Ken Liu is the author of the short story collections The Paper Menagerie and The Hidden Girl, the Dandelion Dynasty series, and the translator of The Three-Body Problem.
We spoke with Ken about his diverse professional background as a lawyer, programmer, and writer, his thoughts about Artificial Intelligence in the real world and in fiction, creating “Silkpunk,” centering on familial relationships as an emotional core to his storytelling; and the difference to the storyteller between writing short fiction and long fiction. Enjoy our talk with the ever-curious Ken Liu in either audio or video below!
Watch or listen to the interview:
You can buy Ken's work at the links below. If you haven't read any of his writing so far, we highly recommend The Paper Menagerie!
His short story collections (mostly sci-fi, with some fantasy):
His fantasy series:
Ken's Bio: 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.
He’s often involved in media adaptations of his work. Recent projects include “The Message,” under development by 21 Laps and FilmNation Entertainment; “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.
Liu is also the translator for Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, Hao Jingfang’s “Folding Beijing” and Vagabonds, Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide, as well as the editor of Invisible Planets and Broken Stars, anthologies of contemporary Chinese science fiction.
Liu lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
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