Here are eight astonishing science-fiction stories that explore the boundaries between science and religion, between determinism and our abilit... read full description
reviews
Dec 27, 2011
Simeon
rated it: 
Story of Your Life
Told from the perspective of a mother remembering her child. Absolutely heartbreaking. And it was only 50 pages.
The mother, a linguist, is recruited by the government to interpret the language of an alien species, and she adopts a new perception of reality.
Easily one of the best short stories ever written.
The Tower of Babylon
A weird and mysterious way to start the short stories collection. Rewriting legend; as always More...
Told from the perspective of a mother remembering her child. Absolutely heartbreaking. And it was only 50 pages.
The mother, a linguist, is recruited by the government to interpret the language of an alien species, and she adopts a new perception of reality.
Easily one of the best short stories ever written.
The Tower of Babylon
A weird and mysterious way to start the short stories collection. Rewriting legend; as always More...
6 comments
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Apr 18, 2011
Eh?Eh!
rated it: 
These are amazing, more than 4 stars, and worth propping open on my steering wheel and glancing down to grab up a thought-ful of words at a time on straighaways and gentle curves.*
As far as I can gather, Ted Chiang is an egghead scientist (technical writer?) who attended a fiction writing workshop and began belting out these incredibly well thought out short stories that have much more science than the typical science fiction. He's won enough awards that he once turned down a Hugo n More...
As far as I can gather, Ted Chiang is an egghead scientist (technical writer?) who attended a fiction writing workshop and began belting out these incredibly well thought out short stories that have much more science than the typical science fiction. He's won enough awards that he once turned down a Hugo n More...
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Jan 16, 2012
Mike
rated it:
The stories in this volume are certainly unique, and I appreciated the blend of science and religion. Specifically, Chiang takes on some big questions, and handles them deftly for the most part.
They reminded me much of Arthur Clarke, although Chiang's prose is different--more sparse, perhaps? Not for the uninformed reader? Clarke's sci fi felt pretty accessible, for the most part, even while he dealt with big issues like first contact, science vs religion, etc. I felt like my univer More...
They reminded me much of Arthur Clarke, although Chiang's prose is different--more sparse, perhaps? Not for the uninformed reader? Clarke's sci fi felt pretty accessible, for the most part, even while he dealt with big issues like first contact, science vs religion, etc. I felt like my univer More...
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Nov 09, 2010
Stefan
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In his review of Ted Chiang’s brilliant short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others in The Guardian, China Miéville mentions the “humane intelligence [...] that makes us experience each story with immediacy and Chiang’s calm passion.” The oxymoron “calm passion” is an insightful and ingenious way to describe these stories because of the way it hints at their deft melding of the most solid of hard science fiction concepts with an often surprisingly gentle, humane touch. There’s no oth
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4 comments
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(5 people liked it)
Jan 07, 2011
Joel
rated it:
When I tell people I don't like short stories (and really, I don't), what I mean is that I don't like literary short stories that offer us, say, a snapshot of someone's rather normal life, and wow, look at the way this small scene profoundly illuminates a larger wholBORING.
It turns out I do like short sci-fi, though. I think this is probably because sci-fi is naturally more focused on outlandish ideas that can be nicely explored within the limited scope of a short story -- wouldn't-it- More...
It turns out I do like short sci-fi, though. I think this is probably because sci-fi is naturally more focused on outlandish ideas that can be nicely explored within the limited scope of a short story -- wouldn't-it- More...
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Apr 16, 2008
ErinK
rated it:
This collection includes the story Liking What You See, which is the most amazing story I've read in at least the last five years.
Liking What You See is a written as a documentary about college students raised with technology that prevents them from seeing people as attractive or unattractive. The way they see themselves and the way they interact with people with or without the technology is believable and also fascinating. It really made me think about "look-ism" and the More...
