The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
Publisher: Saga Press -
Pages: 640 -
Buy: Book/eBook
[Editor’s Note: What follows is a critical essay in the traditional sense: an in-depth and spoiler-filled analysis of Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings—focused particularly on the women in the novel. It’s thoughtful, beautiful, and important—but if you’re sensitive to spoilers, you might enjoy reading it more after you’ve completed Liu’s epic novel. If you’re looking for an (almost) spoiler-free review to help you determine whether to buy it, let me suggest Justin Landon’s review on Tor.com.]
Many months ago Joe Monti, editor of Saga Press, Simon & Schuster’s SFF imprint, sent me a copy out of the blue of Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings for a possible quote. More precisely, and using the proper polite etiquette, he contacted my editor at Orbit who forwarded his email to me.
I knew Ken’s name, of course. He’s a multiple award winner (Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy) for his short fiction. He has also done an important service to the sff field by translating short fiction and novels from Chinese into English, works that readers in the English-speaking market would not otherwise be able to enjoy. The Grace of Kings is Liu’s debut novel. Read More »
From Tiptree to Leckie to L’Engle and Cherryh, science fiction has a rich history of women writing progressive and popular fiction. One could argue that modern science fiction was vitalized by Shelley, and Ursula K. Le Guin has been an ambassador for fantastic and thoughtful fiction for decades. And, of course, now they’re the destroying it one novel at a time.
Recently, the /r/printSF sub-Reddit began a conversation about the best science fiction by women. I realized that I’ve read a woefully small number of the listed books, and this spurred some thought in my head about continuing this conversation, and using it as an opportunity to highlight some of the best science fiction books by women.
My own experiences within science fiction are fairly shallow (at least in terms of the scope of this project), so I asked some of my favourite authors and writers to tell me a bit about their favourites. So, join me, Julie Czerneda, Ann Leckie, Francis Knight, Andrew Liptak, Teresa Frohock, and Maureen Kincaid Speller as we gush about some of the best novels that science fiction has on offer. Read More »
