The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

By: Ken Liu

Narrated by: Corey Brill, Joy Osmanski

Featured in the Netflix series Love, Death & Robots

Bestselling author Ken Liu selects his multiple award-winning stories for a groundbreaking collection—including a brand-new piece exclusive to this volume.

With his debut novel, The Grace of Kings, taking the literary world by storm, Ken Liu now shares his finest short fiction in The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. This mesmerizing collection features many of Ken’s award-winning and award-finalist stories, including: “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” (Finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards), “Mono No Aware” (Hugo Award winner), “The Waves” (Nebula Award finalist), “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species” (Nebula and Sturgeon Award finalists), “All the Flavors” (Nebula Award finalist), “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King” (Nebula Award finalist), and the most awarded story in the genre’s history, “The Paper Menagerie” (The only story to win the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards).

Insightful and stunning stories that plumb the struggle against history and betrayal of relationships in pivotal moments, this collection showcases one of our greatest and original voices.

Critic reviews

"I know this is going to sound hyperbolic, but when I’m reading Ken Liu’s stories, I feel like I’m reading a once-in-a-generation talent. I’m in awe." (Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet)

Questions of identity galvanize the 15 stories in this outstanding collection of fantastical fiction, giving them extraordinary gravity and resonance. In "Good Hunting," the human companion of a supernatural creature from Chinese folklore contrives an ingenious way to help her adapt to a steampunk future. The title tale (which swept the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards), in which a mother expresses love for her son through the magically animated origami animals she creates, is one of several in which the author uses Chinese-American experience to explore how all individuals assimilate into society. Whether writing about Asian culture and history, as in "The Literomancer" and "All the Flavors," or extraterrestrial civilizations, as in "The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species" and "An Advanced Reader's Picture Book of Comparative Cognition," Liu (The Grace of Kings) universalizes the experiences of his characters, who realize at some point, as the protagonist of "Mono No Aware" does, that "we are defined by the places that we hold in the web of others' lives." Gracefully written and often profoundly moving, these stories are high-water marks of contemporary speculative fiction. (Mar.) (Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW)

These remarkable stories highlight Liu’s themes of family, love, and politics and gathered in one collection pack an even bigger punch. Those who revere shorter speculative works will definitely want this book. (*STARRED REVIEW, Library Journal)

Emotionally unpredictable, Liu's stories take off in unexpected directions and arrive at destinations both startling and satisfying. (Shelf Awareness, *STARRED REVIEW)

Liu’s wondrous tales eloquently explore the place where ordinary and the extraordinary meet. (The Washington Post)

Selected as “14 of the Most Buzzed About Books of 2016” (BuzzFeed)

There is a dark and sometimes shocking edge to some of these stories, but nearly all are provocative, and several are brilliant. (The Chicago Tribune)

Liu's book compiles brilliant stories written in several different, overlapping modes, a technically dazzling collection of compulsively readable narratives, presenting characters with agonizing moral dilemmas and never forgetting the heart. (The Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee))

Liu’s talent in evoking atmosphere and culture make these tales more than stories – they’re journeys. If you’re looking to dream of another world, or reflect on our own, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of The Paper Menagerie. (Muggle.net)

Great group of stories

I picked this up because I saw the love death and robots sticker. Each story was great unto itself and together made for a happy listening exp

Fantastic collection, great stories!

Ken Liu is an incredible talent and mesmerizing storyteller. His tales remind me of the creativity of Phillip K. Dick.

I wished Audible listed the chapter NAMES in the listings, instead of just the chapter numbers.

1. Introduction
2. The Book Making Habits of Select Species
3. State Change
4. The Perfect Match
5. Good Hunting
6. The Literomancer
7. Simulacrum
8. The Regular, Part 1
9. The Regular, Part 2
10. The Paper Menagerie
11. An Advanced Reader’s Picture Book of Comparative Cognition
12. The Waves
13. Mono no aware
14. All The Flavors, Part 1
15. All The Flavors, Part 2
16. A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel
17. The Litigation Master and the Monkey King
18. The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary, Part 1
19. The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary, Part 2

Strong and powerful

I found this book refreshing and engaging. I can't wait to read it again. I'd definitely call it a triumph!

Fantastic!

Amazingly done and also an artful and poignant look into Chinese and Chinese-American culture. An extremely significant work of art.

The Ken Liu Touch

When you mix culture with science and add human experience to it. Ken Liu happens.