Stories of Your Life and Others

Some really good and some really okay stories: From best to worst

Tower of Babylon 5/5
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate 5/5
Understand 5/5
Exhalation 5/5
What's Expected of Us 5/5
Division by Zero 4/5
Story of Your Life 4/5
The Lifecycle of Software Objects 4/5
Hell is the Absence of God 4/5
Seventy-Two Letters 2/5
Liking What You See: A Documentary: Got bored never read to the end

I need more books by Ted Chiang. I can't get enough of his writing.

4.5/5

A thought-provoking and dense collection of sci-fi short stories. As a brief note up-front, there is nothing explicitly tying these stories together - each tale stands alone in its own unique setting and with new characters. However, you can expect each story to feature strong internal consistency and distinct but open-ended social discussion, with a lesser focus on individual people.

Chiang's writing style at first seems to conform to hard sci-fi conventions, where a plot is driven by or has a new technological development (or novum) based in known science principles. It makes sense that Chiang has a computer science degree, but I was honestly surprised that he did not have an even more academic background. This is due to the in-depth explanations and ingenuous utilisations of often high-level scientific and mathematical concepts featured in all his stories. When the technology or concept seems to be mundane, the story takes over with some intriguing outcomes and effects on individuals explored.

This is also why I believe Chiang's writing often falls into the soft sci-fi classification as well, which explores societal aspects and human emotions in the foreground of an alternative world (or alterity). There are two stories especially in Story of Your Life and Others which are more fantastical than sci-fi (Tower of Babylon and Hell is the Absence of God), but all the stories in both his collections have some sort of social commentary being explored, with some more on the surface than others.

This is Chiang's strength, as he links deep scientific connections with philosophical discussions in often brain-breaking stories. As a reader, I was surprised at how much time I needed to complete his works. Not only are you meeting new characters and a unique setting, but you have to understand and then keep track of the technology's implications as well as the narrative - and this introductory phase is repeated for each story! This is not at all a knock on Chiang's writing style or the collection, but an acknowledgement that this cannot be approached with the same reading style as that of a typical novel.

I certainly enjoyed the mind-blowing aspect of his storytelling, and the diversity of ideas featured. From fables, world-views and existentialism to CIA action, agency and choice, each story was written slightly differently and distinct in its purpose. After completing the Exhalation collection I'll be moving on to some longer-form sci-fi (which removes the breaks mentioned above), but I whole-heartedly recommend even just a few of Chiang's stories to a curious sci-fi/ fantasy reader. If you do decide to read all of his works, it shouldn't be a time-consuming task but will likely require short breaks between stories so that you are able to absorb the narrative and social deliberation displayed.

Just like the more recent Ted Chiang short story collection I read recently, Exhalation, this is a mix of beautifully told stories with scientific/philosophical leanings (Tower of Babylon, Story of Your Life, Hell is the Absence of God) and some other stories that feel like term papers with a bit of a narrative wrapping (Understand, Division by Zero, Seventy-Two Letters).

I think it's totally worth reading for the former stories, and the latter aren't bad either, just can become tedious or hard to follow at times.

This was really excellent. A couple of the selections weren't great for me, but the rest more than made up for them. I loved Arrival and wanted to read that story (and the rest) and it did not disappoint.

Not as strong a set of short stories as his later collection (Exhalation), but still interesting what-if scenarios playing on bibilical/theistic and scifi concepts

4.5

I absolutely loved this collection of stories. Inspiring, beautiful, not-so-sci-fi that it was disconnected from our world.

What I also loved about these stories is that they made me think about my own world and and I wanted to share these conversations and thoughts with those around me.

I think my favourite story was ‘Story of Your Life' (made in to the film The Arrival) closely followed by ‘Tower of Babylon'. But even the short short, ‘The Evolution of Human Science' was superb, right down to the very first opening paragraph!

The writing is not bad, the stories sort of have an intellectual element to them. The author has a good understanding of story structure, philosophy and human psychology I guess.

But nonetheless, these are just short stories, and by the time it takes to make them interesting, when that happens at all, they are over.

