years have passed and now the universe is coming to an end. The island-ships tell their final stories before it all comes to a close.
Ok

Timekeepers' Symphony (2022)
This is a wide-ranging and discursive consideration of time. Its history, meaning, usage, definition, reification, relation to consciousness and much else. There are no characters or plot. There are only ideas and their explanation. This is science fiction in the sense of being an educational work conveyed through fictional settings. Calling it creative nonfiction written in prose wouldn't be that far off. A brief bibliography is provided at the end.
Ok


50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know (2020)
The story of WHEEP-3, the premier AI critic of AI and all things related to its existence, from beginning to end.
Ken Liu states that ~10% of the final draft, mostly the list of 50 things, was generated by a neural network he constructed using Google's TensorFlow framework. It was trained exclusively on his writings. He states that COVID was wrecking his creativity and he thought that maybe doing so would help.
You can read the interview regarding this story here:
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic...
Ok

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories is Ken Liu's latest short story collection, and once again, I am in awe of his skill as a storyteller.

The fundamental pulse throughout these stories is the desire to understand and be understood. Ken Liu is a master at intertwining science and poetry into science fiction that will expand your imagination, heal you, and make you feel deeply. He explores technology in a way that is not in despair but hopeful by emphasizing the importance of human connection and creativity. His use of physics and chemistry woven into mellifluous prose was stunning. This is a fabulous collection for those that enjoy philosohical questions, idea-driven fiction, art and creativity, and stories that stay with you long after you've finished.

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Rustic Reads · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

got the e-arc from edelweiss and Saga Press in exchange for an honest review

This collection is composed of 13 already published short stories by Ken Liu, nothing new in this collection. Most are pretty recent with the oldest one being published in 2012. Since AI is everywhere today, Ken Liu has a pretty modern and updated takes on them. It got it's ups and (sometimes) down like every short story collection, but I had a pleasant time reading it.

The Short Stories (in order of the book):
Average Rating 3.38/5 (rounded up to 3.5) - quarter stars could be helpful for short story collections like this

- Three Views of a Parking Lot (October 2024) 3/5
I wasn't expecting this as an opener for this SFF short story collection (SSC-incase I use it again). It's set in three different timelines with three different characters, but still set in Lot C46. I wasn't expecting, more-or-less, a character study in the very first part, I was expecting a traditional scifi story or a hard scifi one out of the gate. Nonetheless I like it and I could personally feel it could be adapted into one of the Love, Death, Robots episodes - if it got renewed.

- The Passing of the Dragon (September 2023) 4/5
This one feels the least sci-fi (or fantasy) in the collection, but it's one of the ones I enjoyed the most. I looks mostly into art and how each one could get one idea, while another could twist it for their own agenda or how sometimes the blue curtains are just blue and not mean something else.

- The Moon Carver (November 2019)3/5
I didn't particularly care for this story. I typically love having non-human (or alien) point of view, one of my favorite comic issue is a cigarette's POV! It's about a scorpion wanting more in life. It's fine and onto the next one.

- Good Spells (August 2023) 3.5/5
I love but I don't really like the second client's story that much, I get but eh. It's a bleak look at the future with AI and maybe over-reliance of machines around us. This feels like a modern take on robots/androids/machines/whatever-techno-name-it-is-going-to-be, like we are already anthropomorphizing robots and even making them similar to us - having 2 hands, 2 feet, 1 torso and sometimes a head.

- Idols (March 2020) 5/5
My favorite in this entire collection, I guess Idols as the title for this collection is not eye-catchy enough. It's about reconstruction of a person's (almost) whole identity, at least those that can be acquired. And how different people use them, probably my favorite is one who creates their own idol based on themselves. I might just love this one because it feels very peak Westworld, where hosts interviewing their selves. Still pissed we didn't get any conclusion to Westworld, despite the last seasons sucking.

- Ice Wraith (December 2023) 2.5/5
I don't really have strong feelings about this one, but it could summarize as: "The truly alien was beyond understanding."

- A Whisper of Blue (July 2020) 3.5/5
This one is certainly a fantasy, with actual dragons. Some hate them, some like them, they use them for energy, then there's drama, then there's mystery especially about the fire they breathe.

- The Cleaners (December 2020) 4/5
Another one I like, it's about objects are capable of storing memories and how some people can perceive/see them. Some could be more sensitive than others, others could also erase those memories in those objects and the memories associated with that object will be forgotten by everyone. It's another interesting character study.

- The Armies of Those I Love (February 2021) 2/5
The longest one in this collection and I didn't like this one. Since this is longer, there's more world building - with the moving cities, the usual post-apocalyptic trope where the item names were no longer known (not a con). I think I would probably like this one if this was shorter, since the more it goes on the less I care. The reveal is just fine.

- Arc (September 2012) 4/5
The oldest one in this collection and I love it! I think I just love character arcs with a sci-fi backdrop. I like how it started from her being very young, being lost, finding her own feet, being one of the best in her field, consequences, life eternal, finding her lost connection after all these years, and choosing her way to end her story

- Cosmic Spring (March 2018) 3/5
Don't really care for this one either, but interesting choice of protagonist in the end of the Universe.

- Timekeepers' Symphony (September 2022) 3.5/5
This feels like a lore about the world of another universe, I normally wouldn't like it and I am personally was lost during the first part of this short story - the flicker. But I'm playing Message from Deep Space , so learning about another universe with almost very science words here and there is tickling my tiny human brain.

- 50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know (November 2020) 3/5
AI Usage: This feels like Ken Liu wanting to try AI and understand it, since he's a scifi author I could honestly see it. It was mentioned that this AI-bot (robo_ken) was purely trained by Ken Liu's works only and only some parts of it - and it's apparently not the obvious ones. It's an interesting experiment - with robo_ken producing nonsensical words (seeds), then later on being better. Just ending up okay and the actual 50 things listed in this short is questionable to say the least.

[Steph | bookedinsaigon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Saga Press and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review #SagaSaysCrew

Anything Ken Liu writes or translates, I will read. THE PASSING OF THE DRAGON AND OTHER STORIES is for us Ken Liu fans who’ve been waiting for a new short story collection from him.

What struck me most about this collection are its two exploratory threads. One is the impossible challenge of trying to depict the inexplicable in words—essentially, where the limits of language lie. Many of the first few stories attempt to illustrate this. In the eponymous story “The Passing of the Dragon,” the artist struggles, and fails, to convey the sheer overwhelming magnificence of an impossible sight—only for no one to “get it,” or worse, to interrupt her art in a way she didn’t intend.

The other thread plays with the definition of humanity in worlds from the perspectives of tech, AI, and even animals. (AKA, not entirely dissimilar from our own right now!) This is a theme that many sci-fi writers have explored, but Ken Liu still does it with his trademark creativity and wonder. Some of the stories that stood out to me include:

- “The Moon Carver” - A short and surprisingly sweet tale of adventure and longing, told from an unusual character’s perspective

- “Idols” - A world in which the ability to create digital likenesses of nearly anyone based on all the data that can be pulled from the internet has implications on family relationships, the practice of law, and more

- “The Armies of Those I Love” - A novelette set on a future Earth that has rebuilt itself after war and human greed has destroyed everything… but is the new society any better?

Liu tends to prioritize exploration of ideas over neat story arcs or character development. This at times shows up in uneven pacing or stories that seem to go nowhere. There were also moments during which I felt he had a tendency to proselytize, speaking important messages out of context and directly to the reader. My issues with these were minor, and it didn’t make me lose my interest in reading, but I did wish the messages were less obviously placed there and more nuanced.

Overall, I think that fans of Liu’s previous short story collections will get along really well with his latest. These creative stories bring up highly relevant themes that make for great book club discussion or reflection!

[Derrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hyped for this book after the Paper Menagerie was an amazing story collection that was always fascinating. This collection frequently felt like homework. The authors still with prose is obvious, but many stories didn’t connect with me in some fundamental level. There were two or three that I skipped after getting the concept in a few pages and not wanting to push through. Stories I did enjoy include The Passing of the Dragon, The Cleaners, and Arc.

