{"id":59367,"date":"2025-03-28T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/?p=59367"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:10:21","slug":"novels-are-like-elephants-ken-liu-and-rose-casey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/novels-are-like-elephants-ken-liu-and-rose-casey\/","title":{"rendered":"Novels are Like Elephants: Ken Liu and Rose Casey"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a bit surprising to hear a writer known for building worlds that incorporate deep historical research and elaborate technological details extol the virtues of play, but Ken Liu<\/a> tells critic Rose Casey<\/a> and host Sarah Wasserman that if \u201cyour idea of heaven doesn\u2019t include play, then I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s a heaven people want to go to.\u201d It turns out that Ken\u2014acclaimed translator and author of the \u201csilkpunk\u201d epic fantasy series Dandelion Dynasty<\/em> and the award-winning short story collection The Paper Menagerie<\/em>\u2014is deeply serious about play. Speaking about play as the key to technological progress, Ken and Rose discuss the importance of whimsy and the inextricable relationship between imagination and usefulness. For Ken, whose Dandelion Dynasty<\/em> makes heroes of engineers instead of wizards or knights, precise machinery and innovative gadgets are born, like novels, of imagination. Ken himself might be best described as a meticulous, dedicated tinkerer\u2014a writer playing with the materials and stories of the past to help us encounter new worlds in the present. So even if trying to explain his craft is \u201clike asking fish how they swim,\u201d Ken jumps in and discusses how he writes at such different lengths (hint: the longer the book, the more elephantine) and what he makes of different genre labels, from fantasy to historical fiction. We also learn why Ken is a fan of Brat Summer and still thinking about the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n

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