mikewilson reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Too cerebral, even for me.
Hardcover, 333 pages
English language
Published Aug. 12, 2002 by Tor.
Stories of Your Life and Others
by Ted Chiang
4 stars
(193 reviews)
Ted Chiang's first published story, "Tower of Babylon," won the Nebula Award in 1990. Subsequent stories have won the Asimov's SF Magazine reader poll, a second Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Sidewise Award for alternate history.
He won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992. Story for story, he is the most honored young writer in modern SF.
Now, collected here for the first time are all seven of this extraordinary writer's stories so far--plus an eighth story written especially for this volume.
What if men built a tower from Earth to Heaven--and broke through to Heaven's other side? What if we discovered that the fundamentals of mathematics were arbitrary and inconsistent? What if there were a science of naming things that calls life into being from inanimate matter? What if exposure to an alien language forever changed our perception of time? …
Ted Chiang's first published story, "Tower of Babylon," won the Nebula Award in 1990. Subsequent stories have won the Asimov's SF Magazine reader poll, a second Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Sidewise Award for alternate history.
He won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992. Story for story, he is the most honored young writer in modern SF.
Now, collected here for the first time are all seven of this extraordinary writer's stories so far--plus an eighth story written especially for this volume.
What if men built a tower from Earth to Heaven--and broke through to Heaven's other side? What if we discovered that the fundamentals of mathematics were arbitrary and inconsistent? What if there were a science of naming things that calls life into being from inanimate matter? What if exposure to an alien language forever changed our perception of time?
What if all the beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity were literally true, and the sight of sinners being swallowed into fiery pits were a routine event on city streets?
These are the kinds of outrageous questions posed by the stories of Ted Chiang. Stories of your life . . . and others.
tgt reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Some brilliant ideas let down by somewhat soulless execution.
Some brilliant ideas let down by somewhat soulless execution.
axleyjc reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Great sci-fi shorts! Lots of interesting details as well.
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
First read in 2003; then again (natch) after Arrival. The collection is hit-or-miss: some of the stories did nothing for me, but the hits... wow.
Nuno reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
A collection of unrelated stories that explore themes that are almost unheard of in current day sci-fi. The ability that Ted Chiang demonstrates in creating new universes, some of them based on western mythology is amazing. In some stories it even allows for a jump into mythological metaphysics and biogenesis, all the while creating a raft of coherence that allows the reader to see the story not as a magical fantasy but as a otherworldly sci-fi experience. The only thing bad is that this is just one book and not 5 or 6, but as an experimental collection of stories I could not allow myself but to have it rated right at the top.
Matt McManus reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
What a surprising gem of a book. I loved how most of the stories tweak some foundational underpinning of what it means to be human and explores how that change would play out. I also really enjoyed the cadence of several stories as well. The short, couple paragraph vignettes made it surprising easy to bounce around some of the ideas he was exploring in my own head.
Old_Tim reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
You've probably heard some hype about how great this collection is. Guess what? It is all true. This is so good that it makes you re-evaluate those books you've been reading-- maybe they weren't as good as you thought they were.
otrops reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
Ted Chiang artfully takes our world, changes one thing and asks "What if?" What if the Tower of Babel were successful? What if we could augment our intelligence to the point where we immediately spotted the patterns in the chaos around us? What if our language determined the way we view time itself?
Many of these questions boil down to one question: What if the way we perceive the world changes the world itself? It's a fascinating question, and Chiang sets out to answer it with admirable gusto. The scenarios he imagines are complex and compelling. He manages to tease out a number of surprising possibilities that aren't obvious at first. The ideas he explores are always take the reading down fascinating twists and turns.
There is some familiar territory here. As I read some of the stories I couldn't help being reminded of other stories. At times I found …
Ted Chiang artfully takes our world, changes one thing and asks "What if?" What if the Tower of Babel were successful? What if we could augment our intelligence to the point where we immediately spotted the patterns in the chaos around us? What if our language determined the way we view time itself?
Many of these questions boil down to one question: What if the way we perceive the world changes the world itself? It's a fascinating question, and Chiang sets out to answer it with admirable gusto. The scenarios he imagines are complex and compelling. He manages to tease out a number of surprising possibilities that aren't obvious at first. The ideas he explores are always take the reading down fascinating twists and turns.
There is some familiar territory here. As I read some of the stories I couldn't help being reminded of other stories. At times I found myself thinking about [book:Flowers for Algernon|18373], and [author:Kurt Vonnegut|2778055]'s "Harrison Bergeron". While Chiang may be covering familiar territory, may be asking questions authors have asked before or pointing out similar problems, the way explores those questions and problems never fails to go in new and interesting directions.
The stories themselves are mixed. In some, the third person narration is so matter-of-fact and flat, that I found myself imagining them being read in the affectless voice John Cale uses to narrate The Velvet Underground Song "The Gift."
In some, the characters are little more than an empty vessel that Chiang uses to explore an interesting idea, but they take on no real life of their own. I never really felt invested in them as characters.
Exploring ideas as completely as Chiang does here is difficult, doing it while also creating fully-fledged characters is rare. It's still more rare in short stories, where it is hard to do both of those things well. And yet, Chiang succeeds at least twice. Both "The Story of Your Life" and "Liking What You See: A Documentary" both manage to strike this balance.
I'm looking forward to reading more of Ted Chiang's work.
Jameson reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This is like a mix of the best parts of Rod Serling, Jorge Luis Borges, and Michael Crichton. Accessible, thought-provoking, and thoroughly entertaining across a wide range of subjects. I can't think of anyone to whom I wouldn't recommend this book very highly.
jordan reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Super quick read — was poignant when I put it down, and then grew on me ever since.
Wetdryvac reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Story accretion. Not a bad approach.
bwbeach reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I really enjoyed this book. Every story was different, very engaging, and each had interesting new ideas.
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This book is a good collection of hard science fiction short stories. The scientific ideas and Ted Chiang's way of presenting them is excellent, but in my opinion, the pace of the stories drags at times. None-the-less, the ideas presented here are excellent and I would recommend this book to all sci-fi lovers.
loppear reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on Goodreads
3 stars
Clever premises on the boundary of technology and philosophy and some thoughtful writing approaches, but almost none of these fully clicked for me - would recommend "Division by Zero" and "Story of your Life".
joeyh reviewed Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Review of 'Stories of Your Life and Others' on 'Goodreads'
(I've only read the novella, Story of Your Life. Still need to find the other stories in this collection.)
Beautiful writing. Great concepts.
I wonder if it was written with pure functional programming in mind -- the descriptions of the nonlinear writing are very similar to what it's
often like to program functionally (although we still reason about functional programs linerally in the end.. mostly).
Subjects
- Fiction
- Science fiction
- Short stories