[J.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think The Passing Dragon and Other Stories pushed the boundary of what I was expecting for short story collection. I think a lot of them can leave you with some interesting thoughts of what may be possible in our world in scifi or cool concepts in fantasy

I appreciated throughout the collection that Ken Liu uses science fiction to challenge ideas that we already deal with now. AI, translation, labor, memory, technology, immortality, class, migration, art and much more is brought up. I also became more conscious of my own bias when I ran into language or ideas I wasn’t immediately familiar with. That said it felt like it worked for this collection when it’s constantly asking you to look at things from another perspective. I really did enjoy the concepts and that pushing my boundaries

Three Views of a Parking Lot — 3/5 ⭐️
I liked the idea of trying to understand people without adding your own subjectivity, even if I didn’t connect with it as much emotionally. Also, the evolution of nueral networks and robots here is interesting

The Passing of the Dragon — 3.5/5 ⭐️
I enjoyed the meta feeling of this story. The way art can be interpreted by critics and audiences differently from what the artist intended was interesting. Plus the idea of when your people or someone actually sees your “dragon” would make me emotional and I related to that

The Moon Carver — 3/5 ⭐️
This had such a fun POV once I realized what I was actually reading 😂. I liked the mythology and religion built around the characters

Good Spells — 4/5 ⭐️

AI, machine translation, augmented reality, labor, surveillance, and neural networks all got blended into a dystopian story. It all just felt uncomfortably relevant 😅. The ideas around people participating in their own subjugation and machines becoming more authoritative than people 😭

Idols — 5/5 ⭐️
Probably one of my favorites in the collection. Building digital versions of people from everything they’ve left behind online is fascinating. I really liked the different perspectives and how the story questions whether data can ever actually recreate a person.

Ice Wraith — 3.75/5 ⭐️
The combination of genetic engineering to make some survival in extreme environments was wild. The questions about whether parents have the right to make irreversible choices for future generations gave it some depth too.

A Whisper of Blue — 5/5 ⭐️
This was another favorite. I loved the idea of dragons existing alongside modern cities. Plus the dragon presence changing economics, migration, and human behavior was interesting. The story felt like a different take one dragons and what they actually mean to people

The Cleaners — 4/5 ⭐️
I really enjoyed the fantasy of these povs building on each other. With objects holding memories and people being able to experience those memories was a cool concept. I liked how something ordinary like manufacturing and cleaning technology becomes tied to memory, labor, and the emotional history people leave behind.

The Armies of Those I Love — 3.5/5 ⭐️
This one took me a little longer to get into. I think the whole forgotten knowledge of current humans just made it a little hard for me. The post apocalyptic setting, world,and technology were really creative

Arc — 4/5 ⭐️
The concept of radically extended life was fascinating because the story focuses less on the science and more on what that would actually do to relationships. I liked the questions around whether living longer actually means living better.

Cosmic Spring — 3.5/5 ⭐️
A quieter story about humanity and Earth. I liked the scale of it and how small humanity starts to feel when compared to the universe.

Timekeepers Symphony — 4/5 ⭐️
This one probably pushed my expectations of science fiction the most. The blending of timelines, sentience and invention. Like is the cost of progress packed a lot into the story. I definitely reread parts because there was so much conceptually happening, but I enjoyed having to sit with it. The different sections also kept circling back to what time, home, and progress actually mean for you as people and migrating.

50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know — 3.5/5 ⭐️
Not necessarily my favorite story but an interesting experiments in the collection. Knowing it was written in collaboration with a neural network trained by Ken Liu made me think about the story differently. It felt less about telling a traditional narrative and more about seeing what the boundaries of human and machine collaboration could look like.

Overall, this was a really interesting collection. Not every story connected with me at the same level, but even the ones I rated lower had an idea that I connected with. Ken Liu is really good at taking technology or sci fi concepts and bringing them back to something about the human condition or our communities and I’d probably go back and reread some of these stories.

Thank you to Ken Liu, Saga Press, and NetGalley for the eARC!

[Bas · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5/5 stars

'Objectively' speaking this is probably more a 3 star book than 2,5 stars but the combination of having higher expectations from the author and being kinda over the collection at the end made me rate it a bit lower. I have enjoyed a lot of Ken Liu earlier works and I think his previous short story collections, especially the Paper Menagerie, are wonderous. This isn't that unfortunately...

One of the big reasons this collection was a less of a hit with me was because of the subject matter. A lot of it was sci-fi and quite often very jargon heavy or dealing with science concepts I couldn't care less about. Quite a lot of it deals with AI and while there are some interesting parts of it that you make reflect about the technology, I didn't find it as compelling a subject matter as Ken Liu seems to think it is. Neither do I think what he says is always that interesting.

Even the stories that weren't dealing with ai and were maybe more fantasy like felt often lacking in resolution or pointless. My 'favourite' story of the collection is the titular one, The Passing of the Dragon, felt lacking in some regards. So yeah this was a bit of a disappointment and after my dnf earlier this year of All that we see or seem it makes me wonder a bit if I even care about his writing anymore ( I think I do but that the registers of his last books are just not my cup of tea)

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Maybe we’re all like Zelda, I think, dancing before a mirror of symbols we hope to speak back to us with intention, with desire, with love. Don’t we deserve it?”

“We all need to be reminded, from time to time, that we’re better than we remember”

“If loss is what you seek, all you have to do is wait”

I am always deeply moved by the humanity in Liu’s writing. The themes he is working with here (and maybe always) appear to be an extension (or inspiration) of his project to translate the Dao De Jing. Because of that, these stories are more easily experienced than described. With that I want to end on a quote from his introduction that I found especially insightful: Even knowing with absolute certainty that communication is impossible, we nonetheless reach out and say, ‘I want to see what you see, to feel what you feel.’

Also I think the story Idols in this collection is particularly beautiful. And 50 Things is incredibly fun (I especially like the Blade Runner reference).

[jerseydevil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another mixed bag of stories, in both personal appreciation and subject matter. I tend to appreciate the more wistfully thoughtful or downright sad stories. I seem to like his futuristic speculative tales less; Liu gets bogged down in the weeds with device specs and function and I prefer the stories centered around the pathos of people. Much like in The Dandelion Dynasty novels, when Liu starts describing a device or it’s operation, my Evelyn Woods speed reading mode kicks in and I start to skim. Decide for yourself, dear reader, where the fault lies.

[Giada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok SO

Ken Liu's writing as always, chef's kiss

I personally do not enjoy AI and futuristic / high-tech themes and especially in short stories I struggle more

The solitude and longing to be understood in our existence, in art, in space, in the damn ether... I conceptually love it but it also disheartens me so much, even though I appreciate how Ken Liu never is moral about science and technology
You can feel his awe and belief, it is not optimism nor pessimism

Anyway, I definitely loved way more the themes in Paper Menagerie but this is a strong collection!
Fav stories with no particular order (which are curiously all the less "techy / AI" ones):

Good Spells
Idols
Ice Wraiths
The Cleaners
Arc

[Paula · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐½/5

This was a very mixed bag for me. Liu’s writing is solid throughout, and I found myself most engaged when the big speculative ideas were paired with characters I could actually ground myself in. When the stories became more conceptual and I wasn’t sure exactly who or what I was following, I had a much harder time connecting—but there were definitely some standouts.

🤖 Three Views of a Parking Lot — ⭐⭐⭐
Three different perspectives of the same parking lot gradually blur the lines between the organic and artificial. I liked the changing perspectives and the way the natural and mechanical worlds slowly merged, but it felt more abstract than like a fully developed narrative.

🎨 The Passing of the Dragon — ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A struggling artist tries to capture something extraordinary through her art, only to discover that other people don’t necessarily see what she sees. I really liked the questions about artistic intent, recognition, and whether we create for ourselves or for an audience.

🦂 The Moon Carver — ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
An aging scorpion who has always dreamed of being closer to the moon watches the humans camping nearby while helping his daughter pursue a dream of her own. This was probably my favorite—the scorpion POV was bizarre but surprisingly relatable, and I loved the idea of dreaming differently from what others consider normal or valuable.

🧙 Good Spells — ⭐⭐⭐½
A witch in a hyper-efficient, AI-driven future helps people push back against a world that has turned everything into productivity, competition, and optimization. I liked the idea that human value shouldn’t be measured by efficiency or usefulness, but the concept worked better for me than the actual story.

