I am very bad at reading short story collections. Something in me says that if it’s in one volume, then it’s one story. So when the chapters don’t go together, I get confused even though I know they are independent stories and not actually chapters.
But I like short stories, so I get through them by reading at least a few books between the stories. I got through two collections this year.
In the preface to The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, Ken Liu says, “I’m also a translator, and translation offers a natural metaphor for how I think about writing in general. Every act of communication is a miracle of translation.” I’ve said that I prefer him as a translator, but I do like his own work and this collection is excellent. The titular Paper Menage is a sad story about a boy who rejects his Chinese mother and the paper animals she folded for him. It wasn’t my favorite, but it does represent the collection with some magic used to tell a story about the Asian American experience and family. My favorite story was the one where I learned about literomancy and the February 28 massacre in Taiwan. I’m making the collection sound sadder than it is.
I’ve been a fan of Charlie Jane Anders since I read an article she wrote about Dr. Who’s Nyssa of Traken many years ago. So I was happy to overcome my short story issue and get through Even Greater Mistakes. I wasn’t in a good place when I read most of these stories, so I don’t have much to say about most of them. There is something about Anders that feels like a friend you (I) need when things are hard. Also, one story was about time travel where things sent into the future move because the planet is always moving. I liked that.
