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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
Short fiction collections always have stories that are a mix of quality and taste, but by and large I found The Best of Subterranean to be disappointing. The majority of stories didn’t work for me at all.
By far my favorite story in the collection was by Ted Chiang, which I sort of suspected would be the case going in. While you won’t see the review for it until this fall, I read and loved a collection of his short fiction. All of his stories I’ve read are technically stunning and contain such intriguing ideas that they will stick with you for a long time after. The story in this collection, “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,” is no exception. This story looks at how technology can shape the way we think. The narrator is living in a future where many people habitually record their entire lives, and a new company released software that that sorts through the recordings to bring relevant scenes up. While it currently just assists memory, will it one day replace organic memory altogether? And is that necessarily a bad thing? The emotional core of the story is the narrator’s fraught relationship with his daughter and the role forgetfulness has played in it.
Currently, “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” is available on Subterranean’s website. In fact, many of the other stories also appear to be available online, including one I’d read before picking up this collection, “Sic Him, Hellhound! Kill! Kill!” by Hal Duncan. My second favorite story of the anthology, “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong by K.J. Parker, is also available.
I’d previously read a novella by K.J. Parker, The Last Witness, that while well written wasn’t too my tastes. I had a much better time of it with “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong.” I believe it’s set in the same world as the novella (which I think a lot of his stories are set in?) and follows a professor at a college of music who has a pupil who’s a musical genius, the author of some extraordinary pieces of music. However, his pupil is then arrested for murder. The narrator has the chance to help him, but what is it worth? Although it’s a bit exasperating that it’s one of multiple stories in the collection where women don’t have any dialog, I did enjoy it, especially the clever plot twists.
While those two were the stand out stories, there were some others that were all right. “The Seventeenth Kind” by Michael Marshall Smith is a humorous tale about a shopping channel which attracts extraterrestrial attention. “The Last Log of the Lachrimosa” by Alastair Reynolds is a horrific science fiction story about what’s lurking on a presumably uninhabited planet. “Last Breath” by Joe Hill is a short, creepy story that reminded me just a bit of Ronald Dahl’s “The Landlady.” “The Least of the Deathly Arts” by Kat Howard presents a fantastical city obsessed with Death, who is himself a resident. “Troublesolving” by Tim Pratt has an intriguing take on time travel. “The Screams of Dragons” by Kelley Armstrong is set in the same world as her novel Omens, although I didn’t see any direct connection. Cherry Priest similarly has a characteristically creepy story set in her steampunk Clockwork Century world, “Tanglefoot,” although in this case the connection to her established world felt hamfisted and out of place.
As for the other stories, I would have preferred to skip the 2/3rds of the book they represent and have done something else with my time. The only one I actually did skip was “The Indelible Dark” by William Browning Spencer because it was not only boring but long too. It wasn’t the only story I disliked. “The Dry Spell” by James P. Blaylock, “Perfidia” by Lewis Shiner, “The Pile” by Michael Bishop, “Water Can’t be Nervous” by Jonathan Carrolland, and “The Crane Method” by Ian R. MacLeod were all similarly mind numbingly boring, but they at least had the grace to be short enough I could get through them. “Valley of the Girls” by Kelly Link was confusing and full of unlikable people. “The Secret History of the Lost Colony” by John Scalzi wasn’t even a short story — it was a cut chapter from a book of his and really didn’t work well in a short story collection. “The Prayer of Ninety Cats” by Caitlín R. Kiernan, a description of a fictional movie, was very strange and probably too much horror for me. “He Who Grew Up Reading Sherlock Holmes” by Harlan Ellison was an utter mess I couldn’t make heads or tails out of. “Dispersed by the Sun, Melting in the Wind” by Rachel Swirsky was unrelentingly depressing. “The Toys of Caliban” by George R. Martin has more than a whiff of ableism about it, and “Game” by Maria Dahvana Headley felt sort of white savior-y.
