Ken Liu

Seven Birthdays

Maggie Gordon

Ken Lui was robbed when his Paper Menagerie collection was knocked out of the Goodreads Choice Awards in the final round. Don't believe me? Read this free short on Tor.com and see how magnificent his writing is. Seven Birthdays follows the life of Mia, starting when she is 7 and ending when she's well over 800,000 years old. In her adulthood (at least the type of adulthood we understand), she tried to defeat climate change by developing technology that allowed humans to upload themselves onto servers, allowing the Earth to heal. Sounds like something you've heard before? Just continue! Mia and the human race undergo incredibly developments. People evolve in a myriad of ways, and the result is creative and thought provoking. Seven Birthdays is a beautiful science fiction story that truly gets at what is so great about this genre, and a testament to why Ken Lui is just so fantastic.

Great for hard science fans, but too info-dump-focused for my taste, and the 1st person perspective didn't always convince: what 7-year old would actually say "I run. [...] Like Aeneas pursued by Juno’s stormy rage"?? That said, it was optimistic and interesting to read.

Seven Birthdays

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