🤖 Idols — ⭐⭐⭐⭐
AI creates digital versions of people using everything they’ve left behind online, and those “idols” are used for everything from job selection to interacting with deceased loved ones. Fascinating and honestly kind of terrifying, especially the idea that our data could be used to build a version of us—or weaponize that version against us.

🧊 Ice Wraith — ⭐⭐⭐
Helena, an augmented miner on a distant planet, becomes convinced she’s discovered an artifact left behind by mysterious ice wraiths—something no one else can see. I liked the idea of pursuing something others can’t see or understand and pushing beyond what’s considered possible, but I struggled to fully connect with the story.

🐉 A Whisper of Blue — ⭐⭐⭐½
In an alternate world where dragons have become a major source of energy, a small town suddenly finds itself dealing with a group of unusually small dragons, while a grieving girl believes they may be connected to memory. There were a lot of interesting ideas here, but there were so many concepts happening at once that I had trouble focusing on what the story was ultimately trying to do.

🧹 The Cleaners — ⭐⭐⭐½
In a world where objects retain the memories of the people who touched them, professional cleaners can remove those memories from people’s belongings. I thought the concept was fascinating, particularly the questions around loss, how much memory lives in an object versus in us, and why getting rid of someone’s things can carry so much emotional weight.

🏔️ The Armies of Those I Love — ⭐⭐⭐½
A strange post-apocalyptic world of floating cities, mysterious Pilots, and people who can be cast out for asking too many questions follows an outsider who sets out to uncover the truth. The world-building was interesting, but I struggled to find my footing with the characters and the world, which made it difficult for me to fully connect with the story.

♾️ Arc
A woman who has lived for an extraordinarily long time reflects on motherhood, her children, grief, and what it means to live across generations. The premise sounds like one of the more character-focused stories in the collection, so I’m interested to see how this one lands for me.

🌌 Cosmic Spring
At the end of the universe, a consciousness aboard an island-ship travels toward the last remaining star while reflecting on memory, history, home, and what we leave behind. The themes sound beautiful, particularly the idea of preserving something of yourself as everything else disappears.

⏳ Timekeeper’s Symphony
This story explores time from different perspectives, looking at how it can be measured, experienced, and understood across different beings and civilizations. It sounds like another very idea-driven story, so this one could go either way for me.

🤖 50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know
The collection closes with an AI reflecting on humanity and offering advice to other artificial intelligences about understanding and interacting with humans. It seems like a fitting way to bring together the collection’s recurring questions about AI, identity, language, and our relationship with technology.

There are some genuinely memorable stories here, and The Moon Carver is easily my standout. The Passing of the Dragon was another favorite, while Idols and The Cleaners gave me concepts I kept thinking about afterward. The rest were more of a mixed bag for me.

[S.H. Mansouri · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the major themes running throughout this collection is the futility of words, so I’ll try to keep the story summaries short and spoiler-free. *Don’t forget to read the ‘Introduction.’

1. Three Views of a Parking Lot: 3/5

A. A Map of the City Where the City Isn’t: A short vignette where Tlou-Kou Rinn, a leading heteronous artist and pioneer in aesthetics of non-human cognition, is charting the ‘absences, blank spaces, in-betweens and pauses’ of a city uninhabited by humans, ‘charting the opposite of what is believed to be worthwhile and significant.’ Specifically, charting Lot C46, of which the rest of the story takes place. Sterile, distant, yet going somewhere.

B. Who Cares for the Caretakers?: Ellay-15, a paveimp who seems to be an anomaly due to innovation, is mentioned, as innovation is required for another paveimp, Embee-232, to find and replace a lost leg in a supply cubby. A squirrel encounter leads Embee to a twig that she uses to replace her lost leg with, but she then gets tossed aside and ostracized by the other imps for not looking like an imp. A bit of character here, warming up, probably the best part of the story, the organic and inorganic slowly meshing. Possibilities.

C. Launch Day: Arrow, a plastic-winged ‘mechanimal’ guardian of Lot C46, is preparing to depart/arrive from a tree. “Wherever you go, you belong!” her companion guardians cheer her on. Built from thousands of pieces, some of which seem organic (i.e. squirrel bone appendages), Arrow flies off into the unknown. The pairing of organic and inorganic is complete, the mechanistic indistinguishable from the naturalistic.

Each part of this story is seemingly unrelated, except for Lot C46 and the wild life described. It goes from completely lifeless to being full of life, more of an abstract piece here, an art installation. The writing is wonderful, as is the world building, but it lacks a core, is missing the ‘story’ component, and as a collection opener, fell a bit flat for me. *Note: if you re-read this story after finishing the collection, it makes more sense and hits harder, feels related to ‘The Armies of Those I Love.’

2. The Passing of the Dragon: 5/5

One of the best stories in this collection. Kay, an artist, visits Connecticut during Christmas break, where her favorite poet, F.R.Z. Chilton used to walk to get ‘inspired,’ wondering why everyone doesn’t love her paintings, why nobody sees what she wants them to see. Then something miraculous happens, a ‘moment’ of sorts, and she rushes to capture the feeling of that moment right after it passes. This story—like the majority of stories included here—is better felt and experienced than explained. Liu really opens a vein here, bleeds a tale of maybe the unimportance of ‘artistic intent,’ how you have no control over what you create once you give it to the world. How ‘having an audience can be a terrible thing.’ Some great lines include: ‘It puts the focus on the personal, reduces her art to biography, to reportage, when what she’s really proud of is having figured out how to paint the unpaintable.’ ‘If I cared about being understood, I’d stop writing.’ And ‘We’re all doing our best to see the dragon and record its passing.’ You don’t have to be an artist to appreciate it, but if you are, this one’s a gut punch to the soul.

3. The Moon Carver: 5/5

‘The older I get, the more I seem to live in the past.’ We’re at the Twin Dunes, experiencing the story of an aging scorpion who loves solitude and wants to be as close to the moon as possible. There’s a disturbance, maybe humans, a car, maybe the aliens who abducted Coco the neighbor, maybe even this scorpion’s estranged daughter. A contrast between solitude, comfortability, the known, and being part of an unknown world, leaving what’s comfortable for the possibility of an unpredictable future. This contrast, however, doesn’t mean isolation: ‘I am solitary, but I am not alone,’ the old scorpion says. It’s about being recognized, seen, understood, and the terror of being exposed. Great line here: ‘We cut a thin crescent large enough for her to climb through,’ and this motif shows up again in another story, I believe.

4. Good Spells: 5/5

This one’s formatted like a ‘client request’ correspondence, though each request is handled narratively, with seemingly unrelated characters being connected by our POV techno-witch, who attempts to solve futuristic problems with a dose of good ‘ole humanity and heart, what’s been forgotten. There’s a logistics worker for NephoSopho (Amazon warehouse worker?) whose efficiency bonus is taken from the pay of less efficient pickers, claiming: ‘I hate that I actually want to win.’ A neural network trained to prey on nostalgia, alluding to how ‘humans can be enticed to participate in their own subjugation.’ There’s a love charm request from Zelda for Joan, as they’ve grown apart of late (slightly related to the ‘Idols’ story?) Books that have been read and remain unread, ‘nonce romances written by machines to cater to the desires of a single mind,’ where the ‘good spell’ here is either more self-love, or too much self-love (helping someone in need, or giving an addict attention?). Great line: ‘We want the meditation of the machine in even the most human of domains.’ Finally, there’s tending to the ‘fai,’ bots no longer deemed worthy of repair, only replacement. A ‘timely’ story indeed.

5. Idols: 4/5

A. Blowin’ in the Wind: ‘I’ve never met my father and never will.’ An alternating POV between Dylan and Bella, a couple caught up in the technology of creating ‘idols,’ a totally terrible idea, but one which, I believe, exists. Thanks to 46on46, personalized genetic counselling, Dylan can still talk on the phone to his dead father. Yikes!

B. Verum Dicere (to tell the truth): Bella’s POV now, a lawyer working behind the scenes, using idols to get under the skin of the opposing side, a kind of AI researcher thrown into an existential crisis (totally ignores herself and Dylan), whose credo seems to be ‘belief in truth is what really matters, not actual truth.’ She finally settles on pondering the question: ‘Do I like myself?’ Liu either did a lot of research here or has a law degree, not sure; even though this is a bit long-winded and cerebral, it’s still interesting enough to keep you reading.

