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Stories of Your Life and Others
Escrito por Ted Chiang
Narrado por Todd McLaren y Abby Craden
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Comenzar a escucharNota del editor
The story behind ‘Arrival’…
Chiang is a sci-fi master capable of making the alien feel entirely human — his characters and worlds read like fantasy but feel like truth. Each story in this collection begs a momentary meditation on the meaning of life before going on.
Descripción
This new edition of Ted Chiang's masterful first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, includes his first eight published stories. Combining the precision and scientific curiosity of Kim Stanley Robinson with Lorrie Moore's cool, clear love of language and narrative intricacy, this award-winning collection offers listeners the dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar.
Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change-the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens-while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story (the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival), a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection. A clever pastiche of news reports and interviews chronicles a college's initiative to "turn off" the human ability to recognize beauty in "Liking What You See: A Documentary." With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty and constant change, and also by beauty and wonder.
Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change-the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens-while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story (the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival), a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection. A clever pastiche of news reports and interviews chronicles a college's initiative to "turn off" the human ability to recognize beauty in "Liking What You See: A Documentary." With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty and constant change, and also by beauty and wonder.
Acciones del libro
Comenzar a escucharInformación sobre el libro
Stories of Your Life and Others
Escrito por Ted Chiang
Narrado por Todd McLaren y Abby Craden
Nota del editor
The story behind ‘Arrival’…
Chiang is a sci-fi master capable of making the alien feel entirely human — his characters and worlds read like fantasy but feel like truth. Each story in this collection begs a momentary meditation on the meaning of life before going on.
Descripción
This new edition of Ted Chiang's masterful first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, includes his first eight published stories. Combining the precision and scientific curiosity of Kim Stanley Robinson with Lorrie Moore's cool, clear love of language and narrative intricacy, this award-winning collection offers listeners the dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar.
Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change-the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens-while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story (the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival), a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection. A clever pastiche of news reports and interviews chronicles a college's initiative to "turn off" the human ability to recognize beauty in "Liking What You See: A Documentary." With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty and constant change, and also by beauty and wonder.
Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change-the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens-while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story (the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival), a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection. A clever pastiche of news reports and interviews chronicles a college's initiative to "turn off" the human ability to recognize beauty in "Liking What You See: A Documentary." With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty and constant change, and also by beauty and wonder.
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Arrival by Ted Chiang is an ebook I picked up from the library because everyone was talking about the movie and I wanted to watch it but I like to read the books before seeing the movies, I have a thing about that. I didn't know this was a book of short stories. Again, I have a thing about not reading blurbs if I can help it in books I have already. (If I am looking for a book, that is different.) This book is not a novel but a lot of short stories. Each one is drastically different and each make the reader really think, think deep. I like that. The one that became the movie, wow. I enjoyed it too. I am glad someone told me about the movie so I tracked down this talented author. I really enjoyed these short stories. My emotions and brain was all over. It was stretched and it felt good. Now, I can't wait to go watch the movie! Can't wait to see how they made this short into a full length movie! I hope it did story justice.
