Author: Ken Liu

Blog Book Tour | #FuellYourSciFi as #JorieReads “The Hidden Girl” (and other stories) by Ken Liu

Posted Tuesday, 3 March, 2020 by jorielov , , 0 Comments

Book Review banner created by Jorie in Canva.

Acquired Book By: I’ve been enjoying hosting blog tours for the UK Indie publisher Head of Zeus as I feel blessed to work with them as a book blogger being that I love celebrating authors from the UK and the stories they are telling through the different genres Head of Zeus is publishing. These blog tours have been encouraging my bookish and readerly wanderings into Crime Dramas, Historical Fiction and Historical Sagas whilst also engaging into my passionate love of Speculative Fiction which encompasses Science Fiction and Fantasy. I am thankful to be hosting tours for the publisher directly and with their publicity team at Midas PR.

I received a complimentary copy of “The Hidden Girl” direct from the publisher Head of Zeus in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

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Why I felt blessed to read “The Hidden Girl”:

I definitely have a soft spot in my heart for Speculative Fiction – readers of Jorie Loves A Story might take note of the fact I regularly participate in two annual book blogosphere events: Sci Fi November (@SciFiMonth) & Wyrd And Wonder (@WyrdAndWonder) – the latter of which I helped co-develop and co-host every May with our supplemental fortnight event every October.

I immediately connected with the author’s vision vision of [The Hidden Girl] – not just from the concept behind his creation of Silkpunk but through what he put on his website as a short extract of what we’d find inside. It was a theory of thought I have oft shared myself on my own blog – about how without a reader a story is not yet ready for its debut because it takes a reader to complete a path the writer has placed in front of them. In essence all stories need readers because the writer can only take the story ‘thus far’ before a reader needs to complete it. I love writers who are thought-provoking about their craft inasmuch as they are engaging through their style of story.

Silkpunk is such a new and dynamic concept for me!

I love Susan Spann’s Hiro Hattori novels for rooting me in 16th Century Japan for similar reasons – between the heritage & cultural notations to the aesthetic of how she uses the setting of Japan itself as a narrative guide. I also felt emotionally moved by The Ghost Bride by Yengsze Choo – the visuals and the speculative intersection of the story against the cultural beliefs of where the ghost brides enter into the storyline – simply evocatively beautiful. I love Asian Literature – I try to seek out more whenever I can which is why I still want to finish A Mortal Song by Megan Crewe as I felt so dearly connected to the world she created within the scope of the novel.

This idea of “Silkpunk” is what truly captured my thirst of curiosity to read The Hidden Girl as I love finding new sub-niches of genres I regularly read – they give new credence to how inventive writers are and how wickedly delightful it is to disappear into a story which is going to take us elsewhere from whence we’ve travelled previously. Similar to why I like the ‘other’  punk sub-niches in Speculative Fiction, Silkpunk to me felt like a wicked good ‘next’ fit!

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Blog Book Tour | #FuellYourSciFi as #JorieReads “The Hidden Girl” (and other stories) by Ken LiuThe Hidden Girl
Subtitle: And Other Stories
by Ken Liu
Source: Direct from Publicist

From a Tang Dynasty legend of a young girl trained as an assassin with the ability to skip between dimensions on a secluded mountain sanctuary to a space colony called Nova Pacifica that reflects on a post-apocalyptic world of the American Empire and ‘Moonwalker’ Neil Armstrong, award-winning author Ken Liu’s writings are laced with depictions of silkpunk fantasy, Sci-Fi and old Chinese folklore, wrapped up in a mesmerising genre-bending collection of short stories.

Ken Liu is one of the most lauded short story writers of our time. This much anticipated collection includes a selection of his latest science fi ction and fantasy stories over the last fi ve years – sixteen of his best – plus a new novelette. In addition to these seventeen selections, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories also features an excerpt from book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, The Veiled Throne.

Genres: Anthology Collection of Short Stories and/or Essays, Science Fiction, Short Story or Novella, Space Opera



Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 978-1982134037

Published by Head of Zeus

on 25th February, 2020

Format: Hardcover Edition

Pages: 432

Published By: Head of Zeus (@HoZ_Books)

For those who are new to reading Silkpunk,
I found a lovely article which the author explains the genre
and what constitues a Silkpunk style of narrative as its a genre-bent of Sci Fi & Fantasy.

Genre(s): Science Fiction | Speculative | Silkpunk

Short Story | Space Opera | Folklore | Hard Science Fiction

Converse via: #TheHiddenGirl, #KenLiu with #Silkpunk

as well as #ScienceFiction and #SpeculativeFiction

Available Formats: Hardcover, Audiobook & Ebook

About Ken Liu

Ken Liu

Ken Liu is an American Speculative Fiction writer and the winner of the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, Sidewise, and Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards. The son of a pharmaceutical chemist and a computer engineer, Ken emigrated to the US with his mother and father at the age of 11. He graduated from Harvard with a degree in English Literature and Computer Science and later attended Harvard Law School.

Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Ken worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. His debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a Silkpunk Epic Fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers play the role of wizards.

His debut collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen language and his short story Good Hunting was adapted for an episode for Netflix’s science fiction web series Love, Death and Robots.

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

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Posted Tuesday, 3 March, 2020 by jorielov in Anthology Collection of Stories, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, England, Hard Science Fiction, Head of Zeus, Novellas or Short Stories, Science Fiction, Silkpunk, Space Opera, Speculative Fiction