Liking What You See is a written as a documentary about college students raised with technology that prevents them from seeing people as attractive or unattractive. The way they see themselves and the way they interact with people with or without the technology is believable and also fascinating. It really made me think about "look-ism" and the More...
Dec 17, 2009
Adam
rated it:
Ted Chiang is really terrific. These novellas (and one very short story) written in mock academic style like Borges (using magazine articles and fake documentary style along with essay like delivery and faux 19th century style), he takes idea like superhuman intelligence, the tower of Babel, alien language that affects the nature of time, Christian theology as a scientific fact,the industrial revolution run by golems, math as arbitrary system, nanotech that prevents you from seeing beauty; and t
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Jul 14, 2011
Random
rated it:
As with all short story collections, you're bound to enjoy some more than others. My favorites, which I consider to be 5(+) star reads, are Tower of Babylon, Story of Your Life, Seventy-Two Letters, and Hell is the Absence of God.
I did find one of the main character's reaction in Divide by Zero to be annoying enough to detract from what was otherwise a fascinating concept.
Even though, these are all excellent examples of why I love science fiction so much. Not only is there a More...
I did find one of the main character's reaction in Divide by Zero to be annoying enough to detract from what was otherwise a fascinating concept.
Even though, these are all excellent examples of why I love science fiction so much. Not only is there a More...
Dec 29, 2008
Lightreads
rated it:
I now officially have to STFU about how I don't like short stories. Because that? That was awesome.
Collection of skiffyish pieces from an author whose only serious flaw from where I'm sitting is that he doesn't write enough dammit. If there's a thread binding the set together, it's the way Chiang comes at you every time and asks, "okay, but what would the world be like if we changed this one little rule? Nothing major, you understand -- just cosmology or cause-and-effect or the More...
Collection of skiffyish pieces from an author whose only serious flaw from where I'm sitting is that he doesn't write enough dammit. If there's a thread binding the set together, it's the way Chiang comes at you every time and asks, "okay, but what would the world be like if we changed this one little rule? Nothing major, you understand -- just cosmology or cause-and-effect or the More...
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Jul 09, 2011
Alan
rated it:
This is one book you cannot judge by its cover, at least in the edition I own—you have to look past the muddy purple background and the lettering straight out of Microsoft WordArt, because everything else about this collection is magnificent. The title itself is brilliantly ambiguous; is it the story of your life and other lives, or is it the "Story of Your Life" and others? Are you sure? It may well be both.
Although every story in this book is exquisitely crafted, "St More...
Although every story in this book is exquisitely crafted, "St More...
Jun 18, 2011
Courtney
rated it:
Speculative fiction is a new area for me; well, it is in the science fiction sense, less if you frame it up as an author posing the questions 'what if???' at the world. And Ted Chiang is a new author for me, recommended by astute reading friends.
I was utterly blown away by the first story in this collection, 'Tower of Babylon', in which Chiang asks: what if the world really was made the way Bablylonian cosmology understood it to be? A team of miners from the land of Elam are summoned t More...
I was utterly blown away by the first story in this collection, 'Tower of Babylon', in which Chiang asks: what if the world really was made the way Bablylonian cosmology understood it to be? A team of miners from the land of Elam are summoned t More...
Feb 11, 2011
Klytia
rated it:
Ted Chiang è considerato uno dei migliori scrittori di fantascienza degli ultimi 30 anni.
Ted Chiang fa lo scrittore per hobby, infatti continua a lavorare nell’high-tech, scrive racconti brevi una volta ogni tanto, molti sono disponibili gratuitamente in internet, ed è spesso candidato a premi letterari…che ha l’abitudine di vincere.
In questo volume sono raccolti otto racconti:
* Tower of Babylon -Premio Nebula 1990
* Story of Your Life - Premio Nebula 1999
* Seventy-Two Letters - Premio Sidewise 2 More...