Read 4:33 / 10:23 44%

Stunning short stories. Chiang plays so elegantly with belief, loss, religion, science, and wonder. I was utterly captivated.

Overall, a great collection of short stories. As a linguist, I was hesitant to read “Story of Your Life”, because many (most?) scifi authors grossly misinterpret linguistics. But, I really enjoyed that story—easily 5/5. It is Sapir-Whorf (ugh), but in an interesting and (crucially) non-racist way, and coupled with ideas (probably not the right word) from physics; it was an interesting combination. I also really enjoyed “Hell is the Absence of God” and “Seventy Two Letters”.

Another incredible book by Ted Chiang. I couldn't put it down. He's quickly become one of my all-time favorite authors.

I think this book is a work of genius and instantly made Chiang one of my most respected authors. Reading it made me feel like when I'm having a conversation with someone clearly smarter than me, and right as I'm able to make myself feel better by saying that they're just “book smart,” they reveal themselves to be more creative and perceptive as well.

The main reason I didn't give it 5 stars is unfair; the stories worked too well on me, so each left me feeling sad or unsettled in a way I couldn't shake for several days. I still don't understand “Division by Zero” at all, for instance, but it left me feeling shaken for reasons I don't understand and can't explain.

The afterward describes the mathematical proofs and Kurt Vonnegut quotes that inspired the stories. I think this book is my soul mate

Lovely..
Now I can watch Arrival Movie...:)

Merged review:

Just wonderful. Loved all the stories.

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com

This is a really great collection of short science fiction stories. Stories of Your Life is an enjoyable read on its own. It's really interesting seeing how it has been adapted into a full motion picture. But then there are another heap of short stories, some more interesting than others. Though I enjoyed enough of them to make this book purchase worthwhile. Towers of Babylon was particularly good.

One of the best books I've read in 2016.

“Freedom isn't an illusion; it's perfectly real in the context of sequential consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it's simply a different context, no more or less valid than the other. It's like that famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an elegant young woman, face turned away from the viewer, or a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on her chest. There's no “correct” interpretation; both are equally valid. But you can't see both at the same time.”

I picked it up because of the movie and I'm very grateful for that. I would have missed out on some fantastic stories and ideas that kept me at the edge of my seat. My favorites were:

• Story of Your Life (naturally)
• Understand • Liking What You See: A Documentary • Tower of Babylon • Hell Is the Absence of God

I also enjoyed the author's notes explaining how each story came to be. This was highly neat.

An excellent collection of well written and thought provoking stories.

Há algum tempo eu não sentia essa vontade de terminar capítulos e histórias. Navegar por essa tapeçaria de Ted Chiang é conhecer desconhecidos inimagináveis e ainda assim sentir que tudo é palpável e potente e real.

Tenho minhas favoritas, mas cada história, apesar de muito diferentes, foi notavelmente criada pela mesma mente genial que parte de uma ideia pontual, observada ou imaginada, expande ela por uma perspectiva logico-científica e cria um pedaço de mundo perfeito pra receber uma história sempre muito humana e instigante.

Além de todas as histórias balancearem muito bem ciência fantástica e dramas humanos, o livro como um todo também é muito bem organizado, sequenciando contos com ambientações, narrativas e estruturas muito diferentes, o que deu, a meu ver, um ótimo ritmo à coletânea. Ainda sobre narrativa e estrutura, comunicação entre forma e conteúdo do texto sempre me encantam, então escrever memórias em tempo futuro num conto e emular uma argumentação matemática ao longo da estrutura de outro foram alguns dos pontos altos da leitura pra mim.

Fui fisgado por Arrival e Story of Your Life, e conhecer mais da ficção de Chiang foi uma ótima experiência. Com certeza lerei mais no futuro.

I enjoyed all of the novellas in this collection, but Stories of Your Life and Towers of Babylon are exceptional. Both spellbinding must reads.

I wish there were more Ted Chiang stories to read! The creativity, variety and quality of his work is really inspiring.

Reading short stories was a nice change of pace after some of the monster epics I've been reading lately. As a whole, I found this collection both entertaining and challenging. While I can't speak for any of the science, I definitely found the human (and humanoid) aspects of the stories intriguing and occasionally disturbing. The themes run from primarily scientific exploration to primarily theological philosophy. Of my favorite stories, I'd give one to each category.

