Cixin Liu's short stories and essays on sci-fi

A View From The Stars

A collection of short stories and essays by Cixin Liu. Liu is well known as the author of The Three Body Problem, among other science fiction stories.

Takeaway

There were more essays than stories in here than I expected, but I enjoyed Liu's discussion on sci-fi as a genre, his short stories, and also how he approaches writing. I never thought about sci-fi as a genre so intertwined with exploring humanity, our reality, and the universe.

My sticky note scrawling of "Heard It In The Morning", a story included in this collection

Notes

I wonder how all of these essay and stories were transformed when being translated from Mandarin. Translators are at times thankless, but they share an equal part in the art that was created. Translators essentially transcribe one creation to a new medium.

Time Enough for Love

What separates sci-fi from normal fiction?

Whale Song

A whaler! Quite the abrupt ending. It's a little bit ironic and pokes at the circle of viciousness that is humanity and nature. The whale is exploited by both Hopkin's technology and the whalers. But even in that viciousness, nature's beauty is able to peek through in whale's song that concludes the story.

Despite humanity's exploitative relationship with nature, nature continues to be mysterious and beautiful.

A Journey in Search of Home

Do beautiful people make beautiful art? Does beautiful art make beautiful people?

Some people blabber on for ages and I don't understand them, but some can use a single sentence to reveal truths that were hidden from me. (Liu 24)

In this case, someone told Liu that his stories evoke a "longing for home". Will I notice this in this book?

• I think I agree. The short stories of Liu I have read in this book all seem to inhabit a liminal slice of a world that scratch at something greater existing and being out there. We are all part of something greater (the universe), and that is our home. To be a part of the universe.

Further reading

• The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu

The Messenger

Sometimes imperfections make things look and sound better. It is more natural, more human. A old, worn instrument instead of a perfect new one.

Premonition in stories as a tool for evoking wonder and numinosity. In this case, a messenger from the future.

"Humanity has a future" ... A sense of well-being suffused him from head to toe. He could finally rest. (Liu 35)

Albert Einstein! Liu hints at this being the character of the story, but I still wasn't expecting it. It's a fun twist. History-inspired fiction serves a purpose in giving us imaginative, human, stories of real events that let us connect better with the real event. Fiction can infuse an otherwise boring historical event with magic and meaning. It makes history more meaningful. Humans are always looking for meaning.

• Making things meaningful is a key discussion in Norman's Design For A Better World.

God playing dice echoes some Neoplatonic ideas--events are probabilistic at our human perception scale, and also probabilistic at the quantum level? (see Liber Indigo for more info on Neoplatonism)

Thirty Years of Making Magic out of Ordinariness

Liu's recounting of the history of sci-fi intertwined with his own personal history. It's a engaging format.

Sci-fi as a genre powered by youth and novelty, instead of age like classic literature.

...we ought to try and return to a child's way of seeing things, and face that future of infinite possibilities that only children posses. (Liu 42)

Butterfly

A story about harnessing the butterfly effect. In a sense, science as ritual, causal "magic". Go here, do this, and it will cause something else.

When the thing you have feared for a long time happens, sometimes it comes as a relief (Liu 46)

Another abrupt ending. The ending dialogue was confusing for me.

• Ultimately, I think it hints at how even though Aleksander's model of the butterfly effect and weather was correct, it inadvertently set off another chain of events that led to the bomb that killed his wife, then his child from the lack of medicine, then finally Aleksander himself upon hearing the news.
• The world is a chaotic system, even if we could harness the butterfly effect. It's a fun what-if story that centers itself well (on single character's plight) without becoming to grand in its idea of the butterfly effect.

Liu felt the need to include an afterward that states the events of the story (harnessing the butterfly effect to control weather events) are physically impossible, and that it was science fiction that allow him to play with the rules of physics to explore a different world.

• I wonder if this afterword was planned to be included from the beginning, or he decided to add it later? I suppose it doesn't really matter. the afterword is there now and it serves also to highlight to the reader what science fiction is and can do.

One and One Hundred Thousand Earths

Liu's musings on future technological predictions and exploring the cosmos, written in 2011.

