The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Ken Lui's book of short stories deftly uses sci fi and fantasy elements to broach some pretty heavy subjects, but still manages to make them really good reads. The spectrum is pretty wide between all out sci fi/fantasy stories to straight up fiction, but all have a lot of thoughtful subject matter to chew on, especially in relation to Japanese and Chinese history and immigration. There are dashes of myth and fantastical flashes of futuristic worlds that will keep you turning pages and each story reels you in with a human element that could have easily gotten lost in the imaginative elements. However, Ken Lui never strays away from telling a human story, and sometimes it's more profound for having been told in such a narrative as fictional story telling. As far as short story collections go, I would say this is one of the best I've read and not giving it that last star is basically my own bias on short stories on a whole having not enough story to really grab me mind, heart and soul as full novels do, however, I do think Ken Lui's stories are quite exceptional and very much worth reading.