Review: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

Rating: 10/10

Synopsis

Bestselling author Ken Liu selects his award-winning science fiction and fantasy tales 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. This mesmerizing collection features all 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).

A must-have for every science fiction and fantasy fan, this beautiful book is an anthology to savor.

Review

“A man holds up a sheep for sacrifice, and he thinks he has truth, justice, and the magic that will save the world. It’s funny, isn’t it?” – Literomancer, Ken Liu

Oh my god what a book. Currently, this is my most favourite read of 2026. One of those books I purposefully slowed down to enjoy. I restricted myself to just one story every night with tea and had a grand time. 

My first highlight and note about the book was ‘My god, can Ken Liu write!!!’ and it came halfway through the preface. This collection of short stories are some of the most brilliant and poignant writing I’ve ever read. There are 15 short stories, so I’m going to limit myself to my top 5 among them. 

1. Perfect Match: I cannot believe that this was written more than 10 years ago. It is extremely topical to today’s AI world and how society’s relationship to AI is evolving and will evolve. Absolutely scary 10/10
2. Literomancer: This story just reminded me why I love to read. Not only did I learn a little bit more about our world and its history but it also made me yearn so much for a fictional life form. It’s amazing how real Liu made all the characters feel in such a short story. Total and unparalleled mastery over words. I just want to say Thank you to the author for choosing to tell this story. 
3. The Paper Menagerie: This one felt very traditional to me and was reminiscent of so many movies and tales from Tamil Nadu culture for me. A particular scene hit me so resoundingly that I literally teared up. Such a deeply moving writer. 
4. An advanced readers’ picture book of comparative cognition: I would have highlighted this entire short story if I could. And I have actually highlighted many whole paragraphs in this one. How much Ken Liu loves and has hope for humanity can be seen in this short story. 
5. Mono No Aware: Once again Ken Liu writes about love and nails. It’s such a strikingly beautiful and aching tale. It expounds on the love one must have for community and how individually no one is heroic but as a group everyone is heroic. 

I already have a hold in my library for the new short story collection from Ken Liu.