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" It is not possible to completely eliminate mediation between you as an observer and the history you are trying to understand. "

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" I don't have a specific message for 'The Grace of Kings' and the sequels in mind other than wanting to challenge some of the source material I was working from as well as some of the assumptions of epic fantasy. "

" Labels like 'Chinese Science Fiction' or 'Western Science Fiction' summarize a vast field of work, all of which are diverse and driven by individual authors, with individual concerns. "

Science Fiction

" I was not trying to write some sort of serious meditation on war and peace. 'The Grace of Kings' is meant to be a fun book. It's meant to be an epic fantasy. "

" Researching real history has taught me to be bolder and more imaginative in building fantasy worlds and writing fantasy characters, to seek out the margins of history and the forgotten tales that illuminate the whole, complex truth of our flawed yet wondrous nature as a species. "

" My metaphor for translation has always been that translation is really a performance art. You take the original and try to perform it, really, in a different medium. Part of that is about interpretation and what you think the author's voice really is. "

" The evolution of technology is, like the evolution of literature, heavily path-dependent. Culture plays a far more important role in the acceptance, adoption, and spread of technology than many of us are willing to acknowledge. "

" My translation work has been pretty separate from my fiction, as it was basically an accidental side project that turned into a separate and parallel career. "

" I don't really care that much about genre labels. I tend to write across a variety of different genres. "

" Writers are naturally obsessed with books, the tangible artifacts of their labor. Even beyond the text, I love the physicality of books, the possibilities presented by their substance and form. "

" Like steampunk, silkpunk is a blend of science fiction and fantasy. But while steampunk takes its inspiration from the chrome-brass-glass technology aesthetic of the Victorian era, silkpunk draws inspiration from East Asian antiquity. "

" Trying to predict the future is a loser's game. "

" I'm conscious of the fact that I'm sort of a bridging figure. I have my Chinese literary heritage and cultural background, so I'm comfortable with these things, but at the same time, I have to navigate the Anglo-American tradition, which has a self-centred view of what Asia and what being Chinese means. "

" If I end up having a novel that sells really well and that allows me to pay for health insurance and mortgage without having to work at a day job, that would be great. "

" It's kind of cool that I know of all this great science fiction being written in China, and most of it is not really well-known in the West. "

" I get to use fiction as a way to work out my thinking and to delight readers in the process. I can't think of any deal that's better for me, and I'm always so grateful that readers have indulged me as I argue with myself in my stories. "

" The evolution of art is not only driven by artists, but by a conversation between the artists and the audience. "

" My fiction occupies, actually, the very heart of American culture: this eternal question and struggle of what it means to be an American. "

" I don't believe in reducing a style and a voice down to a set of descriptions, so I've never done that. "

" When I act as a translator, I am really doing a performance for my fellow Anglophone readers in the West. "

" For me, all fiction is about prizing the logic of metaphors - which is the logic of narratives in general - over reality, which is irreducibly random and senseless. "

" I think male authors who want to try to tackle these issues of representation of women can generally do a better job if they try to question traditional notions of masculinity and the sort of toxic nature of traditional ways of presenting masculinity. "

" In creating the silkpunk aesthetic, I was influenced by the ideas of W. Brian Arthur, who articulates a vision of technology as a language. "

" The Singaporean speculative tradition is different. Singapore doesn't conceive itself as the centre of the world or the one country that's going to save the world, so there's a different tone that comes out in the way speculative fiction is done. That's refreshing to read. "

" The 'Grace of Kings' begins as a very dark, complicated world filled with injustices - among them the oppressed position of women - but gradually transforms into something better through a series of revolutions. But since real social change takes a long time, even by the end of the book, only the seeds of deep change have been planted. "

" The way a story makes an argument is quite different from the way a persuasive essay does it. Emotional truth and the logic of metaphors dominate. "

" I'm often asked how I get ideas for my stories. The answer is there's no single way; every story is different. "

" I like the law. I like the part that's about reasoning, about persuasion, about telling stories, about trying to build structures that fall within rules. "

" The problems faced by writers of color are analogous to the problems face by women writers. "

" We have never had a society that was truly just. Some groups have always benefited at the expense of others. "

" It's okay if you get rejected 20, 30 or 200 times... You don't need everyone to like your story - you just need one person who really likes your story. "