Rating: 5Stories of Your Life and Others is a truly amazing collection of science fiction short stories. Between them, the stories have a huge array of award nominations, and I can completely see why. Really, the quality of this collection is remarkable.The most famous story in the collection is probably the titular “Stories of Your Life,” which was recently turned into the first contact movie Arrival. While there’s obviously differences between the short story and the feature film length adaption, it turned out that the film stayed pretty close to the original. In “Stories of Your Life,” a linguist is contacted by the government to translate the aliens who have mysteriously arrived on Earth, purpose unknown. The story hinges around the idea of “linguistic relativity,” language shaping the speaker’s thoughts and worldview. I learned a little bit about the idea in high school and found it fascinating. “Stories of Your Life” takes it to the next level, where an alien language starts to give the narrator an alien view of time. I won’t say much more, but it’s worth reading the story or watching the movie adaption.One story in the collection I’d actually read before – in a companion book to Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series of all places. “Liking What You See: A Documentary” is story told via the transcript of a documentary on calli, a reversible procedure that switches off people’s ability to perceive whether or not a person is beautiful. In this near future, calli is becoming a cultural force, with groups campaigning to make it mandatory for their colleges and others fighting against it. The supporters of calli argue that it combats lookism, supports social justice, and counters the un-achievable beauty norms set by the media and cosmetics industry. I have to admit, I’d be with the students against making it mandatory. I can see the benefits… but I wouldn’t want to see less beauty in the world. Anyway, it’s a really good story that got me thinking.Another story in the collection I loved was “Seventy-Two Letters.” The story could be considered steampunk, as it’s set in an alternate vision of Victorian era London. However, instead of creations powered by machinery, this world is powered by golems and meticulously crafted names of seventy-two letters. The protagonist, Robert Stratton, has always been fascinated by golems, and he grows up to make a career out of creating them. He wants to revolutionize society by making golems affordable, thus improving the lot of the lower classes. One other major change dominates “Seventy-Two Letters”: in this world, a proto-evolutionary theory is correct. Humans and all other animals reproduce by containing within their eggs and sperm tiny reproductions of themselves, nestled together like Russian dolls, one inside the other. But here we get to the crux of the matter: scientists have discovered that the human species is within five generations of extinction. Robert Stratton is tasked with distilling humanity into seventy-two letters that can be imprinted on an egg, allowing humanity to continue artificially. The implications are vast, making “Seventy-Two Letters” a truly brilliant and unique story.Chiang also delves into the mystical with his first published (and Nebula award winning) story, “Tower of Babylon.” In this story, the city of Babylon has built a tower so high it touches the vault of heaven. The protagonist is a stone mason, hired to ascend the tower and chisel into heaven itself. Most of the story is taken up with ascent up the tower, a journey that lasts months. Chiang’s vision of the tower was spellbinding, and the circular logic of the story’s ending was again brilliant.In “Understand,” an ordinary man enters a drug trial to help him recover from a crash that damaged his brain. The drug turns out to not only heal his brain but to improve it, making him into a genius like no other. But he is not content with mere genius – he wants to be able to understand anything and everything, to see the totality of the connections that make up the world.There were a couple of short stories that didn’t strike me the way the others did. In “Division by Zero,” a mathematician devises a formula that proves all of math is a lie and has a mental breakdown over the destruction of what she loves most. “The Evolution of Human Science” is written in the form of a journal article, looking at the scientific disparities between humans and “meta-humans.” Neither of these stories were bad, they just didn’t do anything for me. Luckily, they were both the shortest stories in the collection. Throughout this review, I’ve repeatedly used the word “brilliant” because no other word can as succinctly explain this collection. Ted Chiang is a true master of his craft, and his stories should be required reading for anyone interested in speculative fiction or short fiction.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
Rating: 4This story collection was originally published under the title Stories of Your Life and Others, but that was changed after the movie based on "Story of Your Life" came out. Which seems like something of a pity, as I think the original title is a lot better, but, hey, Hollywood sells books. (Somewhat more amusing is the still from the movie on the cover of the edition I have, depicting a spaceship that appears nowhere in the actual story.)Anyway. There are eight stories in here, and the commonality between all of them seems to be Ted Chiang taking a strange, impossible, unlikely, or discredited idea (or, in some cases, several of them at once), asking "what if this were really true?" and exploring the results in fascinating detail, often while taking them to the furthest logical extreme. What if the cosmology envisioned by the people who wrote the Old Testament was accurate and something like the tower of Babel could literally reach the heavens? What if human intelligence could be augmented without bounds? What if ancient ideas about reproduction like the homunculus theory and spontaneous generation were true (and also golems)?What Chiang gets out of these intellectual exercises is always fascinating, smart, thought-provoking, and really, really cool.I even feel like I have better appreciation for the movie Arrival now. Before, my attitude was basically, "Well, this is an interesting and well-done movie, but I feel like I ought to be disturbed by the way it takes an idea in linguistics that was so extreme that modern linguists mostly seem embarrassed that anyone ever took it seriously, and not only accepts it, but makes it even more ridiculously extreme and adds in some dubious physics, as well." But watching someone deliberately playing yes-but-what-if? with a wrong idea is way more interesting and fun than if they just don't know or care that it's wrong, so I was delighted to realize that's basically what Chiang was doing.Bottom line: this is a book full of great stories, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Rating: 5Truly remarkable collection of speculative shorts first gathered together over 15 years ago and some dating back to the early 90s. I came to this through Arrival and while the title story in this collection is very different from the movie, it's clear they share DNA. I read so little science fiction these days that this was a treat. Great ideas, explored with compassion.
