Science fiction writer Ken Liu has written an important short story, Bizantine Empathy, weaving as central to the narrative cryptocurrency and distributed ledger technology. Finally, crypto breaks out of its ghettoization in popular fiction, where it has been the plaything of terrorists and drug dealers, and instead has been used as an elegant background to a larger point. We caught up with Mr. Liu to ask him more about his motivations for bringing such a technical topic into the science fiction community.
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Author Ken Liu Has Coding Street Cred
No less a personage than Bitcoin core (BTC) developer and ecosystem rockstar Jimmy Song praised science fiction writer Ken Liu as “one of the best coders” he’s ever worked with. Mr. Liu describes his career as “bizarre and strange” leading up to his foray into professional fiction writing. He’s coded for Microsoft and various startups, and then decided to earn a Juris Doctorate and try his hand at corporate tax law. He’s also an award-winning Chinese language translator, bringing leading science fiction from the East to the English speaking world. All of these pursuits led him to his recent short story, Byzantine Empathy. It’s at the sweet spot of Mr. Liu’s many forms of mastery: code, law, language. It’s also a literate take on cryptocurrency and distributed ledger technology, which are integral to the story as essential parts.
Twelve Tomorrows is in its fifth edition with Wade Roush, futurist host of the Soonish podcast, as its editor. He tapped Mr. Liu for two tasks. He wanted a short story, and Mr. Liu delivered Byzantine Empathy as part of the anthology. Mr. Roush also asked Ken Liu to employ his