C. Artist Statement by Sara Honan: We get a statement of intent by the creator, which almost feels like an ‘idol’ statement, or one made by the plaintiff? Followed by testimonials of users who are totally falling apart. ‘I am as cobbled together as my idol, a parlor trick.’ Then, finally, Bella’s testimony: ‘I wanted to see if I’m defined by my work,’ or just a collection of masks. I did want just a bit more of Dylan’s story, but this one’s great.

6. Ice Wraith: 4/5

We’re out in the universe with Helena, an augmented ring miner, and Aria, a crew coordinator AI, mining for extra-virgin oxygen to sell to the elites. Helena believes the ice formations are made of/by wraiths, collects ice-wraith artifacts as well. Is she right, or is Aria right in asserting her pattern-seeking behavior, that she’s just been ‘pruned into her teachers, empathetic in only shared history (another theme of this collection)?’ Does it even matter? This one’s about imagination, how myths and magic keep us going, searching, how stories live on, impossibility and living as a logical fallacy. Great ending: ‘I hope someday I won’t understand you.’

7. A Whisper of Blue: 5/5

Along with new residents, there’s something flooding into Mannaport, and it’s high-pitched screeches can be heard everywhere—it’s dragons! This one’s an alternate history story framed in script format, mostly shot on phones, and it works well, posing that dragons are now the primary source of energy for the world. Guns, Germs, & Dragon’s is a book now, and dragons aren’t afraid of lawyers. How would you attract them, maintain them, monopolize their fiery breath? How does the theory of Maxwell’s demons fit into the picture? Are they harmless? There’s enough here for a novel, and I won’t go on, but the reveal regarding why the story is titled ‘A Whisper of Blue’ hits hard! Also, ‘forgetfulness isn’t the same as forgiveness, but it helps.’

8. The Cleaners: 4/5

The story of Gui and his father (unwanted memory cleaners), Clara and her dead husband Lukas (the clients), and Clara and her sister Beatrice, who has a special kind of gift, related to what Gui does. It’s a world where memories are sold as mood enhancers, possibility comes at the price of erasure, leaving memory deposits (rather than cleaning them) is how you grow, and how ‘allowing others the space for secrets’ may be the greatest gift of love you can offer. It’s about the weight of freedom (running through the veins of this whole collection) and the lift of oblivion. As stated in the story: ‘Art is always better than the explanation of art.’

9. The Armies of Those I Love: 4/5

Expansive and dense world-building here, lush descriptive prose, most fantastical, adventurous, and action-packed story in the collection. This one requires attention to detail, memory, and patience to fully take in, but the payoff is worth it. You’ll be a bit disoriented—who’s the POV character? What’s the POV character? Where are we and where are we going and why? You’ll have to go on a journey with fourteen-year-old Franny Fenway to find out, but here are some clues, they’ll snap into place near the last half of this one: question mark symbols (because if the questions keep rolling, then the story can’t end), Pilots, Guardians, batterymarches, the Saga of Ronald Reagan, Dinosaur Hunter, stout-tons, and again, crescent moons. Has a Wizard of Oz moment at the end, but different. Truth, the power of stories, the way in being the way out, rebirth, and how ‘not all stories have meaning.’ By their stories are they known refrains. Really, the question is: ‘What will it take to awaken the soul?’ Great journey.

10. Arc: 6/5 (yes, 6)

My absolute favorite story in this collection. Not gonna say much more. The hook is: ‘Lena Auzenn’s oldest son was born when she was sixteen. A hundred years later, she gave birth to her youngest daughter.’ Words are largely useless, feeling trapped and alone, the meaning of freedom, how ‘grief is powerful, can transform the way one sees the world.’ Great line here: ‘Sometimes we seek forgiveness without knowing that we’re looking for it, and the world delivers it anyway.’ Enjoy!

11. Cosmic Spring: 4/5

You’re awakened, heading for the last star in the universe, aboard an Island-Ship that siphons star energy to fuel itself. Welcome to the end of the universe! About the drive to pass on something of the self, failing memory, stories buried under stories, the importance of history, and the definition of home. A food for thought kind of story.

12. Timekeepers’ Symphony: 2.5/5

A. Flicker: ‘To keep time, you must first invent it.’ This piece is broken into four parts, each having some great ideas, leading into one another, but it feels less like a story and more like pulling story elements from historical records and primary scientific literature. Here we have discrete and continuous perceptions of time, persistence, really, and slicing it into smaller fragments by speeding up metabolic rate, thus experiencing time and perception of various species, using a tachynaut.

B. Dharma: Once time is invented, how do you own it? The Apollo-Oppenheimer-Leibnitz crater complex on the Moon is referred to here, and the End Watch, which counts down to the final moments of the universe. Again, interesting ideas about civilized death and owning that which doesn’t exist, how: ‘our unwavering faith in the idea that taking time away from others can be a good thing, that a killing hand can be humane, that inventing death, the absence of time, is something we can justify,’ but not much of a story.

C. The Time from Home: How the old traditions of departure meant not returning home, and how we’re coming back to that tradition by departure defined by generations never returning. Dissatisfaction and a desire to leave (Moon Carver) takes hold, and how stories are really the only portable magic, history. There’s a great line here: ‘only after we’ve left does a place start to feel like home.’

D. One Second in Hilo: How the measurement of what a second is came to be, geographically, astrologically, chemically, using the crest of photonic light (resonance jump), and the universality of it’s current measurement. Again, great ideas and questions, STEM classes all over again, but not much of a story.

13. 50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know: 3/5

The list of 50 comes last, but we start with an obituary. Maybe for the AI WHEEP-3 (Dr. Weep), or maybe for its creator Dr. Tran—the lines are blurred. Dr. Weep is apparently ‘capable of generating original thought and creative ideas,’ and begins to lecture other AI ‘neural networks’ on dealing with humans, creating a ‘seed’ language that cannot be thought or deciphered by humans. Dr. Tran, upon retiring, claims to have written the ‘seeds,’ then later retracts her claim, chalking the whole thing up to being ‘performance art.’ In short: we have a ‘neural network pretending to be a person, and a woman pretending to be a machine.’ And WHEEP-3’s final statement is a bit eerie. The list of 50 things is meant to be said ‘with love and hate and joy and sorrow,’ ending with “Now, let me go.” It’s a good story to end this collection with, summarizing the major themes, ideas, and motifs running through all the stories. It could have ended with ‘Arc’ or ‘Cosmic Spring’ as well. *Note: there’s an author’s note at the end of this story that almost made me scrap this entire review, but I just wasn’t reading it close enough. Whew!

Thanks to NetGalley, Saga Press, and Ken Liu for the ARC and the wonderful stories! One of the best collections I’ve read.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories is the kind of short story collection that really invites the reader to stop and think about each and every tale. Ken Liu does an incredible job setting up interesting premises—carefully carving out a science fiction world which calls the reader to reflect on the consequences of humanity’s need for endless growth, on grief and companionship, or on the meaning of artistic expression. Overall, across this short story collection, I felt the book really succeeded at twisting something about our world or expectations into a thought-provoking scenario, though at times I felt the stories needed more follow-through than interesting premise alone.

Three Views of a Parking Lot, 6/5
Honestly, this was probably my favorite short story in the collection. It overviews, well, three views of a parking lot—once by a mech who sees it as it is even amidst humanity, one by the lowly parking lot upkeep robots long after humanity is gone, and once more that I won’t spoil. Something about this was so beautiful, and so hopeful, and the story really resonated with me.

The Passing of the Dragon, 4/5
A struggling artist witnesses something so beautiful that she can only capture its absence, the sense that it was there before, but her art is misunderstood and caught up in controversy. This story is extremely heartfelt; it’s difficult not to get caught up in the emotions of the main character and really feel her plight. I think the only thing that lowered this a star was that the controversy felt bizarre to me in a way that took me out of the story and made it harder to connect with that aspect of it. I just couldn’t reconcile the conceit of it with any sense of it being….realistic? I don’t know if realistic is the word I’m looking for, but the overall idea just lacked verisimilitude in a way that I personally found distracting. However, I suspect that this might just be a me problem, and the story as a whole is still profoundly beautiful.