Rating: 4A mixed bag of short stories with variable results. However, when Chiang scores a goal, it is resounding and surprisingly great. The Tower of Babylon, Understand, and the titular story are all great ones-- the rest I found missed their mark. Nevertheless, this is some great new development in the realm of science fiction, and I surmise that Chiang is a writer to watch for.3.5-- well worth it.
Rating: 3I loved how Chiang uses concepts of maths, science, physics and linguistics as a basis on his fiction. I came to this book from the movie Arrival, which was based on one of these stories. I didn’t know I would like it so much. A good way to finish the year. :)
Rating: 4Cinematic and philosophical...my favorite combo!
Rating: 5I was really hoping I would love this, and I just didn't really like any of the stories. I think I didn't enjoy the writing style at all, and felt detached from every narrative. There were some really interesting topics explored, and I enjoyed the perspectives presented, but overall, this had no lasting effect on me. I just feel disappointed.
Rating: 2This is a collection of eight short stories. As is usually the case in such collections, some are better than others. In this instance, I found a couple to be VERY good, while a few others to be borderline unreadable. Certainly, Story of Your Life, the basis for the recent movie Arrival, was superb, but suffered for the fact that I had already seen the movie. Hell is the Absence of God was also very thought provoking and engaging. This is sold as a collection of science fiction short stories, but is not likely the science fiction that you might expect (with the exception of Story of Your Life). Most of the others are fiction stories, with science as the basis, hence “science fiction”. Not exactly what I was expecting.
Rating: 3I can see that these are clever stories with interesting concepts. But I didn’t enjoy reading a single one. They’re all dry and somehow dead, and a little pretentious.
Rating: 3Overall a wonderful, thoughtful, incredible collection. "Story of Your Life" is by far the best (which is why they made a movie out of that one, I suppose), and is genuinely brilliant. It explores consciousness and the passage of time and everyone should read it. The rest of the stories pale in comparison, though for the most part they're also very good. I wish I'd skipped the last one, though--it dealt with such a multivariate topic, and explored a number of different sides to it, but shallowly.
Rating: 4Best for: Those who enjoyed Arrival; people who aren’t totally sure that they are into science fiction but want to see.
In a nutshell: Eight short stories connected only by the fact that they are science fiction.
Line that sticks with me: “What he insists on is that they not love God under a misapprehension, that if they wish to love God, they be prepared to do so no matter what His intentions. God is not just, God is not kind, God is not merciful, and understanding that is essential to true devotion.” (pg 234)
Why I chose it: I saw (and loved) Arrival, and immediately added this collection to my list.
Review: I don’t usually pick science fiction books. Fiction in generally isn’t usually in my rotation, so adding a layer of complexity by narrowing it from generic literature to a specific genre means there are a lot of great books out there that I’ve not even considered reading. I tried reading a famous author’s most popular work earlier this year and couldn’t get past all the new words. I didn’t find the concept difficult to understand in the context of the stories; I just don’t enjoy having to learn new vocabulary created by the author.
This book, however, I found to be mostly accessible to someone who isn’t traditionally a science fiction reader. In fact, the first story, “Tower of Babylon,” is based on a story in the Bible. I read it in one sitting, and found myself reading almost all of the other short stories in one sitting as well.
My least favorite essay was easily “Seventy-Two Letters,” but even that one I mostly enjoyed. Again, it suffered from having a lot of new vocabulary to learn, but there were a couple of twists that I did not expect. That one also didn’t end in a way that I found satisfying.
I enjoyed the essay Arrival was based on, called “Story of Your Life;” I think the storytelling was elegant. It’s slightly different from the movie, and I understand why it was adjusted for the screenplay. But because I’ve seen the movie, I couldn’t help but read it all picturing Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.
The essay I enjoyed the most was probably “Hell is the Absence of God.” The premise of this one fascinated me: there is no question of whether the is a heaven, or hell, or god; the question is only will individuals be devoted to god. People literally see flashes into hell (and can see if their loved ones are there at times), and angels come to earth on a regular basis.
I can’t say whether these short stories are demonstrative of most science fiction as a whole, but I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed them, and so would at the very least recommend this to anyone else who is interested in seeing if they like science fiction but aren’t sure of a good starting point.
Rating: 4In a nutshell: Eight short stories connected only by the fact that they are science fiction.