Other stories I was more ambivilent on or at least could see other people liking. “Hide and Horns” by Joe R. Lansdale is a straight up Western (no fantastical elements), so it might appeal more to fans of that genre. “The Bohemian Astrobleme” had some interesting ideas and did manage to be fun, but I felt the ending could have been stronger. Same goes for “The Tomb of the Pontifex Dvorn” by Robert Silverberg” and “A Long Walk Home” by Jay Lake. I found “Balfour and meriwether in the Vampire of Kabul” by Daniel Abraham to be boring, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why. Maybe it was too tropy? While “Younger Woman” by Karen Joy Fowler wasn’t among my favorites, I did like how it looked at a mother’s reaction to her teenage daughter dating a vampire. “White Lines on a Green Field” by Catherynne M. Valente has her usual gorgeous writing style, but it was very much focused on the idealized myth of high school and didn’t reach me.
In the end, I feel like I would have made a better use of my time reading a random thirty of the stories I have bookmarked on my web browser. On average, I’d probably enjoy them more.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
By far my favorite story in the collection was by Ted Chiang, which I sort of suspected would be the case going in. While you won’t see the review for it until this fall, I read and loved a collection of his short fiction. All of his stories I’ve read are technically stunning and contain such intriguing ideas that they will stick with you for a long time after. The story in this collection, “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,” is no exception. This story looks at how technology can shape the way we think. The narrator is living in a future where many people habitually record their entire lives, and a new company released software that that sorts through the recordings to bring relevant scenes up. While it currently just assists memory, will it one day replace organic memory altogether? And is that necessarily a bad thing? The emotional core of the story is the narrator’s fraught relationship with his daughter and the role forgetfulness has played in it.
Currently, “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” is available on Subterranean’s website. In fact, many of the other stories also appear to be available online, including one I’d read before picking up this collection, “Sic Him, Hellhound! Kill! Kill!” by Hal Duncan. My second favorite story of the anthology, “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong by K.J. Parker, is also available.
I’d previously read a novella by K.J. Parker, The Last Witness, that while well written wasn’t too my tastes. I had a much better time of it with “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong.” I believe it’s set in the same world as the novella (which I think a lot of his stories are set in?) and follows a professor at a college of music who has a pupil who’s a musical genius, the author of some extraordinary pieces of music. However, his pupil is then arrested for murder. The narrator has the chance to help him, but what is it worth? Although it’s a bit exasperating that it’s one of multiple stories in the collection where women don’t have any dialog, I did enjoy it, especially the clever plot twists.
While those two were the stand out stories, there were some others that were all right. “The Seventeenth Kind” by Michael Marshall Smith is a humorous tale about a shopping channel which attracts extraterrestrial attention. “The Last Log of the Lachrimosa” by Alastair Reynolds is a horrific science fiction story about what’s lurking on a presumably uninhabited planet. “Last Breath” by Joe Hill is a short, creepy story that reminded me just a bit of Ronald Dahl’s “The Landlady.” “The Least of the Deathly Arts” by Kat Howard presents a fantastical city obsessed with Death, who is himself a resident. “Troublesolving” by Tim Pratt has an intriguing take on time travel. “The Screams of Dragons” by Kelley Armstrong is set in the same world as her novel Omens, although I didn’t see any direct connection. Cherry Priest similarly has a characteristically creepy story set in her steampunk Clockwork Century world, “Tanglefoot,” although in this case the connection to her established world felt hamfisted and out of place.
As for the other stories, I would have preferred to skip the 2/3rds of the book they represent and have done something else with my time. The only one I actually did skip was “The Indelible Dark” by William Browning Spencer because it was not only boring but long too. It wasn’t the only story I disliked. “The Dry Spell” by James P. Blaylock, “Perfidia” by Lewis Shiner, “The Pile” by Michael Bishop, “Water Can’t be Nervous” by Jonathan Carrolland, and “The Crane Method” by Ian R. MacLeod were all similarly mind numbingly boring, but they at least had the grace to be short enough I could get through them. “Valley of the Girls” by Kelly Link was confusing and full of unlikable people. “The Secret History of the Lost Colony” by John Scalzi wasn’t even a short story — it was a cut chapter from a book of his and really didn’t work well in a short story collection. “The Prayer of Ninety Cats” by Caitlín R. Kiernan, a description of a fictional movie, was very strange and probably too much horror for me. “He Who Grew Up Reading Sherlock Holmes” by Harlan Ellison was an utter mess I couldn’t make heads or tails out of. “Dispersed by the Sun, Melting in the Wind” by Rachel Swirsky was unrelentingly depressing. “The Toys of Caliban” by George R. Martin has more than a whiff of ableism about it, and “Game” by Maria Dahvana Headley felt sort of white savior-y.
