Mechanical clockwork universe ( “Exhalation”) or the problem of evil in a universe where GodĪnd extending them logically, written in a lucid streamlined prose that (like Gene Wolfe’s) seems simple & easy unless one has tried to write ( “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”) or a Chiang’s stories can be described as rigorous world-building 1, taking seriously premises such as the Kabbalah ( “72 Letters”) or intelligence enhancement ( “Understand”) or self-consistent time loops Most are collected in his 2002 anthology Stories of Your Life and Others ( my review). Novella, noted for both the high quality and rarity of his writings. Ted Chiang is an American SF author of short stories & a
Stoic fashion to embrace life in both its ups and downs. They must, changes the protagonist’s attitude towards life and the tragic death of her daughter, teaching her in a somewhat Buddhist or This holistic view of the universe as an immutable ‘block-universe’, in which events unfold as The alien race exemplifies this other, equally valid, possible way of thinkingĪnd viewing the universe, and the protagonist learns their way of thinking by studying their language, which requires seeing writtenĬharacters as a unified gestalt. Including the outcome and allows reasoning ‘backwards’. Psychology and physics: classical physics allows usefully interpreting the laws of physics in both a ‘forward’ way in whichĮvents happen step by step, but also a teleological way in which events are simply the unique optimal solution to a set of constraints Instead, what appears to be precognition in Chiang’s story is actually far more interesting, and a novel twist on Irrelevant, and genuine precognition undercuts the themes of tragedy & acceptance. Many serious plot holes, it renders most of the exposition-heavy dialogue (which is a large fraction of the wordcount) completely At no point does the protagonist travel in time or enjoy precognitive powers, interpreting the story this way leads to
However, movie viewers often misread the short story: “Story” is not a One of Ted Chiang’s most noted philosophical SF short stories, “Story of Your Life”, was made into a successful time-travel movie,Īrrival, sparking interest in the original.