“Hell is the Absence of God” is sure to rankle many religious readers, and it would be easy for an atheist to take superficial delight, but I found it fascinating. This reads as a “what if Biblical times were now?” story and draws heavily from Judeo-Christian stories. However, in this world, Divine Intervention is basically a natural disaster and a similar culture springs up. Everything from support groups to storm chasers appears in this short but powerful piece. God, in this story, is truly beyond mortal comprehension while being utterly transparent in His actions. Everyone believes in God because, there's an Angel right there and oh, look down, there's Hell. Once you don't have to think about believing, you have to think about loving God as the one true path to Heaven. You can't fake it, but what if you can't feel it either? The situations the characters in this story find themselves in are ones I've wondered myself, and while I've read people complaining the ending is obvious, it's the natural one to explore the idea of God and what it really means to believe.

My other favorite is “Lifecycle of Software Objects,” a novella included with my ebook edition. At first, this story made me feel horribly guilty about dead tamagotchis and neglected Neopets, but it makes me feel that while reinventing the classic “what is life?” trope of science fiction. It combines this with the “what is an adult?” trope. As someone who spends most of the week working with children and trying to figure out when they get to make a decision for themselves, I found the latter aspect a brilliant contribution to the former. Also is I could actually have a digient it would be a tiny tapir and I would never suspend him no matter what.

The other stories were also quite enjoyable, and the only one that rubbed me slightly the wrong way was “Understand.” I just didn't like the pessimism of the two characters ultimate goals needing to result in one of their deaths. I may not be superintelligent, but it seems to me that two superintelligent people could master coexisting when their goals were not at all contradictory.

Definitely recommend this collection to people who like thoughtful science fiction, especially those who also enjoy a good modern myth.