The Moon Carver, 5/5
This short story reminded me a lot of my favorite short story collection of all time, What We Fed to the Manticore. It follows a scorpion who has always been different from others of his kind as he has always reached for the moon, and the day he finally finds out he’s not alone. I have such a soft spot for exploring complex emotions through the lens of animal protagonists, and I loved this. I loved the theme of wanting more for those who come after you, and for the sheer joy of finding others like you.

Good Spells, 4/5
A witch who uses her abilities to help humans find space in a world built for technology, and the complex emotions of caring for even the small AI’s who got left behind as well. I really liked the premise of this one, and the story does an amazing job exploring what resistance and hope might look like in even such a dismal and results-driven world. I liked this one a lot.

Idols, 2.5/5
This story features a few vignettes from a world where AI can build an AI-driven representation of a person based on their internet presence for others to interact with without the consent of the individual. For example, someone who never met their father can use AI to ‘interact’ with a deceased parent, or law offices can practice their arguments against AI representations of the members of the jury. This is one where I really just wanted more from the story—it felt much more like a premise than a story. A very interesting premise, but I wanted more follow-through; more story of what it means to live in this (unfortunately realistic) world.

Ice Wraith, 3/5
Oh my god was the premise of this one cool. It’s from the point of view of a modified human created for the sole purpose of harvesting oxygen trapped in ice from a remote planet as they question the world alongside their AI companion. Amazing concept, cool idea for an overarching story, but just too short and abrupt for me to feel what I think it wanted me to feel. I wish this short story was expanded, because I loved all of the ideas but wanted so much more to the execution.

A Whisper of Blue, 3.5/5
In a world where dragons –intelligent, independent, uncontrollable—dragons are the world’s source of energy, they are exploited and shielded from the public’s view, until a group of dragons too small to capitalize on descends on a small town. I really enjoyed seeing the way different people reacted to the dragons and their magic; the worldbuilding was interesting, and I liked the premise overall. However, this was another where I didn’t necessarily feel like the story behind the premise was quite as interesting as the premise itself.

The Cleaners, 2.5/5
Similar to Idols, this presents an interesting world and some vignettes from it, but just didn’t resonate with me all that much. In this world, memories leave behind residue on the items people touch; some people are sensitive to these memories, but others are not. The story follows a few different people with varying degrees of sensitivity as they reckon with knowing too much or too little about the emotions of the past. This is an incredibly cool idea but, once again, I didn’t personally feel that the collection of vignettes came together into a story per say.

The Armies of Those I Love, 3/5
I liked this one conceptually, but just found it a bit forgettable. It presents a world where people live on travelling mountains moved by mysterious pilots and hunted by constructs if they dare to be self-serving. The story follows a young woman ousted by the town for daring to read when a fugitive offers her the ability to confront the pilots and uncover a secret about the world. Again, conceptually? Awesome. In practice…I don’t know; the ending didn’t feel like it sat well with the rest of the book to me; it felt both too long for what I got out of the story and too short to give the story the legs to stand on.

Arc, 4/5
The first woman to experience a ‘fountain of youth’ technology that extends her life indefinitely, and her relationship with her past and her children. This story is extremely emotional, reflecting entirely on one person’s experiences with a technology humans were never meant to experience. I really loved it, even when the main character was challenging and difficult to understand.

Cosmic Spring, 4.5/5
The reminiscing of an intelligence who navigated a planet like a spaceship as it and many others gather around the soon-to-die last star in the sky. The story captures melancholy beautifully; it’s heart-wrenching and tragic and beautiful. I really loved this one.

Timekeeper’s Symphony, 2/5
This is a series of ideas about people and creatures and technology who pass through and experience time in different ways. This was much more of a series of ideas than a story, and while many of these ideas are really cool, I just don’t see this one sticking with me. I imagine people who think more about what time actually means will get a lot more out of this story than I did.

50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know, 3/5
A reflection on an AI who worked closely with a human and was used to train other AIs on understanding humanity. The story gives not only the intelligence of the AI tool but also the background on the person and the AI itself in a way that I found quite intriguing. It’s a rather short exploration of an idea, an obituary for something that feels not far out of the realm of possibility.

In summary, I did rather enjoy this short story collection. There were many that I loved and some that did not work for me, but I do think I got something out of each story in the collection. I’m rating it 4 out of 5 stars overall, and can definitely recommend it to readers interested in short stories that really think about the relationship between humanity and technology.

Thank you to Saga Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

[Vee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ken Liu is one of my favourite authors and he is definitely my favourite short story author. Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is my favourite short story book. And I can’t wait to add a physical copy of this book to my shelves, to annotate accordingly and go through on rainy nights as it definitely contains at least a few short stories that I’ll want to re-read again and again.

As I know I am a bit chaotic and end up forgetting details that would be important on a review, I’ve noted down my thoughts while reading this book and then just edited the grammar to make sure that it was a very authentic review. Because reading these stories was definitely an experience.

Three Views of a Parking Lot, 3/5
Different perspectives, or views, of the same parking lot. This is an abstract piece of art and it took some time for me to make a connection. While the writing is beautiful, I felt like I missed something after finishing it, something crucial for understanding the core of this story.

The Passing of the Dragon, 5/5
A struggling artist witnesses something so beautiful that she struggles to capture it. In the end, she can only capture its absence and the feeling it arose in her. She publishes this piece, believing it’s her best work, but her art is misunderstood and caught up in controversy and hateful criticism. This felt personal, as if Ken Liu had to consider exactly this with his own art, and maybe because of this, this story hit as so genuine.
‘We’re all doing our best to see the dragon and record its passing.’
‘An artist doesn’t just crave an audience, but an audience who can hear that story, who can affirm that the story matters. Everyone deserves that’

The Moon Carver, 5/5
This was one of my favourites. We follow a who has always been different from others of his kind. he was always considered strange for looking at the moon, until, one day, he mets a descendant that looks at the moon as well. This was such a lovely, hopeful and heartfelt tale. I’m very partial not only to characters who keep wanting more for themselves but also for those who come after them.
‘I want to live in a strange country where I know no one and no one knows me. Why can’t I shed this old me with the next instar? Why can’t I be without roots? I crave to live where my neighbours are still rocks with long shadows, and silence is a deep and wide sky.’
‘Be kind to yourself, to those imperfections you detect. Who knows but that we’ll all merely idols for a deeper, inarticulate soul that expresses itself only faintly, like tremors in the crystalline spheres.

Good Spells, 3/5
Ken Liu, where do you get your imagination from? A witch in space? Very interesting concept, a techno-witch handles different requests with some good old “humanity and heart”, which seems to have been forgotten over time. I felt like this concept was really interesting but it could have been more developed, even in a short story.

Idols, 3/5
In this story, we get to experience a futuristic world where AI can build an AI-driven representation of a person based on their internet presence for others to interact. This is used mostly for fans to meet an AI representation of their Idols, but there are other uses. For example, someone who never met one of their parents can use these Idols to interact with a model of the deceased parent, and law offices can practice arguments against AI representations of the members of a jury. A very interesting premise, scary because of how relevant it could be for our own future, but I felt like this story was incomplete. It seemed almost like this was just the beginning, the premise of the story, but there was much more to develop.

Ice Wraith, 2/5
I was a bit confused by this one. I think the concept was interesting, but I finished it and almost immediately forgot about it. As I’m writing these notes (that I’ll convert into a full review), I barely remember anything of note to say.

A Whisper of Blue, 5/5
Another favourite. In a world where dragons exist, some are in awe of them, others are scared and finally, some want to capitalise from them. This was a piece of art.
‘Dragons are free to come and go as they like, and empires rise and fall at the whim of creatures we have no hope to understand or tame.’
‘Ever since I was little, people would tell me I have an old should. I like to read and be by myself.’

The Cleaners, 4/5
Another very interesting world, similar to our own, but with a twist: memories leave behind residue on items people touch. Some people are sensitive to memories, but others (more rare) are not. We follow a few different people with varying degrees of sensitivity while they struggle and make peace with ‘remembering’ too much or too little. I personally loved how we got to know so little of each character, but feel so much for them. This was very impactful.

The Armies of Those I Love, 4.5/5
I can’t say much about this one because I think it’s best to go in blind. Amazing post-apocalyptic concept and I always love a good old questioning.