Other stories I was more ambivilent on or at least could see other people liking. “Hide and Horns” by Joe R. Lansdale is a straight up Western (no fantastical elements), so it might appeal more to fans of that genre. “The Bohemian Astrobleme” had some interesting ideas and did manage to be fun, but I felt the ending could have been stronger. Same goes for “The Tomb of the Pontifex Dvorn” by Robert Silverberg” and “A Long Walk Home” by Jay Lake. I found “Balfour and meriwether in the Vampire of Kabul” by Daniel Abraham to be boring, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why. Maybe it was too tropy? While “Younger Woman” by Karen Joy Fowler wasn’t among my favorites, I did like how it looked at a mother’s reaction to her teenage daughter dating a vampire. “White Lines on a Green Field” by Catherynne M. Valente has her usual gorgeous writing style, but it was very much focused on the idealized myth of high school and didn’t reach me.
In the end, I feel like I would have made a better use of my time reading a random thirty of the stories I have bookmarked on my web browser. On average, I’d probably enjoy them more.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
A touching narrative of (again) a great idea.
I don't know how Ted Chiang keeps doing it but I keep falling in love with the ideas that blossom inside the stories he has written.
While the Black Mirror episode "The Entire History of You" offered a grave future of what might happen should this be apart of our future, [b:The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling|18455800|The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling|Ted Chiang|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420140821s/18455800.jpg|26103616] offers a less extreme one, a delicate one even.
For a long time I have dismissed the past as something that doesn't matter when judging a person. People change and every single one of us goes through multiple transformations during our entire lives. I certainly know that I have changed my core - the ultimate reason why I do anything, the deepest framework on which all other values and morals depend on - and while replacing that, I have, in essence, changed the entirety of me. In doing that, I have wished for other people to forget the past me and start anew. But I can't change much of other people, instead I can change how I think about people and therefore I adopted the idea that the past doesn't matter, the person could have and most likely has changed aka the past must be forgotten as fast as possible (AFTER learning from it!).
The idea in this story runs contrary to that. It depicts a future, where the the past can't be forgotten. Where old wounds can continue to hurt and old memories of happiness can easily crumple. It has also made me think that maybe the past is not such an enemy after all, that it's counterproductive to exclude it's influence from decision making. To be fair, that rule was only relevant when dealing with individuals: I had felt that every single person I meet deserved a second chance and deserved to have a new life. No more! :D I now know that the extent of what can be learned from past experiences is a lot greater than what I'd have guessed. A bad experience can have something to teach me even after many years, even long after it's actual relevance.
So, when the past won't be forgotten, what happens to people? What happens to change? Well, I think the change is still there, but it doesn't work like I thought it would. There is no core that gets replaced and brings about the change of everything within. It's more like we grow more and more layers on top of everything old, and while the new stuff is active most of the time, the old ideas just need certain triggers to become ruling again.
I love ideas that change the way I see the world and that's why I loved this book.
We rewrite our pasts to suit our needs and support the story we tell about ourselves. With our memories we are all guilty of a Whig interpretation of our personal histories, seeing our former selves as steps toward our glorious present selves.
I don't know how Ted Chiang keeps doing it but I keep falling in love with the ideas that blossom inside the stories he has written.
While the Black Mirror episode "The Entire History of You" offered a grave future of what might happen should this be apart of our future, [b:The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling|18455800|The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling|Ted Chiang|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420140821s/18455800.jpg|26103616] offers a less extreme one, a delicate one even.
