A story of secrets, body jumping, and the power of language, The Language of Liars is a poignant, thought-provoking new masterpiece from award-winning author of The Water Outlaws S. L. Huang.
"Pitch-perfect science fiction about linguistics and consequences. This book destroyed me."—Yoon Ha Lee, New York Times bestselling author of Ninefox Gambit
A New Scientist Best of 2026 Pick, an Amazon Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of April Pick
Speak another people's language. Know them. Become them.
And discover you've destroyed them.
In his training as a spy, Ro was warned: you will always be living a lie.
Jumping into a Star Eater's mind in the first place requires a moment of perfect psychic connection, and he has studied all his life to comprehend their species. Admires them, respects them, is reverent at the idea of being one of them—the only species physiologically capable of mining the element needed for lightyear-spanning space travel. The species all others crave to know more of, but who have notoriously shared so very little. The species Ro's own small civilization, with its dwindling resources and withering reach, needs to know more about.
It will feel real, his elders impressed upon him. It will never be real.
But Ro's certainty runs deep: he will be different. Ro will not be an imposter hiding the truth of his past, because his heart will be one of them. He will be one of them.
To understand is to become. It never occurs to him that the mere act of understanding can destroy.
Thought provoking message with otherworldly aura
"Ro has always had a voracious appetite for languages as an avenue for understanding different cultures. His psychic dream of jumping into a Star Eater’s mind is the pinnacle of academic achievement, but Ro does not truly understand what this will entail. He unknowingly trains as a spy to steal rather than just gather insight, and the species that he has come to respect is far more confounding than he could have expected. What’s more is the loss of his former self and the responsibility to his home planet with its dwindling resources that is pulling at his moral code. Truthfully I had a hard time reviewing this book. If I rated this book by the big reveal at the end and the general plot twists, it certainly would have been bumped up significantly. It was a really thought provoking realization that holds many tethers to reality with globalisation, colonialism and cultural appropriation. Overwriting a culture through repeated assumptions and misinterpretations, or taking what was not offered and translating a complex people into something far simpler is such a unique and interesting concept. It was an emotional gut punch that I am still thinking about it today. However, I really struggled through a lot of the book. It was extremely slow and repetitive. If the goal was to reflect the disorientation Ro felt in this unknown society, it was spot on, but as the reader I needed a little more direction and grounding to keep me engaged. It is tricky with novellas set in a sci-fic landscape to explore enough of the world to make it tangible, while also creating enough development for the plot and characters. It certainly fulfilled each of the categories, but still the pacing was off and it felt disorganized. I think I would have appreciated this more had I read it myself (which I plan to!). Thank you to Dreamscape Media and Netgalley for the ALC. Emily Woo Zeller gave this story an outerworldly voice that channelled Spock. It was soothing, but sometimes sounded a little monotonous. I suspect this was an intentional artistic direction given the Star Eater society, but this made it challenging for me to stay hooked in. I ended up listening to chapters a few times to make sure I was still following along. Maybe my mind is just too scattered for an impactful audiobook such as this. Book rating: 3. 5/5 ⭐️ Genre: dark sci-fi Themes: linguistics, aliens, cultural appropriation, travel"
