Stories of Your Life and Others

As I have grown older, more stressed, more worried, more cynical, and have read more books; I suppose I have gotten a bit blasé. It is not often that I read a book that stirs me so much that it feels like it sits in my body for days after, and poses questions and tells stories that somehow feel urgent to think about and mull over in my head. I am glad to report that this book showed me it is still possible.

Not all the stories are fantastic. But Chiang has that rare quality to his writing where even the stories that are not good are still good. I didn't care much for "Understand", "Division by Zero" or "Liking What You See". They are great ideas, and Chiang does a formidable job of diving into his own ideas and examining them from all angles. But sometimes, as in these two stories, he seems to be too much into the idea itself and forget a bit about the story, and I find I do not feel much for or care much about the characters and their feelings or motivations. Even so, Ted Chiang at his poorest is still better than a lot of other writers at their best.

And Ted Chiang at his best is... A force of Nature. Apart from "Story of Your Life", the story behing the movie "Arrival", I absolutely adored stories like "The Tower of Babylon", "Seventy-Two Letters", and "Hell is The Absence of God", for very different reasons, as they are stories with very different atmospheres. I am a sucker for the "What if we assume that old fashioned world models are actually literally true and then examine what that would be like" kind of stories. It's not a genre Chiang has invented - one great example is [a:Philip José Farmer|10089|Philip José Farmer|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1234714074p2/10089.jpg]'s novelette [b:Sail On! Sail On!|52489268|Sail On! Sail On!|Philip José Farmer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1564382468l/52489268.SX50_SY75.jpg|72440550] from 1952 - but he has certainly refined it and elevated it to new heights. And unlike most other examples I have seen, these stories do not only play with the idea of what such worlds would be like - the design, the make, of these worlds, and the experiences of the protagonists inside them, also make important and interesting philosophical points; philosophy that spans from cosmology to the human condition, suffering, loss and redemption. This may sound cheesy, but it's just not.

I am a little ashamed that I lived to be 43 years old to know Chiang's stories (apart from watching Arrival), but I'm gonna make up for it now!

I'm thrilled to have finally gotten around to the story that one of my favorite movies was based on. Story of Your Life made me appreciate the movie Arrival even more, while enjoying additional story elements from the source material here. I'm not very familiar with the world of sci-fi, but ever since Black Mirror went on hiatus I've had an unmet hankering for some good dystopian speculation that leaves you with that warm and fuzzy existential dread.

Chiang is my first exposure to short sci-fi. His stories are heavy on the math and science, and are so well done that I sometimes had trouble discerning where the fiction elements began. The other side of the coin here is that the stories often do focus more on the ideas than the characters or plot. But the ideas were so interesting that I didn't care.

Chiang's ability to write for so many different perspectives on a novel topic was consistently impressive. For example: how does the world, and the various tribes and organizations within, react to random angelic visits that are akin to a natural disaster? This ability was most impressive in the final story, where seeing physical attractiveness is optional. I was blown away by this collection and am stoked for Exhalation. And don't skip the Story Notes at the end. They briefly cover Chiang's inspiration for each piece.