Liu has also written an epic fantasy novel series, The Dandelion Dynasty, which he describes as silkpunk. The series is published by Simon & Schuster.[3]
Childhood and career
Liu was born in 1976 in Lanzhou, China.[4] He spent his childhood with his grandparents.[5] His mother, who received her Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States, is a pharmaceutical chemist, while his father is a computer engineer.[6] The family immigrated to the United States when Liu was 11 years old.[4] They lived in California and Stonington, Connecticut before settling in Waterford, Connecticut. Liu graduated from Waterford High School in 1994, where he ran cross-country and track.[7] At Harvard College, he studied English Literature and Computer Science, receiving his A. B. in 1998.[7][8]
After graduation, Liu worked as a software engineer for Microsoft, and then joined a start-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He later received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2004 and after working as a corporate lawyer, eventually became a high-tech litigation consultant.[7][8]
Liu has said he wanted to become a writer so he could make stories that “turn values upside down and inside out to gain new perspectives”.[10]
After a long career writing and publishing short fiction, Liu turned to epic fantasy novels, starting with The Grace of Kings (2015).[11] He has also written for the Star Wars universe, with The Legends of Luke Skywalker (2017).[12]
Along with his original work, Liu has translated the works of multiple Chinese authors into English, including Liu Cixin, Hao Jingfang, Chen Qiufan, and Xia Jia.[13] His translation of The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin helped the book become a best seller to English readers.[14] He has also worked as an editor. While editing the anthology Invisible Planets, Ken Liu translated the stories contained within it from Chinese into English.[15]
Some of Liu's work have been adapted into visual media. His short story "Memories of My Mother" was the basis of Beautiful Dreamer (2016) by David Gaddie.[16] His short story "Real Artists" was adapted into the short film Real Artists (2017) by Cameo Wood.[17] His short story "Good Hunting" was adapted into an animated short as part of Netflix's Love, Death & Robots series (2019).[18] Several of the stories in The Hidden Girl and Other Stories were adapted for the animated television series Pantheon.[19]
Liu's short story collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories (2020) explores ideas such as tradition and progress, the fallibility of memory, and the essence of what it means to be human.[10] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Liu was disturbed by finger-pointing, jingoism, and xenophobia in the face of what he saw as an existential, global threat; he began to seek solace in the Tao Te Ching and subsequently released a new translation of the ancient text, Laozi's Dao De Jing: A New Interpretation for a Transformative Time (2024).[20]
Liu's short story "The Paper Menagerie" is the first work of fiction, of any length, to win all of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards.[1] In addition, his short story, "Mono no aware" won the 2013 Hugo Award,[22][23] and his novella "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary" was also nominated for a Hugo.[24] The first novel in his The Dandelion Dynasty series, The Grace of Kings, was a 2016 Nebula Award finalist.[25] The novel was the 2016 Locus Award Best First Novel winner.[26]
Thoughtcrime Experiments, edited by Sumana Harihareswara and Leonard Richardson, 2009; International Speculative Fiction, edited by Roberto Mendes, December 2013;
2010
Beidou
The Dragon and the Stars, edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi, May 2010.
The End Has Come (Book III of the Apocalypse Triptych), edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, May 1, 2015
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
2015
Crystal
Daily Science Fiction, October 15, 2015
2015
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11
War Stories From the Future, edited by August Cole, November 2015.
2015
Compatibility
Ecotones, December 2015.
2016
White Hempen Sleeves
After the Fall, edited by Jaym Gates, 2016
2016
Of Trees
Part of Herman Chong's exhibit "Ifs, Ands, or Buts" (January 23 to May 3, 2016 at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai)
2016
An Advanced Reader's Picture Book of Comparative Cognition
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, March 8, 2016
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
2016
The Snow Train
Genius Loci: the Spirit of Place, edited by Jaym Gates, June 2016
2016
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit — Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts
Drowned Worlds: Tales from the Anthropocene and Beyond, edited by Jonathan Strahan, 2016.
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
2016
A Brief And Inaccurate But True Account of the Origin of Living Books
Tales of Our Time, November 4, 2016.
2016
Seven Birthdays
Bridging Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan, November 8, 2016
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
2017
Shanghai in 48 Hours, a Weekend Itinerary for International Visitors by Roaming Planets Guides, 2116
Part of the Shanghai Project, an exhibit by the Shanghai Zendai Himalayas Museum, April 22, 2017; reprinted in Deep Signal, June 2019.
2017
Ticket
Stanford Anthology for Youth, June 2017.
2017
An Open Letter to the Sentient AI Who Has Announced Its Intention to Take Over the Earth
Unidentified Funny Objects 6, edited by Alex Shvartsman, October 2017
2017
The Sith of Datawork
From a Certain Point of View (Star Wars), October 3, 2017
2017
The Hidden Girl
The Book of Swords, edited by Gardner Dozois, October 2017
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Novelette
2017
Alter
The Eugene Studio, Japan, published on November 20, 2017; reprinted in subTerrain, 2020.
2017
The Explainer
CBN Weekly, published on December 21, 2017; English version published in Lightspeed's special 100th issue, September 2018.