Line that sticks with me: “What he insists on is that they not love God under a misapprehension, that if they wish to love God, they be prepared to do so no matter what His intentions. God is not just, God is not kind, God is not merciful, and understanding that is essential to true devotion.” (pg 234)
Why I chose it: I saw (and loved) Arrival, and immediately added this collection to my list.
Review: I don’t usually pick science fiction books. Fiction in generally isn’t usually in my rotation, so adding a layer of complexity by narrowing it from generic literature to a specific genre means there are a lot of great books out there that I’ve not even considered reading. I tried reading a famous author’s most popular work earlier this year and couldn’t get past all the new words. I didn’t find the concept difficult to understand in the context of the stories; I just don’t enjoy having to learn new vocabulary created by the author.
This book, however, I found to be mostly accessible to someone who isn’t traditionally a science fiction reader. In fact, the first story, “Tower of Babylon,” is based on a story in the Bible. I read it in one sitting, and found myself reading almost all of the other short stories in one sitting as well.
My least favorite essay was easily “Seventy-Two Letters,” but even that one I mostly enjoyed. Again, it suffered from having a lot of new vocabulary to learn, but there were a couple of twists that I did not expect. That one also didn’t end in a way that I found satisfying.
I enjoyed the essay Arrival was based on, called “Story of Your Life;” I think the storytelling was elegant. It’s slightly different from the movie, and I understand why it was adjusted for the screenplay. But because I’ve seen the movie, I couldn’t help but read it all picturing Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.
The essay I enjoyed the most was probably “Hell is the Absence of God.” The premise of this one fascinated me: there is no question of whether the is a heaven, or hell, or god; the question is only will individuals be devoted to god. People literally see flashes into hell (and can see if their loved ones are there at times), and angels come to earth on a regular basis.
I can’t say whether these short stories are demonstrative of most science fiction as a whole, but I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed them, and so would at the very least recommend this to anyone else who is interested in seeing if they like science fiction but aren’t sure of a good starting point.
It's like, What if Calvino or Borges wrote pieces that were plot-driven without losing too much of either their appealing brevity or their conceptual underpinning? Having the author's "Story Notes" at the end--where he gives a paragraph explanation of where the idea for each piece came from--was nice. Also contains one of my favorite descriptions of what it feels like to be a parent: it's like giving birth "to an animated voodoo doll of myself".
Rating: 5I read this simply because I saw the Arrival movie and loved it. Usually I prefer to read the story before seeing the movie adaptation, but I'm glad I saw the movie first in this case. It was much more engaging than the short story. Overall, these are solid stories that explore very original and interesting concepts, though some don't quite end in a satisfactory manner.
Rating: 3This is only for the background story behind the movie "Arrival." Was hoping for a deeper understanding of the concepts in the movie. Did not happen. There's no doubt there's lots of thinking going on but my view is that what he's telling us is obscured by his word choice and sentence structure plus some murkiness to the plot. No question that the story sticks with you. I just can't come up with the raves given elsewhere.
Rating: 3Very good collection of short stories. One of the best SF I have read in a long time.
Rating: 5There are SFF writers who are highly creative, original thinkers . . . and then there's Ted Chiang. His settings are so inventive that I can find myself shocked on every page, and yet the follow through is so well done that his worlds start to make more sense then our own.If you're here just for "Story of Your Life" (adapted as the film Arrival), you won't be disappointed, but the other stories are also worth your time.
Rating: 5Superb. Amazing collection of really inventive and imaginative science fiction stories. All of them are clever, all of them have some relevance to modern life, all of them branch out in an unusual and clever manner. Some are of course better than others, but even the least good of the stories is still much better than so many others I've read. It's very difficult to review collections of short stories, especially one covering such diverse themes as this. The title 'Story of your Life' was recently adapted into a film, and I can see how that would have worked although I haven't seen it. Aliens have arrived on earth, but communication has not been achieved until your heroine changes how she sees the world. Many of the other stories sort of follow a similar theme - changing your view of how you see religion, death, fashion etc. The title story is great, but some of the others are probably even better, 'Liking what you see:A Documentary' is my favourite. A series of interviews with college students leading up to a vote on whether or not to apply a mental block against physical beauty. This is true of all the stories - the science is hand wavy. It's there to provide a concept, and a context not for rigorous understanding of the physical universe we live - and yet even better, as far as I could tell, none of the "Laws of Nature" we know about have broken. There's no FTL etc. Some of the best SF I've read in a long time. Thought provoking, unique, clever, relevant, fun and well written. What more could you ask for? I just wish he'd write a novel, or a LOT more stories.