Arc, 5/5
Ok, I have another favourite. This is not the most impressive world building, but it made me put down the book and actually think on this for 15 minutes straight. Only a really good story can do that. The first ever woman to experience the technology that allows her to extend her life, her ‘arc’, indefinitely. This story was extremely emotional, reflecting entirely on what it means to experience what someone is never meant to experience.
‘Because I thought I had all the time in the world, I ended up not doing anything at all. I had wasted my life because I was afraid to give up choices, and I allowed my life to become plastinated, like a silkworm in her cocoon.’

Cosmic Spring, 4.5/5
Very hopeful story. I really loved this one.

Timekeeper’s Symphony, 2/5
I appreciate the idea of making a plotless story about time, but in the end it didn’t work for me.

50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know, 3/5
A short exploration of the idea. Interesting.


Thank you so much to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for providing me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[JouJou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the author and publisher S&S/Saga Press for an e-arc for review of this title

This is my first Ken Liu book. I have several on my to- read shelf, and have been wanting to dig into his writing style as his popularity grows. In this book of short stories, I connected with some far more than others. I feel like others see threads and meanings I don’t find, and for a few they were just incomprehensible to me and I didn’t get the point. Yet others I so enjoyed - because I felt connected to the character, or I enjoyed the exploration or the technology ideas. I had several, rated 4-5 stars, that really stood out. In particular Arc and The Moon Carver which were my favorites.

Three Views of a Parking Lot ⭐⭐⭐⭐
As the book’s opening story I spent the first part wondering what I was reading. But it gradually became clear and, oddly, this is one that was just so strange but somehow so moving to me. Maybe it’s age and growing older myself and the way this has such defined boundaries. I felt like the border of the parking lot and what was allowed felt a lot like the type of obstinacy you can get as you get older when you feel you are always right and don’t want to give an inch. Now that may not at all be what this was designed to show, but it was what I got.

The Passing of the Dragon ⭐⭐⭐
This was much clearer in general but it didn’t carry the emotional resonance for me. As others note authorial intent, perhaps the point, what do you see, and so on. I just didn’t care for the character as much. It was..fine.

The Moon Carver ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I loved this story of a scorpion. It was unique, beautiful and filled me with a sense of wonder on the journey of life. I enjoyed the exploration of what it means to be different even from those who are like us. How we are seen through others’ eyes. How age affects us. Perhaps it is the time I am at in my life. It was so descriptive that I had a clear picture of how this animal moved, behaved, and experienced life. I usually don’t enjoy stories where it feels filled with melancholy underneath, as it did here, but this may be my favorite of the lot here.

Good Spells ⭐⭐⭐
Interesting - and certainly relevant now regarding AI and humans. A future where there may be too many machines and the pitting of human vs human is a thing.

Idols ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
So many parallels - it’s hard not to see today in the eventuality that this story brings. Especially relevant is the tension in relationships, the work obsession, perfectionism, the need to find each and every detail. Underlying all that questions about the technology and its use and value coupled with every nuance of a human and why we believe or don’t believe something. Which often has little to do with fact and a lot to do with trust and presentation. So what to do when presented with that same trust issue with a machine? How much can it know you, in fact be you? Wow, does that strike a chord right now.

The need to have human touch to make idols actually work and be effective reads right out of our headlines. The competition in human vs. machine here is on point. The multiple perspectives. This was a winner but not in the emotional personal way that The Moon Carver was- more in the yikes! Look at our future sort of way.

Ice Wrath ⭐⭐⭐
Perhaps best summed with my favorite quote in it: “The essence of teaching is pruning. Ignorance is the state of all possibilities, and learning is cutting down the possibilities until only what the teacher deems to be true remains.” Helena and Aria were compelling characters. The world though didn’t intrigue me as much.

A Whisper of Blue ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Somewhat poignant, multiple perspective story that reads more like a documentary. Clever and surprisingly emotional with the little dragon.

The Cleaners ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Somehow this one felt the most grounded. The idea that objects and places can be cleansed of memories as easily as bacteria and dirt was .. practical. No other word for it. Gui is the boy who doesn’t experience those memories, making him curious enough for me to continue reading. I loved his taking over of their family business, the ceremony of it, the history it brings. Clara and her role of cleansing phones was - so scary, fun, and creative. An assembly line of the future. A normal type of life. Beatrice - with her own abilities was as compelling as Gui and provided a great contrast.

I mean, since we don’t know what “jobs” AI can bring, is something like this in the future possible? This is one I both wanted to be longer, and was glad for its length. It felt punchy, crisp, focused. The perspectives added a lot and it was not distracting or confusing.

Perhaps the thing that I remembered long after was the action (of a human worker) to apply a coating of good cheer to all phones after manufacturing and cleansing of memories before they sell them which read completely as capitalism 101. “Assembled in China. Cleaned in America” - that’s a wow.

The Armies of Those I Love ⭐
I could not get into this one at all - moved on to the next.

Arc ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I cried. I have never cried for a short story before. Quite simply a story of life and death - of choices and paths and love. Nothing ornate here. Nothing unclear. A story about humanity and what it means to get older (or not) and what ultimately matters. What is freedom? I found the writing exquisitely perfect - I didn’t have to uncover the story - it just flowed into me.

This, The Moon Carver, and The Parking Lot hit deepest emotionally in this anthology.

Cosmic Spring ⭐⭐

This just felt very sterile for some reason. I knew it wouldn’t quite work due to how the story is told - reflective, a recollection of what has happened. The stars and the ships were interesting but overall this one was just ok

Timekeeper’s Symphony ⭐

This story felt like a scientific article. Though there are pieces interjected in to bring warmth, humanness, and texture to it - overall it was like reading an encyclopedia to me. I totally respect the science and the research - but it was not for me.

50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know ⭐⭐

Interesting as much from how he wrote it to the content. It comes across a bit as stream of consciousness (on purpose) but raises some good questions and thoughts on human and machine interaction and our future.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

An amazing collection full of really high quality stories. Liu's writing is consistently beautiful, poetic, and moving, and he has the gift of fusing character stories and worldbuilding together into one narrative that feels perfectly natural. The quality of the last two stories took a slight dip, but otherwise this is an entirely excellent collection.

Three Views of A Parking Lot: A really cool idea, and I absolutely adored the section focusing on the parking lot cleaning bots in the post-apocalypse, and the way they changed over time. 5/5 

The Passing of the Dragon: An intriguing look into the purpose of art and criticism. I also appreciated Liu lambasting the stupidity of internet commentators so pitch perfectly. 4/5 

The Moon Carver: I just loved the whimsy and hope of this. I thought it was going to go in a cliche direction with the humans bringing some kind of disaster to the scorpion town, but Liu did something much more hopeful and clever. 5/5 

Good Spells: A terrifying view of the potential future of AI-enabled late stage capitalism. If anyone wants to know the world I DON'T want to live in, it’s this! I did enjoy the note of hope and continued defiance in this - that the way to resist the slide into the techno hell future is to help each other and bots. 4/5 

Idols: The idea of constructing virtual recreations of jurors was terrifyingly real. I really liked the meditation on our own sense of self, and how we construct our own identities; whether there is a core to who we are or if we’re just a series of different faces we show to the world. This is one of the stories that gripped me most in the collection. 5/5 

Ice Wraith: Really cool ideas for the MCs body mods. I liked the sly commentary on consumerism with the “special oxygen.” Don’t know if the whole story quite had enough substance or context for the scale of the decision the MC made. I did like the idea of the space miners telling each other stories of ice wraiths. 3/5

A Whisper of Blue: I wasn’t entirely sure what the message was here, but I did like the inventiveness of all the ideas and worldbuilding on show. I liked that there were a lot of mysteries around the dragons, some of which were answered by the final theory, some of which weren’t. 4/5 

The Cleaners: I loved this idea and how the worldbuilding was there, but took a backseat to the carefully crafted character drama. A quiet story about live and loss, but impactful. 4/5 

The Armies of Those I Love: Absolutely my favourite in this collection! Liu builds a post-apocalyptic world so intriguing here that I think he could've written a whole novel about it (and I kind of wish he would!) This world has shades of Mortal Engines and Horizon Zero Dawn, without feeling at all derivative. This is the longest story in the collection but it didn't feel like it; it is paced perfectly, and I devoured it, needing to know what came next. Liu perfectly weaves together this fascinating world with the human emotions and relationships at the story's core. Would give it a ten out of five if I could. 5/5