2018
Quality Time
Robots vs. Fairies, edited by Navah Wolfe and Dominik Parisien, January 2018
Novelette
2018
Cosmic Spring
Lightspeed, March 15, 2018
2018
The Magic Paintbrush
Jali, edited by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey for Audible, April 2018
2018
Byzantine Empathy
MIT Technology Review’s Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Wade Roush, May 2018
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Novelette
2018
The Trustless
Wired, December 17, 2018
2019
Thoughts and Prayers
Slate, January 26, 2019
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
2019
Love's Mirror
Deep Signal, June 2019
2019
BookSavr
F&SF, September/October 2019.
2019
The Moon Carver
The Other Animals, Audible Original edited by Rachel Hamburg, November 14, 2019.
2020
How to Survive the Next Science Fictional Disaster, A Guide for the Wise
L'Uomo, February 2020.
2020
How to Build a Dragon at the End of Time
Sub-Q, February 2020
Interactive fiction
2020
Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, February 25, 2020.
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Novelette
2020
Uma
Avatars, Inc, from XPrize, edited by Ann VanderMeer, March 13, 2020.
2020
Idols
Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, edited by Jonathan Strahan, March 17, 2020.
2020
A Whisper of Blue
The Book of Dragons, edited by Jonathan Strahan, July 7, 2020
Novelette
2020
50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know
Uncanny, November 3, 2020
2020
The Cleaners
Liu, Ken (2 December 2020). "A Time to Reflect". kenliu.substack.com. Retrieved 2020-12-07.
2021
Excerpt from Theuth, an Oral History of Work in the Age of Machine-Assisted Cognition
Philosophy Through Science Fiction Stories, Bloomsbury Press, edited by Helen De Cruz, Johan De Smedt, and Eric Schwitzgebel, January 2021.
2021
The Armies of Those I Love
Audible Original (February 25, 2021)
Novella
2021
Jaunt
Make Shift: Dispatches from the Post-Pandemic Future, edited by Gideon Lichfield, published by MIT Press (part of the Twelve Tomorrows series), March 2021.
2022
Evaluative Soliloquies
Part of Google’s experimental AI Wordcraft Writers Workshop, November 2, 2022.
2022
Timekeeper's Symphony
Clarkesworld, September 2022
2023
Invasive Species
Newsweek Japan (Japanese translation), February 7, 2023.
2023
Collaboration?
Uncanny, January 3, 2023
co-written with Caroline M. Yoachim
2023
The Emperor’s New Servers
The Oracle, Story Summit 2022, hosted by Alexandria Labs, March 27, 2023.
2023
The Edges of Wilderness
The Continental Literary Magazine, April 18, 2023.
2023
Good Spells
Book of Witches, edited by Jonathan Strahan, August 1, 2023.
2023
The Passing of the Dragon
Tor.com, September 13, 2023
2023
Good Stories
The Digital Aesthete: Human Musings on the Intersection of Art and AI, edited by Alex Shvartsman, November 2023.
2023
The Ice Wraith
Mythopoesis for Techno-Living Systems, edited by Ursula Mayer and Rachel Hill, December 2023.
2024
Grief Is a Green Leaf
Games to Bind Us, edited by Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalioglu, July 2024.
"Gathered in Translation", an essay on the process and subtleties of translating Chinese SF to English, and the reverse: online at Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2013
Book 3: Death's End, Tor Books, September 2016 by Liu Cixin (originally the Chinese language novel Death's End, 死神永生, 2010 by Liu Cixin)
Book 4: The Redemption of Time, Tor Books, 2019 by Baoshu (originally a Chinese fanfic by Li Jun that was regularized by the original publisher Chongqing Press and series creator Cixin Liu; and published in 2011)[43]
Liu's works in translation
Many of Liu's short stories have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, and multiple other languages and published in short stories collections:[44]
Chinese
爱的算法 ("Algorithms for Love and Others"), published by SFW Publishing, September 5, 2012
思维的形状 ("The Shape of Thought and Others"), published by Tsinghua University Press, November 11, 2014
杀敌算法 ("In the Loop and Others"), published by SFW Publishing, March, 2015
La Ménagerie de papier ("The Paper Menagerie") published by Editions du Bélial, edited by Ellen Herzfeld and Dominique Martel, 2015.
Jardins de poussière ("Dust Gardens") published by Editions du Bélial, edited by Ellen Herzfeld and Dominique Martel, 2019.
Spanish
El zoo de papel y otros relatos ("The Paper Menagerie") published by Runas, Alianza Editorial, edited by María Pilar San Román Navarro, 2017.
Filmography
Television
Pantheon is an animated television series based on Liu's sci-fi short stories "The Gods Will Not Be Chained", "The Gods Will Not Be Slain", "The Gods Have Not Died in Vain", "Staying Behind" and "Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer" from the short fictions collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. It premiered on AMC+ in 2022.[45][46]
^Kirtley, David Barr (2015-04-24). "Interview: Ken Liu". Wired (via Lightspeed). Archived from the original on 2019-02-19. Retrieved 2019-03-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