For a long time I have dismissed the past as something that doesn't matter when judging a person. People change and every single one of us goes through multiple transformations during our entire lives. I certainly know that I have changed my core - the ultimate reason why I do anything, the deepest framework on which all other values and morals depend on - and while replacing that, I have, in essence, changed the entirety of me. In doing that, I have wished for other people to forget the past me and start anew. But I can't change much of other people, instead I can change how I think about people and therefore I adopted the idea that the past doesn't matter, the person could have and most likely has changed aka the past must be forgotten as fast as possible (AFTER learning from it!).
The idea in this story runs contrary to that. It depicts a future, where the the past can't be forgotten. Where old wounds can continue to hurt and old memories of happiness can easily crumple. It has also made me think that maybe the past is not such an enemy after all, that it's counterproductive to exclude it's influence from decision making. To be fair, that rule was only relevant when dealing with individuals: I had felt that every single person I meet deserved a second chance and deserved to have a new life. No more! :D I now know that the extent of what can be learned from past experiences is a lot greater than what I'd have guessed. A bad experience can have something to teach me even after many years, even long after it's actual relevance.
So, when the past won't be forgotten, what happens to people? What happens to change? Well, I think the change is still there, but it doesn't work like I thought it would. There is no core that gets replaced and brings about the change of everything within. It's more like we grow more and more layers on top of everything old, and while the new stuff is active most of the time, the old ideas just need certain triggers to become ruling again.
I love ideas that change the way I see the world and that's why I loved this book.
With The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, Ted Chiang has hit one of my thematic sweet spots by writing a story about memory. The novelette is divided into two storylines. One tells about a reporter encountering, with much trepidation, a new type of technology that will basically replace out natural human memory. The second tells a historical account of a young man living in Tivland, encountering the written word for the first time. These two elements may sound different, but they're actually telling the same story: how more precise methods of keeping track of memories impact out overall concepts of truth, and the benefits and drawbacks to these technologies.
The story is strongly written with an engaging voice, and a few moments that genuinely surprised me. I love how the author tackled the subject of memory and truth in a thought provoking way. This is the second short piece of I've read by Chiang, the first being Exhalation, and it's safe to say that it's my favorite by him so far. (Hugo Reading)
The story is strongly written with an engaging voice, and a few moments that genuinely surprised me. I love how the author tackled the subject of memory and truth in a thought provoking way. This is the second short piece of I've read by Chiang, the first being Exhalation, and it's safe to say that it's my favorite by him so far. (Hugo Reading)
This story rocked my boat that is for sure. It is one of those very deep short stories that makes you think and that might be useable as teaching material.
This is actually 2 parallel stories with a thematic connection: one set in a near future while another set in a not-so-distant past. The future story tackles the double-edged sword of having a tool that can basically remember everything you've ever seen. The other story follows a young man as writing is introduced to his society and some of the consequences thereof. Both stories had strong characters and engaging stories that dovetailed perfectly off each other despite the vastly different types of stories they told. Both had satisfying endings with good twists and overall, reminded me of some of the author's best work from his previous collection.
This story is good, but not astonishing. I but found it just a bit more didactic than I would have liked. I've come to expect Chiang stories to leave a lot more work for the imagination, I think.
Hugo novelette nominee. I have one more to read in this category but it will have to be very good to knock this book out of the top spot.
Not a story as such, it is written as an academic paper switching between the current time period and the 1940's when Tivland was discovered by the Europeans.
In the current time frame the author discusses the implications of a new type of software, Remem which is basically an advanced search engine for use in retrieving information from personal lifelogs. Lifelogs you say? Think Google glass with a camera that records everything that you experience. For whatever reason the current technology makes searching your lifelog burdensome so in steps Remem. You query a moment from your life and Remem pulls up the associated video. The author begins to explore the pros and cons of many advances that make our life "easier" but also brings up the point of what we may be losing in the process.
I think about how things have "progressed" just in my lifetime and how my sons life is so vastly different, handwriting? forget it. How about your memory? Put your smartphone down and remember one of the phone numbers in there. No, your parents or your spouses number doesn't count.
There is quite a bit of exploration of just how a technology like this would change personal relationships. Remember that fight you and your significant other had a couple of months ago, who started it? No more arguments about who is to blame but does this really help or hurt relationships?