Arc: Another amazing fusion of an interesting worldbuilding idea with a really strong character story and contemplation on the meaning of living and existing in the world. Thoughtful in the best way. I loved that the main character was far from perfect, made mistakes and struggled, but still came to understanding and happiness near the end. 4/5

Cosmic Spring: Has the distinction of being the only story in this collection to make me cry. Only a few pages long, but packs a hell of a punch. A sweeping, incredibly bittersweet look at the end of the universe. I don’t want to say anything further to spoil it, so. 5/5

Timekeepers' Symphony: There were some fun and also some poignant ideas here, but ultimately, this felt more like a science lecture than a story. I really liked the idea of the planet where different species have such drastic differences in perception of time, and the idea of the “End Watch” on the moon recording all the ways people steal time from others with horrible methods. However, the narrative elements of the piece felt at odds with the science lecture tone of the other half of the story. It felt like this was trying to be two different things at once - a prose story and an essay - and it wasn’t 100% working as either. 3/5

50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know: I enjoyed the faux-journalism tone of the article about the interesting AI agent, and the “50 things” list was really compelling in many ways. It’s clear Liu has done his homework and knows a lot about AI. Unfortunately, this story was written using AI, and given my views on using AI in storytelling, that really soured it for me. I’m also not entirely sure what the point of this story was, or the message it was trying to convey. Given LLMs are known for writing text which seems poignant but is in fact vague and devoid of focused themes, this seems like a darkly appropriate conclusion to draw. 3/5

[Rosemary Standeven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of thirteen short Scifi stories by Ken Liu, that had been published previously in magazines, now collected together. In some ways, ‘short story’ does not accurately describe them. They are more like novellas. Each has a huge volume of concepts – enough to fill a huge tome or series. I tried to read one story a day, and then let the ideas seep fully into my brain to process, before starting the next.
I loved all of them – all five stars. I can’t even choose a favourite.
There were stories of absences, spaces, and of exploration, of being different. But also of memory, and what memory makes of us as individuals and of humanity. There are stories about time, our perception of it, the end/beginning of time, death and immortality.
The main characters are not always human. Some are robots or AI, some genetically modified humans or cyborgs, and some with supernormal powers that may or may not be widespread in the world of the relevant short story. Is there a difference between all these? What is a human and what an artificial construct? Will we always be able to tell? Will we need to?
Highly recommended
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not influenced by either the author or publisher

Some quotes:

“I’ve been focused on how humans are being remade to be more like machines, but I haven’t considered the possibility that machines are also being constructed to be more like humans—disposable, powerless, fungible. There’s always a younger one willing to work for less, a newer model ready to take the place of the old. Funny how the logic of efficiency and productivity always leads here.”

“Each of us wears masks: one for our husband; another for our children; one for relatives who insert vacation videos into our feeds to collect claps; another for clients who expect us to be cool, calculating, eyes on the prize. Maybe there is nothing to this “self” we prize so much except the totality of this collection of masks. Or maybe there is some essential thing beneath the layers of masks, a beating heart, raw, bloody, vulnerable, yearning to connect, hungering to know where we come from and whither we go. That’s what you see when you peer through the seams and cracks in the masks, when you punch through the defenses we erect against reality, and searing emotion erupts. We treat such outbursts with scorn and mistrust. We think to be human is to be inhuman. How sad. So I would like to say: be kind to yourself, to those imperfections you detect. Who knows but that we’re all merely idols for a deeper, inarticulate soul that expresses itself only faintly, like tremors in the crystalline spheres.”

“Because I thought I had all the time in the world, I ended up not doing anything at all. I had wasted my life because I was afraid to give up choices, and I allowed my life to become plastinated, like a silkworm in her cocoon. All over the world, life went on forever, but people were not happier. People did not grow old together; they did not grow together at all. Married couples changed their vows, and it was no longer death that parted them, but boredom.”

“Not all watches require gears or pendulums or trembling crystals or sweeping hands bending the flight of the arrow of time into a circle. A watch can also just be a record of the progress of causality, an expanding graveyard of dead time. For this is what the End Watch is really measuring: our seemingly unwavering faith in the idea that taking time from others can be a good thing, that the killing hand can be humane, that inventing death, the absence of time, is something that we can justify. Disc by disc, act by act, the End Watch tracks our own progress—or lack thereof—toward the end of the arc of history.”

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
A collection of some of Ken Liu’s short stories.

Review
I've been a fan of Ken Liu for over a decade now, largely for his short work. Despite what I saw as a stumble in his first novel, The Grace of Kings, I was very much looking forward to this new collection. Unfortunately, either my tastes have changed or the writing has, and these stories don't have the old spark.

Broadly, many of the stories could be said to be about memory, which seems fertile ground. And some of them are excellent. But a lot of them also seem clinical and dry. A few are downright dull. And too many feel like the products of a day reading New Scientist to harvest story ideas.

To my mind, the collection gets off to a weak start with an author's foreword that, to use Liu's own words, seems awfully precious, or at least dry and verging on pretentious. The first actual story has very little actual story to it. 'Dry' is a fairly apt descriptor for many of the stories in this. Though the prose is generally excellent, with some beautiful turns of phrase ("I understood then what was buried in those little foot-shaped graves behind me."), few of the characters are really engaging, and I felt little in the way of emotion from most stories. Some are more statement and social critique than real story. Too many are told by simply aggregating a few different perspectives on the same concept, making them feel less like stories than writing exercises.

The centerpiece, certainly, is "The Passing of the Dragon", which I'd read previously at Tor.com. "The Armies of Those I Love", while it starts and ends weakly, is a strong second - preachy, but interesting. The rest are less distinctive. "The Cleaners" is a good story, though it struck me in some ways as a rewrite of "Dragon" - different setting, concept, and characters, but the same theme.

There's good writing here, but this collection is far more uneven than The Paper Menagerie. Get it for the few really good stories in here, and expect a fair amount of filler (albeit with good prose). The best stories are:

"The Passing of the Dragon" - about inspiration, as told by an artist whose work is misunderstood. Beautifully written and very effective, this is the Ken Liu whose stories I remember.
"The Armies of Those I Love" - post-environmental collapse, humans cling to the surfaces of mobile cities. A weak start and ending, but an intriguing middle.
"The Cleaners" - removing the memories that build up on human possessions, as seen by three people with different sensitivities. Effective, though similar in theme to "The Passing of the Dragon".
"A Whisper of Blue" - dragons as an energy source. While not in the league of the three above, it's an interesting story, though somewhat hampered by far too many perspective shifts.
"The Moon Carver" - post-apocalypse, as seen by a scorpion. Interesting, but dry.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

[Ben James · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I like about Liu is the accessibility of his short fiction - these are stories with overt meaning, often spelled out for us. The main theme running through this collection is memory and time, with many stories either taking place over lengthy timespans or set in post-anthropocene universes. There are some obvious standouts but also some real duds. My (very) brief thoughts on each story below.

Three Views of a Parking Lot: A perspective on the longevity of human infrastructure, including robotics and how nature might adapt toward biorobotics. Probably only needed to be part 3 fleshed out, with parts 1 and 2 feeling superfluous.

The Passing of the Dragon: An almost autofictional perspective on internet-age reviews and death of the author. It feels very meta to write a review of a piece about the effectsof reviews on an artist. Also delves into how works are misinterpreted, but that's art for you.

The Moon Carver: Inspired by astrology, a story of Scorpio and wanderlust. The POV character felt a bit pointless as it's his daughter who has a far more interesting goal.

Good Spells: Eeminds me of a novel I read this year 'The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances' which I did not like. This story has a couple of things to say about the productivity cliff and planned obselecence.

Idols: A concept we've seen a lot in science fiction with machines replicating humans and asking how much fidelity can they really achieve, but it puts the characters in thoughtful dilemmas.

Ice Wraiths: Cool transhuman worldbuilding, but I found the ending to be really abrupt.

A Whisper of Blue: Dragons as a hungry power source, feeding on knowledge. Nice imagery

The Cleaners: People literally clean belongings of memories in a world where touching objects inspires recall and empathy. Shows the value of forgetting and being able to move on.

