Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

12 reviews

k_aro's review

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

A really, really good book that I also am kind of uncomfortable in reading. The book is, I guess inevitably, about Chinese history, tracing all kinds of past atrocities and conflicts, all of which is marred by the decay of history, the anti-Communist and Sinophobic world we currently live in, as well as complications around how we should talk about all of these things. These stories have also all been written at various points in Liu's life, which may or may not change how we can read them/where his feelings have changed.

A lot of really imaginative sci-fi concepts; I especially love the first short story, which follows in the Invisible Cities tradition of a society/universe? sketched out by its constituents, by its minor details. It's really magical and a great introduction to the series. I'm not really sure what to make of "The Regular"; it does feel a little like the conclusion is that cops should shoot people faster when they feel justified, but a lot more of the story is bound up in both the stresses that policing introduces on police as well as the biases that exist even in an "objective" world. I also felt a little weird about "Simulacrum", mostly because of my own contested feelings around fatherhood.

There were a lot of stories that I think are stereotypically "diasporic"; I also cried 3-4 times while reading this book, which has to count for something.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Child abuse, Medical content, Rape, Blood, Confinement, Death, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Death of parent, Racism, Xenophobia, Drug use, Gaslighting, Grief, Murder, Sexual assault, Torture, Trafficking, War, and Violence

Moderate: Bullying, Infidelity, Gun violence, Sexual content, Colonisation, Animal death, and Kidnapping

Minor: Dementia and Addiction

talonsontypewriters's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Body horror, Racism, Xenophobia, War, Gun violence, Gore, Torture, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Grief

Moderate: Genocide, Animal death, Slavery, Bullying, Racial slurs, Death of parent, Colonisation, and Child death

Minor: Infidelity, Excrement, Sexual content, Alcohol, Cancer, and Suicide

Surveillance ("The Perfect Match"). Eye trauma/gore, violence against sex workers ("The Regular").

atalea's review against another edition

dark informative inspiring sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Racism, Body horror, Violence, Blood, Rape, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, and Medical content

Moderate: Alcohol and Gaslighting

Minor: Child death, Suicide, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Animal death, and War

10stormlight's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

Some really conceptually interesting and thought provoking stuff. A collection of very emotional (and sometimes heartrending) stories. Primarily sci fi and magical realism with a heavy historical influence. 

As a warning, there is a ton of *extremely* graphic content in here. In fact, I think this may be the most explicitly graphic book I have ever read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Torture, Violence, Gore, Rape, Suicide, Body horror, Death, Grief, Medical content, Xenophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Racism, Child death, Sexual content, War, Death of parent, Confinement, Gun violence, and Murder

Minor: Terminal illness, Bullying, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, and Racial slurs

ruthhelizabeth's review against another edition

challenging dark informative medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Racism, Racial slurs, Murder, Misogyny, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Gore, Confinement, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Pregnancy, Genocide, Kidnapping, Hate crime, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death, Blood, War, Torture, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Suicide

samdalefox's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

I had first read 'The paper menagerie' as a stand alone story and loved it, so bought Liu's full short story collection. As you can see from the individual ratings below, I also loved the rest of the stories. The only one to drop below 4/5 was 'All the flavours', mostly because I don't think the structure and length entirely paid off. Outstanding pieces include 'State change', Simulacrum', 'The paper menagerie', and 'The man who ended history: a documentary'. Although the collection averaged 4.5, I'm bumping it up to 4.75 because the work is greater than the sum of its parts. 
 
It's hard to describe Ken Liu's writing style and subject matter. It's an easy to read, sci-fi, magical realism, literary, historical fiction, kind of genre. There were several times I looked up specific events referenced and learnt about Chinese and pan-Asian history. I found this incredibly enjoyable, the way history and culture are presented is informative, but in an appeasing way because it's told almost like a fairy tale. I also greatly appeciated the author's notes at the end of the stories with historical features explaining the references and pointing to further reading. 

The stories cover difficult themes such as imperialism, industrialisation, migration and immigrant experience, ethical use/misuse and philosophical development of technology, revolution and nationalism, militarianism, philosophy of communication and memory, and censorship, all with respect to Chinese people.

"Every act of communication is a miracle of translation"

The book making habits of select species 4.25⭐
State change 4.75⭐ 
The perfect match 4.25⭐
Good hunting 4⭐
The literomancer 4.5⭐
Simulacrum 5⭐
The regular 4⭐
The paper menagerie 5⭐
An advanced reader's picture book of comparative cognition 4.25⭐
The waves 4.5⭐
Mono no aware 4.5⭐
All the flavours 3.5⭐
A brief history of the trans Pacific tunnel 4.25⭐
The litigation master and the monkey king 4.75⭐
The man who ended history: a documentary 5⭐

Average = 4.43 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation and Classism

Minor: Murder, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Death, Genocide, Confinement, Hate crime, Bullying, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Rape

The stories cover difficult themes such as imperialism, industrialisation, migration and immigrant experience, ethical use/misuse and philosophical development of technology, revolution and nationalism, militarianism, philosophy of communication and memory, and censorship all with respect to Chinese people.

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective sad

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, Colonisation, Genocide, Medical content, Medical trauma, Child abuse, Death of parent, Racism, Suicide, War, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Rape, Racial slurs, Infidelity, Police brutality, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Cancer, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual violence, and Slavery

Minor: Dementia and Sexual content

kalira's review

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ken Lie has a brilliant approach to weaving together history and realism with fantastical/speculative fiction elements, drawing it all into poignant and deeply emotional relief.

It took me a long time to read this anthology, largely because the stories are very good . . . and sometimes, so painful and heavy and immediate that upon finishing I needed to set the book aside and take some time. Both to process the story and to give myself a little emotional space to breathe.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Genocide, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Child death, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Gore, Trafficking, Vomit, Hate crime, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Death, War, Alcohol, Colonisation, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, Chronic illness, and Grief

onamoonbeam's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.25

sometimes, ken liu, you are SO deep in the sauce

my favorite stories in this collection were paper menagerie, bookkeeping habits, and the waves. monkey king was so fun but also i was listening to my audiobook on my morning commute and i was not expecting so many stories to have graphic depictions of torture! an important topic esp in the context of historical erasure! not what i was expecting!

oh i am so tired when writing this i nearly forgot about good hunting (first saw it in love death and robots! i actually like the og better even if the animation is gorgeous) and state change

sometimes the sauce is good sometimes the sauce gets lost in so much extensions of history and context

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Colonisation, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Rape, Murder, Sexual violence, and Suicide

heidipolkissa82's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Torture, Genocide, Physical abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, War, Blood, and Colonisation