Ted Chiang fa lo scrittore per hobby, infatti continua a lavorare nell’high-tech, scrive racconti brevi una volta ogni tanto, molti sono disponibili gratuitamente in internet, ed è spesso candidato a premi letterari…che ha l’abitudine di vincere.
In questo volume sono raccolti otto racconti:
* Tower of Babylon -Premio Nebula 1990
* Story of Your Life - Premio Nebula 1999
* Seventy-Two Letters - Premio Sidewise 2 More...
Jan 16, 2011
Matt
rated it:
I need to reread this collection of short stories in order to provide a proper review. Though it has been years since I have read this book, memories of it still resonate as being some of the best science fiction I have ever read.
Maybe some of my love for this book can be attributed to my Computer Science background (I am a PhD student in the field), but so what. The title story 'Stories of Your Life' is a great play on the metaphysical question of whether language shapes cognition More...
Maybe some of my love for this book can be attributed to my Computer Science background (I am a PhD student in the field), but so what. The title story 'Stories of Your Life' is a great play on the metaphysical question of whether language shapes cognition More...
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Oct 17, 2010
Hester
rated it:
I cannot add much to what lightreads said. These are bold and subtle stories that are unexpected. "Tower of Babylon" and "Seventy-Two Letters" are the science fiction stories people would have written in ancient Mesopotamia and medieval Europe, respectively. "Division by Zero" and "Story of Your Life" explore a worlds where, respectively, arithmetic is inconsistent and the (scientific) axiom of causality no longer hold. In spite of my being a mathemati
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Oct 17, 2010
Ryan
rated it:
Most of the stories were gripping, could-not-stop. Ended up reading most of this book in a single day, and found myself breezing through the stories.
They were mystical/romantic in a way that I've seldom experienced. In some cases, feeling like they'd been plucked out of perhaps the 1001 Nights -- except they include aliens or robots or something.
Gists of premises:
* Non-linear language influencing thought about life as sequential vs. existing
* What would ha More...
They were mystical/romantic in a way that I've seldom experienced. In some cases, feeling like they'd been plucked out of perhaps the 1001 Nights -- except they include aliens or robots or something.
Gists of premises:
* Non-linear language influencing thought about life as sequential vs. existing
* What would ha More...
Dec 13, 2009
Michael
rated it:
I for one had never heard of Ted Chiang. I’ve always enjoyed science-fiction and all of its sub-genres, from the space opera to alternate history, but I wasn’t one to seek it out. In fact, as I’d gotten older, science-fiction began to seem less essential to me. Unless I stumbled across a novel that had received rave reviews, I wouldn’t consider it — because as I grew older, I began to see the genre as so many snobs do — as a secondary or even tertiary consideration when presented with the option
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Nov 14, 2009
David
rated it:
I don't know what first alerted me to look for Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others. However, I'm very glad that I found it: this is the best book of short stories I've read in a very long time. Chiang possesses the gift of distillation - his stories are precisely as long as they need to be, and no longer. Further, they explore religious and cultural themes in a truly fascinating way: he takes the story of the tower of Babylon at face value, and then explores what it would mean to be
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Jun 01, 2009
Christina
rated it:
Ted Chiang’s short story describes a debate at fictional Pembleton College about enforcing the use of calliagnosia, a device that makes it impossible to users to prejudice against others based on facial beauty. Chiang turned down a Hugo nomination for his short story “Liking What You See” in 2003, on the grounds that the story was rushed due to editorial pressure and did not turn out as he had really wanted, and maybe the part about it not turning out the way he wanted is true, but I didn’t thin
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Mar 10, 2009
Laura
rated it:
I first heard of Ted Chiang when I read his short piece "Story of Your Life" in an anthology of science fiction. I was stunned by that story, which beautifully marries extraordinary themes (quantum physics, alien visitations, seeing into the future) with the most universal aspects of the more mundane human story -- falling in love, raising a family, suffering a loss. That story was even better when I reread it in this collection -- Mr. Chiang might be pleased to hear that even though I
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Feb 01, 2011
Tancredi
rated it:
"Per la prima volta aveva visto la notte per quel che era: l'ombra della terra stessa, gettata contro il cielo"
Un capolavoro estremamente originale e visionario. Storie della tua vita viene catalogato come antologia sci-fi, ma è molto, molto di più. I racconti si spingono ben oltre i limiti di un solo genere: dall'antica Torre di Babilonia al contatto presente con degli alieni, da un Ottocento steampunk ad una realtà in cui gli Angeli si manifestano in maniera terrificante, t More...
