Publishers Weekly
Here's the first must-read SF book of the year. Chiang has acquired a massive reputation on the basis of very few pieces of short fiction. This collection contains all six previously published tales, including the Nebula Award-winning "Tower of Babylon," plus a new story, "Liking What You See: A Documentary." It's rare for a writer to become so prominent so fast. In this case, though, the hype is deserved. Chiang has mastered an extremely tricky type of SF story. He begins with a startling bit of oddity, then, as readers figure out what part of the familiar world has been twisted, they realize that it was just a small part of a much larger structure of marvelous, threatening strangeness. Reading a Chiang story means juggling multiple conceptions of what is normal and right. Probably this kind of brain twisting can be done with such intensity only in shorter lengths; if these stories were much longer, readers' heads might explode. Still, the most surprising thing is how much feeling accompanies the intellectual exercises. Whether their initial subject is ancient Babylonians building a tower that reaches the base of Heaven, translation of an alien language that shows a woman a new way to view her life as a mother, or mass-producing golems in an alternative Victorian England, Chiang's stories are audacious, challenging and moving. They resemble the work of a less metaphysical Philip K. Dick or a Borges with more characterization and a grasp of cutting-edge science. (July 12) Forecast: Chiang is poised to prove the exception to the rule that short story collections don't sell as well as novels, backed by blurbs from David Brin, Greg Bear, Ellen Datlow and a host of other big names in the field. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
First collection for multiple award-winner Chiang. Of the eight pieces here, seven (1990-2001) are more or less famous; the other is original to this volume. Assuming that "The Tower of Babylon" rose high enough to touch the vault of heaven-what if the builders then attempted to break through, to see what was on the other side? Humans develop godlike intelligence in "Understand," but, Chiang demonstrates, it isn't just intelligence that makes us human. In "Division by Zero," life loses all meaning for a mathematician who discovers a proof that mathematics itself is meaningless. The narrator of "Story of Your Life" deciphers an alien orthography, thereby acquiring the aliens' nonlinear view of time: she remembers the future as well as the past. "Seventy-Two Letters," a sort of compressed novel, combines kabbalistic magic and certain 19th-century scientific doctrines into an entire alternative biology. The short-short "The Evolution of Human Science" first appeared in the prestigious science journal Nature, and ponders what science might become following the advent of incomprehensibly intelligent metahumans. And "Hell Is the Absence of God," the crown jewel of a spectacular assemblage, terrifyingly probes the nature of belief and faith in a world where God, angels, heaven, and hell are all verifiably real and actual. Lastly, the original piece, "Liking What You See: A Documentary," considers, from numerous viewpoints, the freedom to act and react, to like or dislike, other people based on judgments more complex than those deriving solely from appearance. Chiang writes seldom, but his almost unfathomably wonderful stories tick away with the precision of a Swiss watch-and explode in yourawareness with shocking, devastating force.
From the Publisher
A swell movie adaptation always sends me to the source material, so Arrival had me pick up Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others: lean, relentless, and incandescent.”—Colson Whitehead, GQ
“Chiang writes with a gruff and ready heart that brings to mind George Saunders and Steven Millhauser, but he’s uncompromisingly cerebral.”—The New Yorker
“Blend[s] absorbing storytelling with meditations on the universe, being, time and space. . . . raises questions about the nature of reality and what it is to be human.”—The New York Times
“Shines with a brutal, minimalist elegance. Every sentence is the perfect incision in the dissection of the idea at hand.”—The Guardian
“Meticulously pieced together, utterly thought through, Chiang’s stories emerge slowly . . . but with the perfection of slow-growing crystal.”—Lev Grossman, Best of the Decade: Science Fiction and Fantasy, Techland
"Ted Chiang is one of the best and smartest writers working today. If you don't know his name, let's fix that. Now."—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
"Ted Chiang astonishes. You must read him."—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
“United by a humane intelligence that speaks very directly to the reader, and makes us experience each story with immediacy and Chiang’s calm passion.”—China Mieville, The Guardian
“Ted is a national treasure . . . each of those stories is a goddamned jewel.”—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing
“Confirms that blending science and fine art at this length can produce touching works, tales as intimate as our own blood cells, with the structural strength of just-discovered industrial alloys.”—Seattle Times
“Chiang derides lazy thinking, weasels it out of its hiding place, and leaves it cowering.”—Washington Post
“Essential. You won’t know SF if you don’t read Ted Chiang.”—Greg Bear
“Chiang writes seldom, but his almost unfathomably wonderful stories tick away with the precision of a Swiss watch—and explode in your awareness with shocking, devastating force.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred Review)
“The first must-read SF book of the year.”—Publishers Weekly (starred Review)
“He puts the science back in science fiction—brilliantly.”—Booklist (starred Review)
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
"Chiang writes seldom, but his almost unfathomably wonderful stories tick away with the precision of a Swiss watch-and explode in your awareness with shocking, devastating force." —Kirkus Starred Review
Library Journal - Audio
★ 09/01/2014
Chiang's (The Lifecycle of Software Objects) 2002 collection of stories mixes vivid characters, real science, and believable settings with wild speculation, to great effect. Each story takes a conceit from social or natural science, or even theology, and follows it to its logical effects on humanity. A mother deals with loss by way of the effects of alien language on human memory; a college campus disputes the ethics of deactivating students' neural responses to beauty; a widower in a world where angels physically appear, causing miracles and catastrophe, tries to join his wife in the afterlife. Stories are narrated by Todd McLaren and Abby Craden, whose low-key readings suit the meticulous and dignified language. VERDICT Fans of Michael Swanwick will appreciate Chiang's style; this title will also be a hit with those who enjoy both magical realism and convincing science in their sf.—Jason Puckett, Georgia State Univ., Atlanta
