47. Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

47. Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others

A book of science fiction short stories, but in focusing on more actual science (math, physics, linguistics) and less space ships and laser guns. In a lot of Chiang's stories, a scientific principle or observation becomes a metaphor for something about life: the possibility (or impossibility) of dividing by zero is about a relationship; the angle at which light hits water is about free will and motherhood; lesions in the brain are about the concept of beauty. My favorite two stories are 'The Tower of Babylon' (BRONZE AGE SCIENCE FICTION OMG), which takes the concept of the tower of Babel and looks at what it would be like it people could actually build a tower to heaven, and 'Understand', which is a bit like 'Flowers for Algernon' with a twist: a regular guy becomes incredibly smart due to medical intervention. It's extremely rare to find well-written smart characters, but Chiang does it beautifully. There are several stories where Chiang takes seriously past scientific paradigms, like in 'The Tower of Babylon', which assumes that there actually are a celestial spheres, or another story about Victorian theories of evolution and reproduction.

I really enjoyed these stories. I'm not a big fan of science-fiction in general, but Chiang's style is just awesome.

Comments

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Chiang is amazing. I recently re-read "72 Letters" in one of the Year's Best anthologies and was blown away, especially when the intro said it was only his fourth (or so) story published.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he's just incredible. I only wish he wrote faster! ;)