Un capolavoro estremamente originale e visionario. Storie della tua vita viene catalogato come antologia sci-fi, ma è molto, molto di più. I racconti si spingono ben oltre i limiti di un solo genere: dall'antica Torre di Babilonia al contatto presente con degli alieni, da un Ottocento steampunk ad una realtà in cui gli Angeli si manifestano in maniera terrificante, t More...
Feb 01, 2012
Giacomo
rated it:
Ted Chiang è un autore interessante anche solo dal punto di vista bibliografico. 11 racconti e un romanzo breve scritti in trent'anni di carriera.
Inoltre l'autore vanta una serie di premi vinti superiore al numero di racconti scritti, compreso un rifiuto di una candidatura al premio Hugo.
Stories of Your Life, and Others è arrivata a noi, diciamo, sottobanco, pubblicata da Stampa Alternativa con il titolo di Storie della tua vita. E la casa editrice non tratta fantascienza.
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Inoltre l'autore vanta una serie di premi vinti superiore al numero di racconti scritti, compreso un rifiuto di una candidatura al premio Hugo.
Stories of Your Life, and Others è arrivata a noi, diciamo, sottobanco, pubblicata da Stampa Alternativa con il titolo di Storie della tua vita. E la casa editrice non tratta fantascienza.
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May 25, 2010
Jake
rated it:
I discovered Ted Chiang on a website's list of the top 10 SF books of the last ten years. Further investigation revealed a bunch of people describing his stories as Borgesian, which in my book is about the highest compliment you can pay to a short story writer. I had to buy the book used, since it seems to be out of print, but it was worth it- the praise was apt, and each of his stories was excellent. His topics are varied: a literal version of the Tower of Babel, a man who develops superhuma
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Feb 28, 2011
Linda
rated it:
This was an excellent collection of short fiction by Ted Chiang. Probably my favorite is "Seventy-Two Letters," about an alternate history of a society based around the idea that golems can actually be made. Really, there were no stories I didn't like in this collection.
Many of Chiang's ideas seem to come simply from positing, What if...? and running with it in delightfully thoughtful and philosophical directions.
- What if the Tower of Bablyon reached up and found a More...
Many of Chiang's ideas seem to come simply from positing, What if...? and running with it in delightfully thoughtful and philosophical directions.
- What if the Tower of Bablyon reached up and found a More...
Oct 24, 2009
Thermopyle
rated it:
"By this construction Yaweh's work was indicated and Yahweh's work was concealed." -from "Tower of Babylon" the first story in this collection. Perhaps this quote is only affecting in its context within the story, but I found it a striking example of Chiang's excellent prose. It also points to a recurring metaphysical theme in many of his stories. "Tower of Babylon," "Seventy-Two Letters," "Hell is the Absence of God" and "Exhalation" (
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Dec 07, 2010
Tamahome
rated it: 
Read 'Liking What You See' at Borders, interesting story about lookism. Inspired Scott Westerfeld's Pretties series.
Reading 'Tower of Babylon' on the Kindle App sample. It sounded like a historical fantasy, and I thought I wouldn't like it, but it's pretty cool so far. They're building a 'tower to heaven'. Didn't like the end.
Understanding - like Flowers for Algernon on crack, this is the kind of scifi I was expecting
Divison by Zero - I didn't really get the end More...
