The author is a well-known short-fiction and technical writer with an unusually simple and lucid style at the sentence level. In that regard, he reminds me of Kazuo Ishiguro. This book is a collection of 10 good to excellent short stories that do not have strong plot development or dramatic conclusions but have clever and insightful themes with unusually deep intellectual rumination. Chiang is concerned about the intersection of technology and humanity, the costs of progress, linguistics, and the nature of human and animal cognition.