The tales in Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang cover an interesting range of ideas, but the topics of math, genetics, language, and religion are fairly strong throughout. I had a wide range of reactions to each of the stories in this collection, so I think it would be most fair for me to review each one individually.
Tower of BabylonThe Tower of Babylon follows the journey of two miners as they ascend the Tower of Babylon in the hopes of finding their way into the vault of heaven. Much of the story is concerned with the practical issues of having a tower that is so tall, which I found mildly interesting. The ending of the story is perhaps what ruins it for me - the realization of the main character and how he comes to his conclusion feel a bit forced, especially from a character that has felt a little flat the whole time. Overall the story felt a bit long and drawn out, without an entirely satisfying conclusion. Probably my least favorite in the entire collection.UnderstandUnderstand follows the story of a brain-damaged man who, upon receiving experimental medication, becomes a super genius. I rather liked seeing how his mental state changed throughout the story; his progression felt like a natural path and didn't seem awkward or forced. The story felt like it built to a natural conclusion, albeit an interesting one. I did feel that there was a bit too much explanation in this story, but then it was dealing with the academic thoughts of a hyper-intelligent being, so I'm not sure there would have been an easy way around that. I liked this story quite a bit when I read it, but I am wondering if that is only because I found it much more enjoyable than the first story in the collection. After some time away from it, I have to admit I wasn't blown away by it. I think the execution of the writing wasn't quite up to the ideas contained within the story. Because so much of this story takes place in one man's head, I don't know how you could get away from the fact that much of this story feels like you are being given an inadequate description of a mathematical process. Also, although the tone of the writing changes slightly as the main character gains intelligence, I don't know if the tone of the writing changes enough to really emphasize how drastic it is. Although many of his behaviors are different, the character at the end still feels very much like the same person that existed on the first page, and I think someone experiencing the sorts of changes he is would have a more drastic change in personality. I liked this story, but I think more could have been done with it. It was interesting, but it hasn't really stuck with me in the way that some of the other stories have.Division by ZeroDivision by Zero is the story of a woman who is driven to depression by her proof of the inconsistency of mathematics, and her husband, who is trying to understand her changing demeanor. First of all, I have to say I really enjoyed this story. It was one of the shorter stories in the collection, and it felt very concise, tight, and focused. I enjoyed how the elements of the story were revealed, and how the segments added up to a complete view of the situation. I always find it interesting to see what breaks people in a story, and I really enjoyed seeing the process from two perspectives. Of course, it probably helped that I am something of a math person - the main character's surly behavior during her research and extreme reaction to her changing world view wasn't as incomprehensible to me as it was to the other characters in the story. I sort of felt as though the reader was supposed to identify with the husband, but I found myself identifying more with the mathematician. Perhaps not unexpected from spending too much time in higher education. Anyway, I really liked this story, and I think it is one of the more enjoyable and accessible in the collection. Story of Your LifeStory of Your Life is the story of a linguist who has recently lost her daughter, and is recalling moments from her daughter's childhood, how she met her husband, and her work translating the language of a visiting alien species. This was definitely one of the more successful stories in the collection. Like Division by Zero, it focuses more on the people in the story, and allows the mathematical and scientific concepts to be interesting without taking precedence over the story itself. I actually rather liked the way this story was structured and composed as well. It had an appropriately somber tone, without being melodramatic or dull. It felt like someone was wistfully remembering happier times from their past in the context of a recent tragedy. For me this story was a highlight of the collection.Seventy-Two LettersSeventy-Two Letters is the story of a man who is working to create a dexterous automaton, and then gets involved in a project to create a way to propagate human life when it is discovered that the fertility of the human race is coming to an end. In my opinion, this was one of the less successful stories in the book. It wasn't so much that the ideas of the story were bad (actually, I found the premise rather interesting), but I wasn't very excited by the way the story progressed. Too much time was spent discussing, explaining, or hypothesizing about the fictitious nomenclature system that would bring the automata to life. The characters were rather dull, and the social and political implications of the research that were discussed in the story have been more successfully examined in other works of fiction. It was a bit of a slog for me to get through this short story, and just when I was starting to get excited by the action, the main character "figured it out" and the story was over. I thought the solution was sort of obvious, so the conclusion in itself wasn't really enough to win me over, and the journey to the ending wasn't all that enjoyable. This story felt rushed in parts, and sluggish in others. It either needed to be a much longer story (to give us more insight to the characters and make their journey as individuals more interesting), or it needed to be a much shorter one that didn't spend so much time redundantly discussing ideas of the nomenclature system. This is close to Tower of Babylon for me; I was only slightly more excited by this one because of the action sequence at the end.The Evolution of Human ScienceThis story was originally published as a short piece in Nature under a different title ("Catching Crumbs from the Table"). [Side note: Dear Nature editors, um, what?] It is told as a futuristic journal article, discussing how regular humans need not worry about lacking the capabilities of the new metahumans, who can digitally download and share information. Although short, I actually rather liked this piece - it felt like a futuristic op-ed column. It was also sort of interesting putting it into perspective with today's world, where the technology gap can be rather wide in some places. I didn't think this story was as strong as some of the others, but, for what it was, I did enjoy it.Hell is the Absence of GodThis is the story of how Neil Fisk lost his wife and found God. It takes place in a world where angelic visitations are regular events, and hell is occasionally on display. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this story. I found it compelling to read, and got through it quite quickly, but I still feel conflicted now that I've finished. The funny thing is, I actually liked the ending. It seemed fitting, and appropriate if you accepted the world that Chiang created. Problem is, I don't know if I fully accepted it. I mean, I found the idea that angelic visitations would be something akin to natural disasters rather interesting, and the idea that they would bring a balance of creative and destructive forces made sense to me. I also liked how Chiang sort of implied that these things could happen because heaven, mortality, and hell were intersecting planes of existence. So I suppose I enjoyed the more scientific side of things. The religious descriptions... made me oddly uncomfortable. Which, I suppose, is good in a way. I do think it is important to push yourself out of a comfort zone, at least occasionally. I just don't know if I like the direction this pushed me. I don't know. I think if it was making me question my own beliefs or examine how I treat the beliefs of others I would feel differently about it, but I really just left the story thinking that I'd been preached at a bit too much, and that everyone got their just desserts at the end. I think this story was successful in what it was trying to accomplish, I'm just not sure if I liked it.Liking What You See: A DocumentaryThis was a documentary-style story about "lookisim" - judging people based on their looks - and finding ways to remove it from society. Although I think Story of Your Life was probably the best executed story in this collection, Liking What You See was definitely my favorite. It was the one story in the collection where I just sat, read, and enjoyed. The concept was interesting (if we could turn off a portion of our brain that makes us consider people differently, would we? Should we?), and the format was equally so. Apparently this story was nominated for a Hugo, but Chiang refused the nomination because he felt the story was rushed by his publishers and not quite what he had envisioned. Which is too bad, because I thought it was great. The conversation within the story is exactly the sort of conversation people would be having if this were a possibility, and the emotions and actions of the characters are exactly how people would feel and behave. As with so many scientific discoveries, the debate would soon turn to one that was much more political. It felt very plausible to me, and the format of the story only elevated that believability. Of all the stories, this one was probably the lightest in terms of scientific technicalities, but had the most depth when it came to how the characters were dealing with them.
Conclusions

