Stories of Your Life and Others in What's the Name of That Book???

Nov 25, 2008 Trin rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, shortstories, american-lit, sci-fi

Intellectually fascinating if somewhat emotionally cold short stories. Chiang has amazing, unique ideas—and clearly, the intense intelligence to back them up. Almost all of these stories will make you tilt your head and look at the world a little differently. I will say that I never felt a particular connection with any of the characters, or a desperate desire to see how so-and-so’s life turned out. Instead, each tale was like an intricate puzzle that I felt a curious compulsion to continue to p ...more

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May 27, 2007 martha rated it really liked it

Shelves: year-2008, speculative-fiction, short-stories, bipoc-author

Imaginative, well-written speculative fiction. Lots of cool what-ifs: if the Tower of Babel hadn't been destroyed (which the author describes in a note as Babylonian science fiction), hyperintelligence, a documentary-style story and more. The title story made me cry, and I keep thinking about it a week later.

And I loved that there were notes at the end of the book where the author talked a little about each story -- all short story books should have that.

Also, awesomely, this is a whole scifi bo ...more

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May 14, 2021 Punk rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, short-stories, ebook

A collection of speculative fiction short stories that, while technically and structurally very good, are totally free of the messy emotions humans tend to have about nearly everything and read more like equations than stories, where you plug in some ideas and arrive at a conclusion. They're fascinating ideas, all about advancements in knowledge and how those advancements impact—not humanity really, but a single person, maybe two—but the stories fail to make that impact personal, human. They're A collection of speculative fiction short stories that, while technically and structurally very good, are totally free of the messy emotions humans tend to have about nearly everything and read more like equations than stories, where you plug in some ideas and arrive at a conclusion. They're fascinating ideas, all about advancements in knowledge and how those advancements impact—not humanity really, but a single person, maybe two—but the stories fail to make that impact personal, human. They're all about the idea, not the characters, and while the stories are all very well executed, they didn't move me. For instance, "Hell is the Absence of God" is a story about a man yearning to reunite with his dead wife in heaven. She's dead when the story starts and Chiang doesn't do one single goddamned thing to make us feel her absence or care about her husband's quest to make sense of it. Chiang's ideas are fascinating but sterile.

The most successful piece for me was "Story of Your Life," which is the story the movie Arrival is based on, which I saw before I read this, so I'm unavoidably bringing my memories and feelings from that in here, but I still think it had the most human approach to relationships of all the stories in this book. I felt connected to Louise and her love for her daughter, and I also appreciated its thesis and the detailed explication of the aliens' written language.

Brief notes on each story, along with some content notes:

Tower of Babylon: A crew of miners and stonemasons climb the tower to pierce the vault of heaven and see what's on the other side. Tom Disch called this "Babylonian science fiction" and I had a similar thought. It's everything I love about space travel, only set vertically on Earth in ancient times. But despite the interesting journey, it has an unsatisfying conclusion.

Understand: An experimental therapy makes a man more and more intelligent, but to what end? Contains ableist language.

Division by Zero: Mathematics, madness, and a relationship divided by a false statement. Contains multiple references to suicide attempts.

Story of Your Life: Aliens make contact. The basis for the movie Arrival, and my favorite piece in the collection. It successfully introduces advanced knowledge to human life in a way that actually affects a human life in a way I found meaningful.

Seventy-Two Letters: Victorian-Era golem coding and genetic engineering. Contains: era-typical "science," eugenics, classism, sexism, homophobia.

The Evolution of Human Science: Metahumans are now doing all the original scientific research and publishing it behind a mental paywall where regular humans can't access it.

Hell is the Absence of God: God's angels routinely appear on Earth to perform miracles, cure the afflicted, afflict the healthy, and cause millions of dollars of property damage and unintentional (?) loss of life. Contains: Christian worldview presented as the standard with no alternatives; repeated references to suicide as a way to reunite with dead love ones; ableism.

Liking What You See: A Documentary: Advancements in technology allow us to switch off the part of our brains that recognizes if someone is attractive or not, and a college student body will soon vote on whether or not to make the procedure mandatory. ...more

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Dec 01, 2010 Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: anthologies-and-collections, science-fiction

This is a kind of SF few people seem to be capable of writing - literate and literary without being dull, and concerned with the facts of science without just infodumping. Probably more like a 3.5, though. I admit that there were some stories that didn't grab me, but there were some really awesome ones. Particularly the last one. ...more

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Nov 21, 2020 Isabel rated it it was amazing

Great, always great. Fascinating ideas. One star less just to remind myself that I liked Exhalation better.

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Nov 12, 2021 Tiffany rated it it was amazing

Fascinating stories!! Chiang is so creative, and his ideas are so unique and innovative. Many of the stories also have great characters and emotional development. I loved the book!

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