The Language of Liars

The Language of Liars, by S. L. Huang

This book is excellent. It's been less than a week since I finished reading it, and I've already recommended it to at least four people. One of those people, a friend of mine who speaks a couple of languages and has drifted over more than one border, perked up when I described it as 'a linguistic space opera that's also a tragedy about people exploiting other people, or like, how the horror of imperialism consumes our hearts.' There really ought to be more linguistic science fiction in the world so that I have a more recent comp title than Embassytown (which is really not that similar, except for all the ways it is. It would be very interesting to do a paired reading, Embassytown and The Language of Liars, and see how they illuminate each other).

For a short book, The Language of Liars is quite the stick of dynamite. At turns funny, cute, sad, and skin-crawlingly horrifying, Huang accomplishes a hell of a lot in a very small space. I hate to give anything away, plot-wise, except to say that this book both a) made me think a lot about chattel slavery, and b) is not about chattel slavery per se. Huang in fact manages to somehow create a human rights violation that is not an exact analogue of anything in human history (at least not that I can tell), but which feels like it illuminates many of the bleakest things humans have ever done.

My strongest visceral reaction while reading was to a throw-away line about how the Star-Eaters, while working to fill the galaxy's metaphorical petroleum pipelines, end up, as a byproduct of the work they're not really free to leave, eating more than their fill, so that, rather than hungry, they are always uncomfortably full. There's something so insightful about that, about the terrible misery of not being hungry--of not even having the simple pleasure of sating your hunger available to you.

And somehow, along with Huang's skill at horror, this book is also cute, endearing, and funny--even slapstick, somehow, in spite of the misery. I did not find Ro to be a character that I wanted to hang out with in real life. I think I would find him deeply annoying. But, I also think he was the right choice for this book; without his naivete, his sunny disposition, his hopefulness and intensity, the subject matter could have been too much. If I had written this book, it would have been as heavy as lead. But this is, at heart, a space opera, and you should believe me when I tell you you're really going to like reading it.