Ken Liu (kenliu.name) 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 has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places. His debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, the Dandelion Dynasty. It won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a Nebula Award finalist. He subsequently published the second volume in the series, The Wall of Storms; two collections of short stories, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories; and a Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker. Forthcoming is the conclusion to the Dandelion Dynasty. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
APRIL
Text on screen: Town of Mannaport, Commonwealth of Maine and Massachusetts, population 28,528 (human)
[Montage of a bedroom community on the shore of Massachusetts Bay. Thick cables pulling a train into a commuter-rail station; families in an ice-cream parlor next to an ammo shop; a block of public housing surrounded by single-family homes; a high school football game; a Fourth of July parade; neighbors browsing a yard sale. The scenes are shot on phones, showing the artless application of filters and framing, as well as the unsteady camerawork of amateurs.
Scenes of frozen seas and muddy snowfields. And then, the spring. The sunlight, after the long winter, is timid and soft, but there’s no mistaking the raucous joy of the children as they test out the playground equipment; the blooming forsythias and azaleas—vibrant, living fireworks splashed onto the canvas after a winter in shades of gray; the chitter-chatter of birds, squirrels, baby skunks luxuriating on green lawns in the warm breeze.]
INGRID (71, hair so white it shines)
It started a few weeks ago … Look at me, can’t remember anything anymore—no, it’s not my age. (Laughs.) I’m going to blame my poor memory on the excitement of so many new residents in town. (She turns to her granddaughter, sitting next to her.) Do you remember the date?
ZOE (16, expression tense, hunched as though trying to disappear, quiet)
I … I’m not sure.
INGRID
Just check the date on your video—you know, that first one? (Pridefully to the camera) She was the first to get a sighting! They used her video for the nightly news.
ZOE
Okay. (Fumbles with her phone until she finds it.) Exactly three weeks ago, on the vernal equinox.
LEE (41, town manager)
I tell people: manage this right, and you’ll secure the future of your children and the future of their children.
You’ve read the headlines in the Globe and seen the reports on TV. My days are packed with meetings: the President, Boeing, the Commonwealth Energy Commission, Westinghouse, DRACOGRID, Caterpillar, BaySTAR … everyone wants a piece of Mannaport! This is easily the largest rush in decades.
You’ve seen nothing yet. Just wait till the gigawatt-class ones show up—
INGRID
Right. On the vernal equinox.
It’s not as bad as some people make it sound. I had Ron—that’s my son-in-law—and Zoe put in some heavy curtains on the bedroom window to muffle the noise. I hardly know they are there now.
ZOE
(Takes a deep breath to calm herself.) I … like having them around.
I keep the windows open a crack at night to hear them.
INGRID
All the ones we’ve seen so far are pretty small. (Turns to Zoe.) Not like the ones you used to draw.
ZOE
(Looks away from the camera.)
ALEXANDER (35, eyes so intense they seem to glow on their own)
I want them gone! They’ll have to put me in jail if they expect me to put up with—
HARIVEEN (53, self-described “inventrepreneur,” has an LED clip in her hair that flashes “Free energy isn’t free”)
Nobody knows where they’re from. Or how they came to be here. Or why.
But that’s not the problem. The problem is that no one is even thinking about the right questions.
[Montage of shaky phone footage: silver scales scintillating between docked boats; a serpentine tail disappearing under a thick lilac bush; the crimson clouds of a seaside sunrise interrupted by a loud roar—reptilian, avian, saurian?—the camera swerves to reveal half-glimpsed leathery wings—like kites plunging out of the sky—vanishing behind sandy dunes; a screaming crowd scattering from a baseball field, pursued by dozens of flying creatures swooping low, emitting high-pitched screeches—bats? birds? flying lizards?]
Town of Mannaport, Commonwealth of Maine and Massachusetts, population 7,000 (dragon, estimated)
HARIVEEN
[We are in a garage, something like a modern Da Vinci’s workshop, except messier, dirtier, noisier, and devoid of the patina of romanticized history. Wheels and gears spin; belts rumble; chains rattle; cranks and pistons goose-step in formation.]
These are prototypes, so a bit crude-looking. But I assure you they’re all based on proven, centuries-old designs—like this one, first built by Étienne Lenoir—with lots of patented improvements from me, of course. I’ve got some that run on coal, some on petroleum or gas—the idea that internal-combustion engines require pure alcohol is a shameless lie spread by the energy conglomerates. If I could just get the funding …
Are you still filming?
Never mind. I know how I sound. Even if you shoot everything I show you, they’ll figure out a way to discredit me. Can’t let the public know about real alternatives to the draconic energy monopoly, can we?
More than a century ago, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford teamed up to lock us into electricity as our dominant power source, and we’ve been racing nonstop to generate more electricity from dragon breath. Bit by bit, we have grown to depend on these creatures, and now all our politicians are in the pockets of the draconic energy-industrial complex, with no way out.
No, no, don’t worry; I won’t challenge the orthodoxy that dragons are completely safe—I’ll keep the interview uncontroversial.
So … how do I explain my opposition to our energy policy without …?
It’s like this. Everyone sees that air routes and shipping lanes are planned along dragon migratory routes; metropolises survive and thrive based on their dragon population; countries compete mercilessly to attract the giant beasts that drive GDP.
We speak of university dragon endowments and the national strategic reserve—but the language is designed to make us feel better;