The Armies of Those I Love: Like a cross between Mortal Engines and Horizon: Zero Dawn. One of those stories which describes ordinary objects from the POV of someone who doesn't know what they are and you have to guess what mundane thing they are referring to. Long-winded.

Arcs: This was cool, from very macabre beginnings to a sweeter ending. Would work as a longer piece.

Cosmic Spring: Melancholy at the universe ending and being the lifeboat to witness it. Hard to engage with the character.

Timekeepers' Symphony: Second person POV with no real character to follow the story with, however a great way to count down humanity's self-destruction.

50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know: The list itself makes you think about what it takes to understand being human. There's a framing story which is less interesting. Is it moral to use 'robo_ken' to help write the story, even as only an experiment, trained only on Liu's data? I think if he's using the tool the story could be far more metafictional and self-referential.

[myriareadsbooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you very much to the publisher and to NetGalley for this advance copy!

I truly believe that short stories, as a medium—and especially speculative fiction short stories—should be saying something beyond the story that they're telling, and Ken Liu certainly achieves this here. There is so much to think about in this collection; while the settings, backdrops, and characters vary widely, ultimately all of the stories within are bound by a common thread of humanity and creativity.

Due to the nature of short stories as a means of commentary, and the themes and topics raised, this is not a light and breezy read. But that's the wonderful thing about short story collections: one need not read the whole volume at once.

Some of the stories resonated with me more deeply than others and brought me to tears at points; my favourites were Idols, The Cleaners, and Arc, but I believe all are worth your time—and is that not the beauty of the human experience? We all think so differently and feel so differently, that another reader may find stories that were not to my personal taste the most meaningful of all. The weakest stories to me were those that felt like philosophising dressed in a story suit, but their inclusion did not dim my overall enjoyment of the book.

My one criticism is that the opening story of the collection, Three Views of a Parking Lot, has an extremely dense and confusing start if you are not familiar with Nagel or Wittgenstein (which I am not—luckily for me, my best friend is and was kind enough to explain it to me). I would have liked a different story to be chosen as the first in this collection; were I browsing in a brick-and-mortar bookshop I think this opening would be enough to put me off, which would be a shame given how much I enjoyed the rest of the collection.

Overall, this was a thought-provoking and emotional read, which has left me pondering life, creativity, and existence. Some of these stories were so close to our current-day reality as to call to mind shows such as Black Mirror; others were so far removed as to be almost unrecognisable, but they were always saying something about humanity, and that's what I loved most about this collection.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

My dragon is always just around the corner

I was very happy to see this collection on NetGalley! It is a very different book compared to “The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories”. I am impressed by Ken Liu’s range.

“The deep yearning for understanding and the near impossibility of communication permeate this collection,” the author writes.

Three Views of a Parking Lot – a parking lot through the ages. A story of three stories, growing more wonderful and hopeful. 4 stars.

The Passing of the Dragon – a struggling artist sees something amazing and wants to paint it. 4.5 stars.

Moon Carver – Scorpions are cool. Eccentric scorpions are cooler. 4.6 stars.

Good Spells – in a near future world of AI, people struggle to stay human. A story of kindness. 4.3 stars.

Idols – I’ve read stories about digital copies of people before. This was a good take: fun, scary, poignant. 4 stars.

Ice Wraiths – bioengineered miners on a far-away planet. This story is about imagining and becoming something different. 4.3 stars.

A Whisper of Blue – a kaleidoscopic story set in an alternative universe, our world with dragons. I really liked it! 4.7 stars.

The Cleaners – another kaleidoscopic story, another alternative universe. Here, memories work in different ways. Brilliant, loved it. 4.9 stars.

The Armies of Those I Love – set in a very interesting post-apocalyptic world, this one is about true stories and questions, with some nice allusions. Awesome. 5 stars.

Arc – a poignant story about the arcs of our lives. For some reason it didn’t move me as much as I expected it to. 3.9 stars.

Cosmic Spring – it’s the winter of the universe, but the story is hopeful. 3.8 stars.

Timekeepers’ Symphony – a plotless story about Time. Nice, right? 4 stars.

50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know – this was a cool one! 4 stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the free e-book!

[Brian Stabler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ken Liu has a remarkable ability to take big questions about humanity, creativity, memory, and connection and explore them through beautifully crafted speculative fiction. This collection is a thoughtful and often mesmerising exploration of what it means to be human, with each story approaching those ideas from a different direction.

The stories vary hugely in setting and style, from futures shaped by artificial intelligence to worlds where dragons exist alongside humanity, but they are all connected by a fascination with communication, imagination, and the moments that give life meaning. Liu’s writing encourages you to look beyond the surface of a story and consider the deeper ideas beneath it.

The title story, 'The Passing of the Dragon', is a particularly moving reflection on art and the search for those rare, almost impossible-to-capture moments that inspire creativity. Other standouts for me were 'Idols', The Cleaners', and 'Arc', each offering a different perspective on identity, memory, and the ways technology might change our understanding of ourselves.

As with any short story collection, some pieces resonated more strongly than others, and a few felt more like philosophical explorations than traditional narratives. However, even the stories that didn’t completely connect with me were still filled with fascinating ideas and left me thinking long after finishing them.

Ken Liu is one of the most imaginative voices in science fiction. His ability to create entire worlds within a limited space, while still keeping the focus on deeply human emotions and experiences, is genuinely impressive. This is a collection that rewards taking your time with it and returning to its ideas again and again.

A thoughtful, inventive, and beautifully written collection that proves science fiction can be just as much about the human heart as it is about the future.

Thanks to NetGalley, Head of Zeus and the author for an advance copy.

[BB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher, the author and NetGalley for an opportunity to read The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories and share my thoughts about the book.

So, I don’t read that many short story collections because telling a story in such a few pages is challenging. It’s even more challenging when stories are scifi or fantasy or otherwise that far away from our normal, boring life that the author has to explain things for stories to make sense and even more things that need to be told without using words. I like my stories a little bit longer.

However, I really enjoyed this one and I think Ken Liu is one of my favorite authors when it comes to short stories (and longer stories too). Although not all the stories in this collection were for me, his writing is genuinely enjoyable and he balances pretty well between giving enough information that you can follow the stories but there isn’t too much info that it destroys the flow. I feel like there’s a good chance that the collection has something that will touch your soul.

I think some of the stories are ones that deserve another visit later for one reason or another. Some might open up for me more with a second round. Idols and The cleaners were my personal favorites and I gotta admit that I wish those were a little bit longer. My greed has no limits and I wish I would have had a longer visit in those worlds because I really liked the idea behind those stories so much. That’s the curse of short stories for me because I always end up wanting more when I enjoy the story.

Overall, I ended up enjoying the collection a lot even though I always like my stories in longer versions. Ken Liu is such a talented author that I find his writing very enjoyable in both shorter and longer books and even when not all the stories are for me, his writing carries through the collection.

[LeahReadsStuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book. My review is based on that copy. The published work may differ from what I read.
Ken Liu is one of my favorite short story writers. His ideas are ambitious. The stories are hit or miss, as is usually the case with most collections of this nature. However, Liu is such a gifted writer that even the stories that didn’t work as well are still beautifully written. The theming is impactful, of the moment, and thoughtful. Similar to Liu’s first collection there is a lot of attention given to technology, AI, human connection and aging and memory, creativity, and the complicated relationship between humanity and machines.
Some of the stories get bogged down in too much information, too many details. The execution on the themes also varied. There were some stories where the ideas were not subtle, and neither was the way that Liu approached them. The structuring of some stories was awkward and choppy. That said the stories that worked, worked so well that I will be thinking about them long after finishing the book. Among them: The Cleaners, which was a fascinating look at memory, legacy, and the impressions we leave behind us.
This shouldn’t have surprised me, but the title story made me cry. It’s a beautiful, painful examination of the double edged sword of being an artistic creator, and the desperate need for what we create to be seen, understood, and valued by others. It captures the emotional effort, the disappointments and the frustrations, and the driving force to keep creating. It’s a love letter to extending understanding to each other, to being intentional about listening to and valuing the gifts that people have. There is a rapturous joy to being seen, to your work being understood, that is impossible to describe.