Reviews

It seems to me that recent science fiction tends to be more about an idea or a concept than a well-told story (“recent” meaning “not Bradbury, LeGuin, and Asimov.” I’m old.) Three of these stories were really interesting ideas, explored in ways that were effective. The rest of them were a bit tedious to read, ie, they weren’t very good narrative stories. But the ones that worked were great. The title story was the basis of the film Arrival and is much more about decoding an alien language than was possible to do in a 2-hour mainstream movie. “Hell is the Absence of God” was absorbing and surprising. The last and best one, about a neuromodification that keeps people from being able to tell if someone is attractive, was fascinating, and since it’s presented as the fictional transcript of a documentary, it doesn’t really need to be a story and thus works particularly well. Mixed bag. I’m glad I read it, even though a couple of them were a slog.

neontulips's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful reflective

5.0

kneeholegibby's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is a book of short stories. All of them were phenomenal, some more intelligent/heavier material than I’m used to, however it was a great read overall. Two stories stuck with me specifically. I’m very impressed at the writer for keeping similar tones throughout the book while creating such different tales.

asriram's review against another edition

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3.0

Overall, this book was fine — there will be stories that I may reread, and definitely a few which I won’t, but since this is a short story collection, I probably should rate all of the individual stories.

1. Tower of Babylon - 2.5/5, interesting ideas, but I struggled with the blending of historical and fantastical events, and the writing style made it difficult to read, had to take a break in the story and was almost completely perturbed by it
2. Understand - 1.5/5, started off interesting but as soon as the main character reached unreachable levels of human intelligence, the plot became extremely boring, plus the main character becomes an unpleasant individual at that point, not really sure what the author was trying to say with this story
3. Division by Zero - 4/5, interesting story that tied in mathematics (yay!) with the idea of what to do as your fundamental beliefs are shaken and how to be with someone who is experiencing that
4. Stories of Your Life - 3.5/5, good story, but the weird flash-forwards don’t really make sense for the first half of the book, which makes it difficult to enjoy the B-plot of the flash forwards. That being said, I think a reread will make me enjoy this much more, I loved the physics and mathematics in the main plot, and the linguistics were also fascinating.
5. Seventy-Two Letters - 4/5, overall good story, had some interesting concepts and the blend of scientific and religious undertones was interesting, but nothing remarkable
6. On the Evolution of Science - 2/5, boring and uninteresting, only upside was that it was relatively short
7. Hell is the Absence of God - 2.5/5, interesting story, but some of the underlying ideas are a bit horrifying and something I really dislike, so not really my thing.
8. Liking What You See: A Documentary - 3.5/5, interesting premise, and it raises some interesting points regarding how we view facial attractiveness, but not as engaging as some of the other stories.

Overall, definitely glad to have read it, but not planning on rereading this or reading any more of Ted Chiang’s works anytime soon barring strong recommendations.

reubenmd's review against another edition

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challenging reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Genuinely changed the way I think about things. Proper Sci-Fi. Good.

loreleifae's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

rmonroy's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.5

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