Reading 'Tower of Babylon' on the Kindle App sample. It sounded like a historical fantasy, and I thought I wouldn't like it, but it's pretty cool so far. They're building a 'tower to heaven'. Didn't like the end.
Understanding - like Flowers for Algernon on crack, this is the kind of scifi I was expecting
Divison by Zero - I didn't really get the end More...
May 08, 2010
Zen
rated it:
SF at its best! That's what one of the several quotes on the book cover said, but it's true. Reading these was so exciting; I had to put down the book after each one so I could roll around going "wow!"
Before picking this up the only story I'd read by Ted Chiang was 'Liking What You See: A Documentary'. I liked it and found the ideas interesting but wasn't that impressed by it as a story. Having now a basis for comparison, I think it is the weakest work in this collection an More...
Before picking this up the only story I'd read by Ted Chiang was 'Liking What You See: A Documentary'. I liked it and found the ideas interesting but wasn't that impressed by it as a story. Having now a basis for comparison, I think it is the weakest work in this collection an More...
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Jan 07, 2012
Melissa
rated it:
At the end of this book, Chiang writes this in the story notes: "There's a famous eqaution that looks like this: eπi + 1 = 0. When I first saw the derivitive of this equation, my jaw dropped in amazement." This equation means nothing to me, my jaw did not drop in amazement when I saw it, and it was a pretty fair indicator that this book was a tad over my head. Chiang is surely putting the science back in science fiction.
Luckily, though, I don't usually read story notes befo More...
Luckily, though, I don't usually read story notes befo More...
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Feb 01, 2011
figura4
rated it:
Storia della tua vita
Questo racconto è un piccolo gioiellino.
E' un continuo alternarsi di paragrafi in cui si raccontano episodi della vita della protagonista in quanto genitore e altri in cui si narrano i suoi sforzi come esperta di linguistica nel tradurre il linguaggio di una razza aliena in una situazione di primo contatto.
Inizialmente questa sembra essere puramente una scelta stilistica, ma ben presto si intuisce che è invece parte integrante della storia.
Le tematiche ricordano infatti More...
Questo racconto è un piccolo gioiellino.
E' un continuo alternarsi di paragrafi in cui si raccontano episodi della vita della protagonista in quanto genitore e altri in cui si narrano i suoi sforzi come esperta di linguistica nel tradurre il linguaggio di una razza aliena in una situazione di primo contatto.
Inizialmente questa sembra essere puramente una scelta stilistica, ma ben presto si intuisce che è invece parte integrante della storia.
Le tematiche ricordano infatti More...
Apr 12, 2009
Res
rated it:
A high-quality mixed bag.
Two stories in this collection are something I've never seen anyone else do -- you might call it alternate history of science. In "The Tower of Babylon," it's literally possible to build a tower up to the vault of heaven, which is made of stone and contains all the waters of the flood. (Bonus points to this story because the twist at the end involves a metaphor that would be even more meaningful to the characters than it is to the readers.) And in More...
Two stories in this collection are something I've never seen anyone else do -- you might call it alternate history of science. In "The Tower of Babylon," it's literally possible to build a tower up to the vault of heaven, which is made of stone and contains all the waters of the flood. (Bonus points to this story because the twist at the end involves a metaphor that would be even more meaningful to the characters than it is to the readers.) And in More...
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Jan 11, 2012
Tim
rated it:
Loved some of these short stories. The Tower of Babylon - a young miner ascends the Biblical tower to help break through the vault of heaven. After many wonderous sights in the end he ....... (dont want to ruin it)!
Or Understand a man undergoing experimental drug treatment to heal brain damage caused which has the unintended side effect of exponentially improving his intellect and motor skills. As he gets smarter and smarter, he is pursued by several government agencies....
and Hel More...
Or Understand a man undergoing experimental drug treatment to heal brain damage caused which has the unintended side effect of exponentially improving his intellect and motor skills. As he gets smarter and smarter, he is pursued by several government agencies....
and Hel More...