How much does forgiveness hinge on our ability to forget? How about the way we use selective memory? There is a moment in the story where the author uses the software to return to a fight he had with his daughter many years ago and finds out that his memory of the incident is completely opposite from what really occurred.
These thoughts are juxtaposed with the discovery of the Tiv people, a people with no written language and we follow along as one the youngsters from the tribe learns to read and write. The author delves a bit into the transition from an oral to a literate society. For the Tiv, there is truth and there is right and they are not always the same.
Before a culture adopts the use of writing, when its knowledge is transmitted exclusively through oral means, it can very easliy revise its history. It's not intentional, but it is inevitable; throughout the world, bards and griots have adapted their material to their audiences, and thus gradually adjusted the past to suit the needs of the present.
The author of the paper goes from extreme wariness of the technology to reluctant acceptance of the possible good outcomes from its use. (I'm not joning him there yet) Timely and thought provoking.
And I think I've found the real benefit of digital memory. The point is not to prove you were right; the point is to admit you were wrong.
Because all of us have been wrong on various occasions, engaged in cruelty and hypocrisy, and we've forgotten most of those occasions. And that means we don't really know ourselves.
Not a story as such, it is written as an academic paper switching between the current time period and the 1940's when Tivland was discovered by the Europeans.
In the current time frame the author discusses the implications of a new type of software, Remem which is basically an advanced search engine for use in retrieving information from personal lifelogs. Lifelogs you say? Think Google glass with a camera that records everything that you experience. For whatever reason the current technology makes searching your lifelog burdensome so in steps Remem. You query a moment from your life and Remem pulls up the associated video. The author begins to explore the pros and cons of many advances that make our life "easier" but also brings up the point of what we may be losing in the process.
I think about how things have "progressed" just in my lifetime and how my sons life is so vastly different, handwriting? forget it. How about your memory? Put your smartphone down and remember one of the phone numbers in there. No, your parents or your spouses number doesn't count.
There is quite a bit of exploration of just how a technology like this would change personal relationships. Remember that fight you and your significant other had a couple of months ago, who started it? No more arguments about who is to blame but does this really help or hurt relationships?
How much does forgiveness hinge on our ability to forget? How about the way we use selective memory? There is a moment in the story where the author uses the software to return to a fight he had with his daughter many years ago and finds out that his memory of the incident is completely opposite from what really occurred.
These thoughts are juxtaposed with the discovery of the Tiv people, a people with no written language and we follow along as one the youngsters from the tribe learns to read and write. The author delves a bit into the transition from an oral to a literate society. For the Tiv, there is truth and there is right and they are not always the same.
Before a culture adopts the use of writing, when its knowledge is transmitted exclusively through oral means, it can very easliy revise its history. It's not intentional, but it is inevitable; throughout the world, bards and griots have adapted their material to their audiences, and thus gradually adjusted the past to suit the needs of the present.
The author of the paper goes from extreme wariness of the technology to reluctant acceptance of the possible good outcomes from its use. (I'm not joning him there yet) Timely and thought provoking.
And I think I've found the real benefit of digital memory. The point is not to prove you were right; the point is to admit you were wrong.
Because all of us have been wrong on various occasions, engaged in cruelty and hypocrisy, and we've forgotten most of those occasions. And that means we don't really know ourselves.
I enjoyed this story even though it was a story in a very different sense of the word. It’s told as a piece of futuristic narrative journalism, putting me in mind of #longreads type of journalistic pieces, juxtaposed with a story of the Tiv tribe in Western Africa. Jijingi of the Tiv spends time with a European missionary learning how to write. On the one hand, we have the future journalist writing about the social and personal effects of a new technology can can search ubiquitously recorded personal video logs, and on the other we have Jijingi coming to terms with the concept of writing and learning about its uses and faults as a memory aid. What starts off as an exploration of types of memory (internalised and externalised, organic and technologically assisted), turns into a discussion of the nature of truth, as the title suggests. Honestly the only slight disappointment (and I do mean slight) with this story was that the story of Jijingi was inserted by the journalist, rather than placed next to the journalist’s story by the writer (if that makes sense). I think it’s because it made the journalist seem a little too self-aware in the end. But it was still a good, thoughtful story.
