Welcome!
Update 10/31/2017: The Legends of Luke Skywalker is now out! This is a collection of tall tales and myths about our favorite Jedi. You can also read my Star Wars story, “The Sith of Datawork” in From a Certain Point of View, an anthology in which 40 awesome authors show you the events of A New Hope from points of view you probably haven’t considered. You can read more about my love for Star Wars here.
Recent Book Releases
The Legends of Luke Skywalker (October 31, 2017): a collection of tall tales and myths about our favorite Jedi. Illustrated by J. G. Jones.
Audio version narrated by January LaVoy.
The Wall of Storms (October 4, 2016): Book II of The Dandelion Dynasty.
Audio version narrated by Michael Kramer.
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (March 18, 2016): a collection of my short fiction (SF, F, magic realism, historical, etc.)
Audio version narrated by Corey Brill and Joy Osmansk.
I’m also the translator for Liu Cixin’s hard SF novel, The Three-Body Problem (2014), which won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the first translated novel to ever win that honor. President Obama called it “wildly imaginative, very interesting.” The concluding volume of the “Three Body” trilogy, Death’s End, was published in 2016.
I edited and translated the first English-language collection of contemporary Chinese SFF, Invisible Planets (November 1, 2016). Kirkus gave it a starred review, describing it as “a phenomenal anthology of short speculative fiction.”
Other Information
My upcoming appearances.
I have an occasional mailing list for news about my novels, appearances, and other projects such as translations and talks. If you’re interested, please sign up on the linked form. Thank you for your support!
I enjoy giving talks in professional and academic contexts as well to fans or the public. I’ve had very positive feedback for my lectures and readings.
I accept commissions for specific projects and love to collaborate with other artists. For some examples of such projects, please see commissions & collaborations.
To contact me about reprints, adaptations, commissions, translations, questions, requests (to give talks, judge contests, hold workshops, etc.) or just to chat, please email me at ken [AT] kenliu.name.
Recent Publications
- “Seven Birthdays,” written for Bridging Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan, has been reprinted by Tor.com (read).
- “A Brief And Inaccurate But True Account of the Origin of Living Books,” a story written for the Tales of Our Time exhibit at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in NYC, was published on November 4, 2016 (read).
- “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 Snow Train” – Genius Loci: the Spirit of Place, edited by Jaym Gates, June 2016.
Other News
- For information about my upcoming events, look here.
- 4/5/2017: The Grace of Kings is a finalist in Japan’s Seiun Awards for Best Foreign Novel; Peter Tieryas’s fantastic The United States of Japan is a fellow finalist! “Simulacrum” is a finalist in the Best Foreign Story” category.
- 4/4/2017: Super pleased to see Death’s End by Liu Cixin (translated by me) on the 2017 Hugo ballot! Congrats to Da Liu!
- “The Algorithms for Love” won the Ignotus Award for Best Foreign Story.
- Hao Jingfang’s story, “Folding Beijing,” is a Hugo winner! This is only the third Hugo ever awarded to a translated work. Congrats to the other winners (N. K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, and Naomi Kritzer) and finalists (especially Bo Bolander, whose work I’ve admired for years and whose win I would have celebrated as much as Hao Jingfang’s), and Alyssa Wong, winner of the Alfie for Short Story).
- The Grace of Kings is the winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel!