I had encountered the quite frankly inconceivable horrors of the Rape of Nanjing and Unit 731 in several similarly fictionalised storylines in R.F. I’ve learned more about Chinese and Japanese history in this single fiction book than I did in the entire preceding quarter-century of life combined. So, The Paper Menagerie is one of the most soul-searingly immersive, devastating, and galvanising books I have ever read, a collection of historical, contemporary, and futuristic science fiction and fantasy short stories featuring some of just the most lyrical prose and certainly the most dizzyingly visionary concepts ever penned.

Does the thought not make the universe seem just a bit kinder, a bit brighter, a bit warmer and more human?” Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly. And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. “Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe.

Ken liu's the paper menagerie