The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species

"The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species" is a Nebula Award-nominated short story by Ken Liu that compares and contrasts five fictional alien species' unique styles of reading and writing.

Species

Allatians

A species of music who believe their writing system is superior to all. An Allatian author speaks as he writes, causing his nose to vibrate and etch grooves into the surface of a metal tablet covered in wax or clay. To read, one uses their nose to follow through the grooves, while a hollow chamber in their skull turns the vibrations to sound, recreating the author's voice, tone, emotion, and rhythm. However, every time a book is read it is damaged and some details are lost. In order to preserve the most precious works, they are locked away in forbidden libraries.

Quatzoli

Mechanical people but it is unknown if they were always that way or are creations of another organism. Their bodies are made of hourglass shaped copper. A couple times a day, they take in water through their bottom chamber and then dip themselves into lava lakes. This causes steam to pass through the narrow part of their body and into the upper chamber to power various gears that allow the being to function. This process creates a stone that contains several millions of channels that water can pass through. As time goes on, the channels alter, causing memories to be lost and formed. A Quatzoli child is created in a forge and given a sliver of its parent's mind, which allows it to begin its life. As the child learns, its brain grows around the sliver until it is time to divide its mind for its own children. Because of this system, these beings are living books with accumulated knowledge passed down from their ancestors.

Hesperoe

Once a violent race which, although it once had its own form of writing, no longer uses it at all. They have always distrusted writing because books give facts and exciting stories but have no solid proof to justify their claims. The Hesperoes would write down their thoughts only when memories could not be trusted. Some of their favorite things are speech and debate, but they love the glories of war. Once mind storage and mapping was discovered they stopped writing altogether. Prior to death great minds are harvested from the bodies of leaders and other intellectual individuals of their species and each path is mapped in order to predict their next thought. They then expand upon those minds to see into the future. So the great minds of Hesperoe never die and their memories can be looked at through these maps for guidance.

Tull-Toks

Ghost-like organisms made of energy that do not have a form of writing but claim that everything can be read. They travel by grabbing on to star ships of other species without being noticed. Tull-Toks believe each star is living text where each aspect of it serves a different purpose and that each planet has a poem. It is said that the greatest books lie within black holes but none of their kind has ever returned from such a reading, so many pass it off as a myth. Many species consider this organism to be an illiterate fraud that rely on such tales to hide their own ignorance.

Curu'ee

Organisms about the size of a period at the end of a sentence, they travel to obtain books that have lost all meaning and can no longer be read by the authors' descendants. Because many other races don't view the Curu'ee as a threat due to their size, they are capable of obtaining what they want without any trouble.

The Curu'ee built their cities from the unused books: vases and tablets turned into thoroughfares, quipu fibers were rewoven and tied into marketplaces, magnetic discs became entertainment arenas, and Quatzoli stone brains turned into a research complex. The Curu'ee "read without knowing they are reading."

Background

Ken Liu drew his inspiration for The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species from his admiration of stories about whole groups of people or ideas, like Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. This was his first serious attempt at writing in this style. Through this short story, Liu wanted to imagine forms of writing different from human's tangible form.[1]

Critical Reception

Most agreed that the story was descriptive, less sentimental than most of Liu's other works, and written in an unusual format, but critics disagreed as to whether the format and lack of sentiment were an improvement.[2][3][4]

Awards and Nominations

Publication History

External links

The original publication of "The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species" on Lightspeed magazine's website

Ken Liu's official website

References

  1. ↑ Liptak, Andrew (August 2012). "Author Spotlight: Ken Liu". Lightspeed Magazine. Retrieved February 13, 2016.
  2. ↑ Brown, Robert. "Lightspeed #27, August 2012." Tangent. Tangent Magazine, 2 Aug. 2012. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
  3. ↑ Stufflebeam, Bonnie Jo. "Nebula Nominations: Part Two." Short Story Review. N.p., 13 May 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.
  4. ↑ Cuinn, Carrie. "Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Aug 2012; Issue # 27." Carrie Cuinn. N.p., 07 Sept. 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.
  5. ↑ "2012 Nebula Awards Nominees Announced." Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.
  6. ↑ Lawrence, Ks. "Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award 2013 Finalists." Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction (n.d.): n. pag. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction, 10 May 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.
  7. ↑ "WSFA Small Press Award 2013 Finalists Announced." Washington Science Fiction Association. Washington Science Fiction Association, 25 Aug. 2013. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Liu, Ken. "Short Fiction Bibliography." Ken Liu, Writer. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
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