Lisa Eckstein’s Reviews > Exhalation > Status Update
Lisa Eckstein
is 17% done
From the start of the title story: "For most of history, the proposition that we draw life from air was so obvious that there was no need to assert it. Every day we consume two lungs heavy with air; every day we remove the empty ones from our chest and replace them with full ones." From the hint of this strange premise, Chiang spins out a fascinating world and a suspenseful exploration of its science and philosophy.
— May 09, 2019 12:28PM
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Lisa’s Previous Updates
Lisa Eckstein
is 86% done
Partway through the final long story in the collection, "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom". It's set in a world with devices that can split off parallel timelines and allow limited communication between them, and is exploring a variety of implications, especially the psychological effects of learning about other possible versions of one's life.
— Jun 06, 2019 12:05PM
Lisa Eckstein
is 77% done
"Omphalos", like a few stories from Chiang's last collection, takes certain religious beliefs as scientific fact and spins out the world that results. I enjoy this subgenre, and this story is another clever, intriguing entry.
— May 24, 2019 12:37PM
Lisa Eckstein
is 66% done
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" nicely contrasts the effects of technology on record-keeping, memory, and relationships in two different time periods, one in the past and one in the future.
(Also noting that I really liked how "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" turned out.)
— May 15, 2019 02:35PM
(Also noting that I really liked how "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" turned out.)
Lisa Eckstein
is 38% done
I was skeptical at encountering a long novella in the middle of a collection of stories, but I am loving "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" and so curious about where it's going to end up.
— May 11, 2019 10:32PM
Lisa Eckstein
is 11% done
Exciting to have a new collection of stories from the mind of Ted Chiang! "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" starts the book off strong. It's a page-turning story with a whole set of clever stories inside it, exploring how a variety of people cope with the opportunity to learn their own future.
— May 08, 2019 01:33PM
