PodCastle 298: The Shadowcrafter
Show Notes
Rated PG. Includes war, and violence.
The Shadowcrafter
by Ken Liu
This story begins, as all of my creations do, in shadows.
No story is without its particular emphases and elisions, just as no woman goes about without her makeup. Many women on our home island of Uchinaa (they call it Okinawa here in Japan), and on the other islands that make up our Kingdom of Ruuchuu, copy the rumors of fashion in Nanjing and Beijing, in Kagoshima and Edo, and smother their faces with smooth creams and bright rouge, sweet-smelling powders and red lip wax.
But they do not understand the true secret of the art of enhancing a woman’s beauty, which now I will teach you.
A face is not a flat piece of paper. Like the surface of our island, it has heights and depths, peaks and valleys. That means shadows.
About the Author
Ken Liu
Ken Liu is an author of speculative fiction, as well as a translator, lawyer, and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he is the author of The Dandelion Dynasty, a silkpunk epic fantasy series (The Grace of Kings (2015), The Wall of Storms (2016), and a forthcoming third volume) and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016), a collection. He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker (2017).
In addition to his original fiction, Ken also translated numerous works from Chinese to English, including The Three-Body Problem (2014), by Liu Cixin, and “Folding Beijing,” by Hao Jingfang, both Hugo winners.
About the Narrator
Aki Gibbons
Aki Gibbons Fiction writer with roots in Okinawa and California. Author of Scent of a City.