I found this anthology to be fairly mixed in the quality of its stories (which is a little disappointing for a "best of" anthology). I LOVED "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang and also particularly enjoyed "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong" by KJ Parker. Most of the stories are ones I'd rate around 3 stars, but there are also some I found myself so deeply uninterested in that I quit reading them and skipped to the next one.
Of particular disappointment is Scalzi's entry in here. I'm a fan of Scalzi, but even I question why this anthology includes a book chapter from an old draft of one of his books, rather than a complete story. It's not even an especially funny or poignant chapter. Scalzi frames it as a learning experience for aspiring writers, but given that this isn't a book of writing advice, it's really out of place here.
Of particular disappointment is Scalzi's entry in here. I'm a fan of Scalzi, but even I question why this anthology includes a book chapter from an old draft of one of his books, rather than a complete story. It's not even an especially funny or poignant chapter. Scalzi frames it as a learning experience for aspiring writers, but given that this isn't a book of writing advice, it's really out of place here.
I actually read this back when Subterranean Press first published it online. I almost didn’t re-read it when I found it in the Hugo Voters Packet … but then I decided that I wanted to write a review of it, and I wanted to refresh my memory. I’m glad I did this, because “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” is even better than I remember. (I am aware of the irony of this statement given the story’s subject matter.)
The subjectivity of human memory is a subject open to endless interesting speculation. It drives one of my favourite devices, the unreliable narrator, and it informs the motives and choices of every person, real or fictional. We all edit our memories, recollect experiences imperfectly, hide inconvient truths or simply blur and half-forget past events. Ted Chiang points out in this novelette that writing has altered the way in which we remember. It is writing, he argues, that was our first step towards being “cognitive cyborgs” rather than any of the lifelogging, search-driven tools that are just beginning to creep onto the public stage today.
As a reader and a writer, I’ve long found the development of writing a fascinating subject for study. Our brains are naturally wired for language, yet we must learn to read and write. What is it like not to be literate? I can’t read non-Latin alphabets; I can’t even read most non-English languages in the Latin alphabet—yet, as a result of my literacy in English, I understand the concept of reading for information and pleasure. Through the character of Jijingi, Chiang allows the literate individual a glimpse at a grown person’s journey from illiteracy literacy. The revelation of what words are, and of how writing allows one to compose and order one’s thoughts in a predetermined manner, is fascinating, and it’s not something that those of us who are literate from an early age often consider. We take our literacy and the mindset that comes with it for granted.
But what Chiang also explores is the idea, perhaps unsettling, that literacy is a form of colonization. We colonize our past with it, appropriating it and fixing it. In pre-literate societies like the Tiv, history is oral. It requires better memory—something true of most societies prior to the onset of easy access to books—but even the best memories are fallible, as Chiang demonstrates with the squabble over the Shangev’s ancestors. The Tiv view writing as a European idea and therefore view it with suspicion. They do not think it can replicate the “truth of feeling”, mimi, that they use to speak of what is right. And maybe, to some extent, they are correct.
Chiang juxtaposes this ambivalence towards literacy with a narrator’s review of Remem, software that contextually searches one’s lifelog. In this way he comments concurrently on many popular trends today in society as well as in science fiction. We live in a surveillance state; the only question is the degree to which we are surveilled. Much of that surveillance is done by the government or its proxies, but almost as much happens on behalf of the individual. We record and photograph and otherwise document and tag our lives—hence lifelogging. We’re just now beginning to understand how this will affect us down the road, when Google produces that embarrassing photo you wish you had never shared. Remem is Google on speed and with impeccable timing, and as Chiang’s narrator explains, it is a tool with great advantages and great disadvantages.
Now, Chiang could have written about either of these tools—writing or Remem—in isolation and produced a good story. “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” excels, however, precisely because of this skilful juxtaposition. Interspersing the narrator’s Remem tale with Jijingi’s tale is very effective. It allows Chiang to make points about both technologies, and as a result, the story isn’t just about our relationship with writing or our relationship with remembering—it’s a combination of both, greater than the sum of its parts.
