We chat with author S.L. Huang about The Language of Liars, which is a poignant, thought-provoking new masterpiece and a story of secrets, body jumping, and the power of language.
Hi, S.L.! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a Hollywood stunt performer and firearms expert turned professional author—oh, and before that I nerded out with an MIT math degree. My books include a series of “math as a superpower” urban thrillers, a half-Chinese fairy tale retelling of Little Red Riding Hood as a recovering assassin, a wuxia epic fantasy about incorrigible women and queer folk (with lots of swords), and now an extremely nerdy linguistic alien space opera that has no humans in it at all.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Like many writers, I’ve been making up stories since before I could remember. I confess that a lot of them took the form of imagining myself into the adventures I read about—sometimes I think I became a writer just because I really wanted to be a book character when I grew up, and this is the closest thing!
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The Wizard of Oz
- The one that made you want to become an author: There isn’t just one, but the Star Wars Expanded Universe is probably closest
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Yoon Ha Lee’s Code and Codex, out this year!
Your latest novella, The Language of Liars, is out April 21st! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Crunchy, complicated, cuddly, catastrophic catharsis.
What can readers expect?
I’ve been very amused by the early Storygraph reader response visualizations for this book. Strong character development? “It’s Complicated.” Loveable characters? “It’s Complicated.” Diverse cast of characters? “It’s Complicated.” Flaws of characters a main focus? “It’s Complicated.”
I love writing books that don’t fit into boxes.
The blurbs for this book also include lots of variations of “brilliant” and “devastating”, so…that might give you an idea!
Where did the inspiration for The Language of Liars come from?
I’ve been wanting to write a linguistic scifi book FOREVER, and after talking to my editor one afternoon, the plot for this one fell into my head pretty much fully formed (though it took about four hours to noodle out completely). Gosh, I wish that would happen more often.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I very much looked forward to most of the drafting—the best part of writing for me is drafting! Working out plot and character tangles is exhausting and editing is a bear for me, but I love drafting. So much of this book was like cutting open my feelings and bleeding them onto the page, which was perversely cleansing.
I particularly loved getting in the head of my cinnamon-roll main character. I don’t usually write main characters who are this good-hearted. Of course, sometimes it seems like the purer my protagonists are, the more I hurt them…
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Oh, so many. Despite having the plot for this one worked out very early on, there were so many tiny pieces that had to fit together, like a finely-tuned clockwork. Editing was even harder, as one grain of sand in that mechanism meant the whole thing had to be rebuilt.
It was also quite a challenge figuring out my alien characters, including just how alien I wanted to make them. I’m quite in love with the final characterizations, but getting there took a lot of effort.
What’s next for you?
I’m nose down trying to finish my next project—hopefully there’ll be something I can announce soon! Writing has an objectionable amount of hard work to it.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
Other than the aforementioned Code and Codex, which I’ve already read and keeps living rent free in my head, here are some upcoming releases I’m excited for:
- The Subtle Art of Folding Space, by John Chu
- Tea and Treachery at the Infinite Pantry, by Jo Miles
- Rabbit Test and Other Stories, by Samantha Mills
- The Fist of Memory, by Wole Talabi
It’s going to be a banger year for books!