Space development and sustainable/environmental development both as technological paths that have high long term returns but little short term gain.

Is humanity truly an "orphan in the universe" (Liu 77)?

On Finishing Death's End

How do you balance the quality of a novel with the need to finish writing the novel?

...science fiction is the product of leisurely and carefree minds... Only when our lives are stable and quiet can we allow the universe's catastrophes to fascinate and awe us. (Liu 82)

• I think this applies to all curiosity and expression. Only when we are able to look past the problems in our immediate vicinity, we can explore grander ideas.
• Liu scratches at the idea that by raising the quality of life of humanity, we can raise the curiosity and creativity of humanity. I think this goes hand-in-hand with Design For A Better World's message of creating a meaningful, sustainable, human-centered world.

The Battle Between Sci-Fi and Fantasy

I think both fields could make up whatever and justify it within their own frameworks. So is this comparable?

In some ways, basing things in reality can produce even more fantastical stories. Scientific concepts provide a seed for sci-fi to expand from.

The "Church" of Sci-Fi

Chinese science fiction lacks religious feeling (Liu 91)

• Chinese sci-fi as of 2001, when the article was written
• "religious feeling" - awe, wonder, numinosity

In sci-fi, you can choose to write grand, numinous descriptions, or you can choose to one-to-one replace everyday terms with sci-fi terms. Replacement of terms is a lot less engaging of a sci-fi format, and Liu claims Chinese sci-fi is guilty of this.

Fiction has the power to transform how you look at the world. Humans don't really have the ability to understand the super-large and super-small, but fiction can help to weave an understanding of it.

• To use human language and art to help us imagine things humanly unimaginable!

...sci-fi is at its strongest and most charming when it depicts the relationship between people and the universe. (Liu 94)

• This theme comes up again in later essays. Sci-fi's focus is on the universe and humanity's relationship to it.
• Universe, God, Consciousness - all forms of the same thing? (see The 6 Shapes of God by CJ the X)

Further reading

• Father to the Stars by Frederik Pohl
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (the book)

End of The Microcosmos

Short and sweet story about reaching the "end" of physics.

• Can there ever really be an end to a field of study? I think there's always more to something.
• I though the story might end on a tragic note (can't undo the experiment and the world is stuck inverted), but I'm glad Liu flipped the world back in the story and let it play out in a happy way.

I think this story accomplishes exploring people's relationship with the universe while still balancing human to human relationships to make an engaging story.

Sci-fi and fiction is and artform that can take conjecture and run with it. It gives us a glimpse at how the unseen world (see Liber Indigo) might work. Yet, I think true reality will always be more astonishing than even the limits of our imagination.

Poetic Science Fiction

Poeticness - the aesthetic qualities of a piece of art

• According to Liu, classic literature and science fiction literature possess different poeticnesses.
• What does this mean? I think it boils down to science fiction having a greater focus on discussing what it is like to exist and be in the universe, while non-sci-fi is about human-to-human relationships.
  • "human-to-technology, human-to-universe, and human-to-nature relationships" (Liu 110)

Liu really sings praises for Ken Liu! A "one-in-a-million" author that can blend both sci-fi and literature poeticness together.

• From Ken Liu's website: "My story, “The Paper Menagerie,” is the first piece of fiction to win three genre literary awards: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Award." -- Seems like it's very much agreed that this was a great story!

I wonder if this essay was written before or after Ken Liu had translated Liu's Three Body Problem from Chinese to English.

• Ken Liu translated the work in 2014, and this essay was written in 2014

Fiction as a way to "expand your imagination".

• Mysticism also as a way to expand your imagination? (Liber Indigo)

Further reading

• The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu. I've read this. A great short story and collection of short stories. I should read it again!
• Ken Liu stories discussed in this essay
  • Mono no aware
  • The Waves
  • Arc
  • The People of Pele
  • The Message
  • The Countable

Civilization's Expansion in Reverse

Do all things that expand, pop?

What if aliens are intelligent micro organism? What if humans were smaller?

• Depending on how small we were, Earth would be massive!

We must always be dreaming of a future.

