Through These Winsome Gates

Imagine, if you will, a choice. Imagine the opportunity to chose between two worlds.

A friend of mine recently asked me to help her set up an online dating profile. She got a bit dejected when I told her it was like most things in life -- you get out what you put in. She thought I meant spending hours combing through other peoples' profiles and picking just the right people to meet. I shook my head. "No," I told her, "it's more about doing the work to be really clear about what you want. Someone who's going to be scared away by who you are isn't worth your time." It's a theory that flies in the face of everything we're taught about social norms. My friend's eyes went wide, then darted away from mine, and she said something about maybe waiting a little longer.

"Being a werewolf isn't just teeth and claws," she said, her lips brushing my ear she was so close, so quiet, "it's inside. It's how you look a the world. It's how the world looks back at you."

Ken Liu's writing occupies the subtle space where fantasy and science fiction brush up against possibility and plausibility. Here, the wondrous walks hand-in-hand with the mundane.