Existential questions can be very dry and theoretical, but Ted Chiang manages to make them both deeply humane and real. At the conclusion of each story, I ended up closing the book and looking into the distance, questioning aspects of the world and my life that I had never thought about before. It creates an uncertainty that feels good, a form of admiration at all the possibilities of existence, beautifully rendered in clear and thoughtful prose. My favourite kind of short stories.