Further reading

• The Gravity Mine by Stephen Baxter
• The Last Three Minutes by Paul Davies

Destiny

Fun what-if story where dinosaurs become the dominant intelligent species, and humans are just another species on Earth.

The rules of time travel in this story seem rather fragile, in that everyone who travels must follow a set of rules in order to preserve continuity.

The ending leaves you wondering if the dinosaurs will believe the main characters that they were the ones who pushed away the "demon star" that would have ended the dinosaurs.

• Is a good ending one that leaves you wondering what might happen next?

The Dark Forest Theory

Liu's hypothetical universe where all cosmic civilizations must destroy each other to survive.

• The breakdown and analysis of the theory reminds me of Jason Shiga's Fleep.

Science fiction is fundamentally a literature of speculation. It lists a multitude of possibilities for its readers to enjoy and ponder over, and the most fascinating ones are usually the most unlikely ones... offering the worst possibility of all the possibilities of the universe is, at the very least, a responsible approach. (Liu 141)

The World in Fifty Years

Liu's speculation on what the world might look like in 50 years, as a science fiction author. Written in 2005.

• Sort of similar to the One and One Hundred Thousand Earth essay shown earlier, written 2011
• Liu dreams big in this essay. I like that.

Could we live in greater harmony with animals and nature?

• Technology as a means to return to nature? The two are not mutually exclusive, though sometimes it seems that way.

Sport as a substitute for war.

• Could this be possible? As long as we are capable of physical destruction, can we make war bloodless?

Smartphones are pretty magical things. Even in 2005, Liu is pointing out there magic. But at the same time, we haven't really expanded upon the idea? They do more now, but they're still just boxes in our pocket.

• It doesn't feel like there has been a total modality shift with (smart)phones in the past 20 years.
• I'm scratching at Kirkwood's discussions on more innovative desktop interfaces in Liber Indigo

Heard It in the Morning

This is my favorite short story in this collection.

• It presents such a fantastical event of a "dehazardization officer" of the universe appearing, both implying a greater system in the universe AND advanced alien life.
• Then we move on to the ultimate trade: your life for all of the knowledge you want
• The story just evokes so much wonder and ponder in me
• It's a great epilogue and ending. It wraps up the story and leaves you in the same place as the characters, left to wonder about the purpose of the universe

The upside-down hemisphere, balanced precariously in a blooming desert surrounded by people ready to take the trade and those there to see the spectacle. People in the hemisphere, at peace with their new knowledge, turning into spheres of light. The dehaz officer there orchestrating the whole trade. The altar of truth.

• it makes me want to make a visual rendition of the scene, or at least see someone's else rendition.

"What is the purpose of the universe?"
...
Seeing him then, one could not doubt that he was indeed a person. And all too human, perhaps.
"How could I know," murmured the dehaz officer

On Ball Lightning, An Interview With Liu Cixin

Ball Lightning seems to be a very technical sci-fi story. Yet at the same time, it's goal is to be "intriguing and romantic", not "as logical as possible" (Liu 195). It's a story, and stories are meant to be intriguing.

I'll repeat what a master of sci-fi once said: If you're looking for technical errors, you've come to the right place. (Liu 195)

Sci-fi asks us to add a little sparkle of the universe into our mundane realities.

Liu has to balance both self (author) fulfillment and audience fulfillment when writing his stories. It's an interesting dilemma.

Further reading

• Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu
• Sea of Dreams by Cixin Liu
• Cloud of poems by Cixin Liu

We're Sci-Fi Fans

Liu posits most sci-fi fans eventually feel compelled to write stories of their own. Is it true? Is the genre that inspiring?

• Maybe it's true for all writing and stories? Writers are inspired by stories.

This essay neatly wraps up this collection. There were more essays than stories in here than I expected, but I still enjoyed it. I never thought about sci-fi as a genre so intertwined with exploring our reality and the universe.

To us, sci-fi is not merely a genre of literature, but a cohesive world of the spirit... our experience radiates outward to every possibility. We're a lot like Alice... She asks the Chesire Cat which road to take, and he asks her where she wants to go.
I don't know, she says
Then it doesn't matter