Not until after I’ve finally finished reading this book, did I notice that it is actually scientific fiction, and not about historical events. Maybe this is  somehow because of the origins of the author, who, like me, is a Chinese-American. This shared background allowed me to understand some Chinese traditions he incorporates, including retelling traditional Chinese tales as well as integrating Chinese words in the stories. Because of my experience as a Chinese student studying in the US, I could empathize with the struggle and opportunity of having two homelands.

This book is composed of several short stories, but all of them somehow incorporate the use of technology while they narrate past or future events. Chinese history, nevertheless, is definitely the focus of this book. No matter when these stories take place, they all have roots that connect in some way to the  history of China. As a citizen from China, sometimes, I felt weird reading some of the stories written from a worldwide perspective since I’ve only heard of them from the Chinese point of view. It’s new for me to hear these stories again from an objective perspective, which makes me once again ruminate upon my country’s history. To be honest, sometimes, I can’t say that this book has perfectly reflected the concepts the author might have wanted to express. Also, since some stories are short, I was able to get the central meaning while reading but felt that they were not well extended. However, despite these small issues I think this book has, it’s still worthwhile to read.

Some stories really reflect the significant problems we’re now facing because of technology. This is clearly evident in “The Perfect Match”, which presents the danger we might have if we rely too much on using technology for assistance in our daily life. In this story, Liu suggests that these tools might evolve from assisting our minds to dominating our thoughts, and poses that we might even be stripped of our privacy. “Good Hunting” also expresses the changes that technology has brought to us. While people are pushed to develop themselves to keep pace with society, many traditional cultures and civilizations suffer as they are replaced, and thus fade away in time. Moreover, in “Simulacrum'', it shows how technology might even replace humans, causing people to live forever within the illusions these technologies could create. People are always chasing the best, and therefore one day the illusion of technology could even surpass the reality humans understand given their natural intelligence and perception. In its essence, this story makes us question, should we abandon our true selves to live in a perfect illusion? This rhetorical question really got me, and I couldn’t even think of an answer. Rather than providing an answer, this author leaves space for readers to arrive at their own conclusions.

In the book, I see people who are trying to resolve the fault they once made in “The Regular '' and “A Brief History Of The Trans-Pacific Tunnel” and also some moving stories. I especially love “The Paper Menagerie”, “An Advanced Reader’s Picture Book of Comparative Cognition”, “The Waves”, and “Mono No Aware”. I can feel the different forms love takes in these different stories. For example, there’s a mother who used love to create a paper menageries to tell her child about her hometown and as a way of sharing the grief and loneliness of being separated from her family and culture. There are parents who choose to love their child in different ways, and their love persists despite the distance. There’s a mother who also has a different choice while facing the future, but eventually she finds a way back home along with her offspring. Finally, there’s a child who carries the love his parents brought moving far away and ultimately makes the same choice as his parents. All these stories comment on the ideas of love, humanity, identity, family, and survival. While considering these, it’s hard to make a perfect choice that benefits all, so a common consequence and theme is sacrifice. As the author mentions in “The Litigation Master And The Monkey King”, while the master is going to die he remarks, “there are no heroes in the world, they’re just people who made the right choices in a particular moment under an extraordinary circumstance”. The same could be true for Dr. Wei in “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary”. Using the machine he and his wife developed, he also tries to tell the truth about what happened during the war between China and Japan, which eventually caused him to suicide. That’s why we’re fortunate enough to live in the present.

In addition, the author has also described several Chinese stories from a foreigner’s perspective. In “The Literomancer” and “All The Flavors”, both two American girls hear about the Chinese tales from memories, and that’s why only the children could see through the misunderstandings people hold toward China at that period of time. All in all, this book actually incorporates both the traditional Chinese stories or tales within the modern scientific fiction. I love the way the author combines his past, our present, and the future together into this one book. Only when we begin to look into the history and our places within, we can eventually realize its power and how tiny we humans actually are.