RaveLocusThis volume gives us a chance to read Liu when handled by many different expert translators who are not named Ken Liu, a fellow who has ably shouldered more than his share of such duties. All kudos to them for some excellent renderings, every one of which seems miraculously to converge on what I presume is Liu’s actual voice ... The first item, \'The Village Teacher\', is a perfect fulfillment ...The story is Simakian in its deep moral simplicity and emotional impact ... \'Time Migration\'...pays off in layers of wonder ... \'2018-04-01\', short yet potent, is almost cyberpunk ... Despite its one-note gimmicky core, \'Contraction\' is an effectively mind-bending tale dealing with the unforeseen fallout from cosmological reversals of interstellar expansion ... underneath any flavorful cultural trappings lies the essential core of a science fiction, identical to that found in SF from the West: engagement with the universe on the universe’s own terms of harsh and unrelenting physics, math and biology, without denying the specialness of homo sapiens and the human heart.