Short stories and novelettes seldom make their mark through their characters or even, often, their events. They are too short to build towards massive climaxes. Their significance lies in the ability of the writer to capture a single Big Idea and whittle it down into a memorable Notion. Chiang showcases that ability here. This story is entertaining and moving, because it has the human elements: Jijingi’s tragic relationship with his own writing; the narrator’s fragile relationship with his daughter. But it also makes the reader think, hopefully in new and interesting ways.
This is probably my favourite nominee for Hugo novelette this year, because it comes close to a perfect short-form work of science fiction. So, take that with the grain of salt that you will.
The subjectivity of human memory is a subject open to endless interesting speculation. It drives one of my favourite devices, the unreliable narrator, and it informs the motives and choices of every person, real or fictional. We all edit our memories, recollect experiences imperfectly, hide inconvient truths or simply blur and half-forget past events. Ted Chiang points out in this novelette that writing has altered the way in which we remember. It is writing, he argues, that was our first step towards being “cognitive cyborgs” rather than any of the lifelogging, search-driven tools that are just beginning to creep onto the public stage today.
As a reader and a writer, I’ve long found the development of writing a fascinating subject for study. Our brains are naturally wired for language, yet we must learn to read and write. What is it like not to be literate? I can’t read non-Latin alphabets; I can’t even read most non-English languages in the Latin alphabet—yet, as a result of my literacy in English, I understand the concept of reading for information and pleasure. Through the character of Jijingi, Chiang allows the literate individual a glimpse at a grown person’s journey from illiteracy literacy. The revelation of what words are, and of how writing allows one to compose and order one’s thoughts in a predetermined manner, is fascinating, and it’s not something that those of us who are literate from an early age often consider. We take our literacy and the mindset that comes with it for granted.
But what Chiang also explores is the idea, perhaps unsettling, that literacy is a form of colonization. We colonize our past with it, appropriating it and fixing it. In pre-literate societies like the Tiv, history is oral. It requires better memory—something true of most societies prior to the onset of easy access to books—but even the best memories are fallible, as Chiang demonstrates with the squabble over the Shangev’s ancestors. The Tiv view writing as a European idea and therefore view it with suspicion. They do not think it can replicate the “truth of feeling”, mimi, that they use to speak of what is right. And maybe, to some extent, they are correct.
Chiang juxtaposes this ambivalence towards literacy with a narrator’s review of Remem, software that contextually searches one’s lifelog. In this way he comments concurrently on many popular trends today in society as well as in science fiction. We live in a surveillance state; the only question is the degree to which we are surveilled. Much of that surveillance is done by the government or its proxies, but almost as much happens on behalf of the individual. We record and photograph and otherwise document and tag our lives—hence lifelogging. We’re just now beginning to understand how this will affect us down the road, when Google produces that embarrassing photo you wish you had never shared. Remem is Google on speed and with impeccable timing, and as Chiang’s narrator explains, it is a tool with great advantages and great disadvantages.
Now, Chiang could have written about either of these tools—writing or Remem—in isolation and produced a good story. “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” excels, however, precisely because of this skilful juxtaposition. Interspersing the narrator’s Remem tale with Jijingi’s tale is very effective. It allows Chiang to make points about both technologies, and as a result, the story isn’t just about our relationship with writing or our relationship with remembering—it’s a combination of both, greater than the sum of its parts.
Short stories and novelettes seldom make their mark through their characters or even, often, their events. They are too short to build towards massive climaxes. Their significance lies in the ability of the writer to capture a single Big Idea and whittle it down into a memorable Notion. Chiang showcases that ability here. This story is entertaining and moving, because it has the human elements: Jijingi’s tragic relationship with his own writing; the narrator’s fragile relationship with his daughter. But it also makes the reader think, hopefully in new and interesting ways.
This is probably my favourite nominee for Hugo novelette this year, because it comes close to a perfect short-form work of science fiction. So, take that with the grain of salt that you will.