I liked this story collection, but I did feel that some of the stories were not as enjoyable as others. I feel that Chiang's most successful stories focus on the people dealing with science/technology/math/religion, as opposed to the ones where the ideas take center stage. Which is a bit funny, because I think his strong suit as a writer is examining interesting topics. I suppose it comes down to one's opinion on what constitutes good writing. I've read enough science fiction and fantasy to be able to say that for me, a cool idea isn't enough. The way that idea is explored and presented matter a great in how receptive I am to the story as a whole. Here, I thought the stories that allowed me to connect with the characters while discovering the concepts worked very well, and were actually quite enjoyable. In other stories I felt that the information would have almost been more interesting if I were sitting in a lecture hall, rather than reading about characters that served little purpose other than as a means of expressing the idea behind the story.

I also had issues with the lengths of some (ok, many) of the stories. Some felt too long, like they were dragged out to fulfill some arbitrary word count, or so he could reiterate the main scientific idea behind the story a few too many times. Other stories felt too short, and I wish that either the characters or the idea had been developed into something longer and more substantial. Perhaps because of this, the endings of many of these stories felt a bit rushed, as though the character made a huge discovery just so the story could end. I found that I wasn't entirely satisfied with many of the endings, not because of what happened, but because of the abruptness of how and when it happened.

Also, I realize that the stories were printed in chronological order, but I don't know if that best-served the book as a whole. I wasn't very motivated by the first story; perhaps I would have been a bit more receptive to the work as a whole if it had been one of the others (actually, switching the first two would have probably made me much more excited for the rest of the book). Similarly, it was rather disappointing to have one of what I consider the weaker stories (Seventy-Two Letters) following one of the strongest (Story of Your Life). Perhaps using The Evolution of Human Science as a breather between those two stories might have helped it not feel like so much of a let down. The placement of the other stories felt appropriate, and I suppose it would have been silly to rearrange only a few out of chronological order, but I can't help but think that it might have given me a more favorable overall impression of the book. I know one shouldn't judge a book by its cover (though this cover is actually really cool), or in this case a collection by its first story, but humans are sort of hard-wired to do that. I don't think the order necessarily ruined my enjoyment of the following stories, but I do think it set me up to look for issues of story construction that I otherwise might have ignored.

In the end, I'm glad I read this story collection. Being something of a math and science geek, I found a lot of the topics in the stories really interesting, and despite my complaints, I actually really enjoyed a few of these stories. I don't know if I would recommend this collection of stories to everyone - I think you have to be able to nerd-out on some of the concepts when the storytelling gets a bit weak. I would definitely recommend this book to fans of hard-core science fiction though, as it does examine topics of math and science in interesting ways.

Wonderful collection. The universes of these stories are all fascinating in their own right. And when you look at them all together it becomes clear that Chiang is extremely skilled at building worlds around concepts. Each story is an exploration of some idea put into a concise and evocative format that sticks with you far better than a dry explanation. I would recommend this to any sci-fi fans, especially if you liked the movie Arrival. “Story of Your Life” was the short that inspired Arrival, and reading it definitely added to my appreciation of the film

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.