Hugo Award Winning Story - The Paper Menagerie

[imron]

Just thought people might be interested in the winner of the 2012 Short Story Hugo Award - “The Paper Menagerie” (PDF link) by Ken Liu.

It's written from the point-of-view of the child of an American and a mail-order Chinese bride, and the culture clash that grows between the mother and son as the child grows up in America.

Very worthwhile reading.

[BertR]

That's a very touching story

[skylee]

Thanks for sharing. It is a good story and I agree it is worth reading.

I suppose that award is not a very prestigious award, right? I can't help but wonder what the assessment criteria are. But surely awards are incentives for people to keep writing more and better stories/books, etc.

PS - those who are interested can try to learn the saddest thing mentioned on the last page of the story in Chinese.

[imron]

The Hugos are actually quite prestigious, but genre specific - limited to works of Science Fiction and Fantasy. The list of winners from the last 50-60 years is basically a who's who of Science Fiction/Fantasy authors.

The story linked to above was just the winner in the short story category. You can see the full list of nominees and winners from this year here. And if you can read the other short stories it was up against here.

[mikelove]

The Hugos are one of the two big American speculative fiction awards, the other being the Nebula Awards. Wikipedia has a handy list of joint winners, which actually include this story.

(personally I prefer the Hugos, since the Nebulas have short-changed a couple of my favorite writers like Neal Stephenson and Vernor Vinge, but this is subject to a great deal of controversy as with any major award)

[WestTexas]

Great story. Forums are weirdly dead recently.

[Meng Lelan]

Great story. Forums are weirdly dead recently.

I was thinking the same thing....

[imron]

Roddy's on vacation with limited Internet access at the moment, and he's temporarily turned off new user registration to prevent the moderation queue from being overwhelmed because I'm also busy with a couple of things at the moment and don't have as much time to sort it out. Things should be back to normal shortly.

[anonymoose]

Don't tell me Roddy met a North Korean girl while he was in Beijing and now he's gone to live in North Korea...?

[Kenny同志]

Does North Korea allow internatioal marriage?

[anonymoose]

Or maybe he's just gone camping on the summit of Ben Nevis to get some respite from the pressures of running chinese forums and having to deal with all those inane off-topic posts...

[Meng Lelan]

I guess Chinese Forum is making him very uncomfortable.

[abcdefg]

#7 -- @Meng Lelan -- How about a report on your Middlebury experience. Perhaps I just missed it.

[Meng Lelan]

You know what, abcdeg, I am actually writing about my Middlebury experience this week and then ask roddy where to post it, but now that I think of it, let us have mayhem rule in his absence and I can post the Middlebury report right here in this thread. This after all is the New Normal, for now.

[abcdefg]

I look forward to your comments.

Would imagine this (below) would be the most logical place for posting.

http://www.chinese-f...tside-of-china/

[imron]

let us have mayhem rule in his absence

Too late.

[Meng Lelan]

Yes, too late for mayhem-making now that abcdefg came forward with the right thread for my Middlebury post that I am going to write up this weekend. Hopefully I can get this done by Monday.

[roddy]

Camping on the top of Ben Nevis would be uncomfortable, as it's all rocks. Here's a view from the tent last week though - Bridge of Orchy. Apologies for size (of the picture. The tent's fine.)

[anonymoose]

Nice. Looks like kenny's pictures from Hunan.

[imron]

Here's a view from the tent last week though - Bridge of Orchy

I see the famous Scottish summer is also on display