Rating: 5Excellent sff story collection, includes "Arrival" story the 2016 movie is based on. S says all the stories are superb.
Rating: 5This collection is some of the most original hard science fiction I've ever read.
While I enjoyed this book, at times it felt as if I was reading a textbook. It took great concentration to follow along with the "science" parts. I think people that don't normally read SF, would probably have a hard time as well.
I would only recommend this book to hardcore SF fans.
Rating: 3While I enjoyed this book, at times it felt as if I was reading a textbook. It took great concentration to follow along with the "science" parts. I think people that don't normally read SF, would probably have a hard time as well.
I would only recommend this book to hardcore SF fans.
No surprise that "Story of Your Life" was my favorite of this collection.More thoughts to come.4 stars
Rating: 4Awesome stores. All of them are excellent, and specially the first ones were a "wow" after "wow".I really appreciate how he mixes mathematical/CS concepts with more deep human worries, all written in a very nice agreeable tone.
Rating: 5This is an excellent collection that weaves human stories with some impressive science along 'what if...?' lines. I came to this book after loving Arrival and wanting to read the story that it's based on. The Story Of Your Life is really thought-provoking, albeit along slightly different lines to the film.I loved the other stories, too, especially Tower Of Babylon and Seventy Two Letters, perhaps because I'm as interested in history as I am science fiction! Chiang has a wonderful imagination and writes really well, considering that some of the stories can get fairly technical. This is definitely worth a read for any science fiction fan.
Rating: 5Masterful short stories in the sci-fi genre.Chiang doesn't go too much into "hard" sci-fi - he is more adept in painting a familiar scene, and then adding a sci-fi-style quirk and exploring the outcome.I love them all.Read June 2017
Rating: 4Some really interesting ideas that work quite well in short story format. I would have enjoyed them more if Chiang had spent less time in science lecturer mode and more on developing richer characters. For me the highlight was Division by Zero, which relied on character development not clever science.
Rating: 3Chiang's thinking is superbly clever, and his writing is solid. While the stories here don't have much in the way of plot (excluding two), they're filled with smart, thought-provoking perspectives. Very fun.
Rating: 4Overall:4.5 stars.
The Evolution of Human Science - 4.5 stars it was a nice little read. fun concept. well done.
Hell is the Absence of God - 3.5 stars I understand it better after reading the notes for the story. it was a bit my cup of tea but the characters were very realistic.
Liking What You See: A Documentary - 5 stars love the way this was done. it's a great exercise in covering a controversial topic comprehensively and realistically. he writes people very well.
Rating: 5The Evolution of Human Science - 4.5 stars it was a nice little read. fun concept. well done.
Hell is the Absence of God - 3.5 stars I understand it better after reading the notes for the story. it was a bit my cup of tea but the characters were very realistic.
Liking What You See: A Documentary - 5 stars love the way this was done. it's a great exercise in covering a controversial topic comprehensively and realistically. he writes people very well.
I've become an instant fan of Ted Chiang after reading his book Stories of Your Life and Others. It's such a breath of fresh air to read a really phenomenal collection of short stories such as this one. I had been itching for some truly delicious science fiction and this collection delivered. From the opening story about the Tower of Babel, it is obvious that Chiang is a unique voice in sci-fi and I only wonder at why it took me so long to have him on my radar. While each story is unique, they are all equally fascinating, consuming, and vaguely unsettling. I forgot a few times that what I was reading wasn't actually true which is disconcerting when you're reading about people being blinded on the streets by the sight of heavenly creatures or a drug that when given to patients who are brain dead can not only bring them back to life but elevate their IQ. Suffice it to say, this is a book that any sci-fi junkie (or newbie wanting to get their feet wet) should immediately seek out. Take your time and indulge because this is an author that should be savored and not rushed. 10/10
Rating: 5Better than ' Sofware '
Rating: 2Collection of cerebral short science-fiction stories which inspired the movie 'Arrival'. The common themes are religion and the conceptual breakthrough which opens the mind to higher functioning.
Rating: 4