The e-book version that I got from my library was actually titled Arrival, with the note that it had been previously published as Stories of Your Life, and I got it because I wanted to read the story that the movie Arrival was based on, so I’ll start with that one. It’s titled “Story of Your Life,” and it’s good. I think the movie is better, which I don’t usually think, but I also don’t usually see the movie before reading the book. I don’t want to spoil […]
Sci-Fi Short Stories hit and miss
I really enjoyed Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival which led me to tracking down the source material, a short story titled Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. This was originally published in 1998 in Starlight 2 and then again as the titular short story in a collection of eight short stories by Chiang in 2002. It begins strongly with Tower of Babylon, about building a tower to reach the heavens that has an interesting philosophical bent. This is followed by another intriguing story titled Understand, detailing the progress of […]
The Black Mirror vibes are strong with this one
”Stories of your life and others” by Ted Chiang is a collection of fictional short stories about such diverse topics as the tower of Babylon, superintelligence, and automata. It also includes the story that the movie ”Arrival” was based on, so add ”aliens” to this list of topics. Considering how wide the thematic spectrum of the book is, it comes as no surprise that the language and tone varies. Some of the stories are so horrifyingly dystopian that they could be easily turned into […]
I Didn’t Expect the Bible to Feature so Prominently
Best 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, […]
Challenging isn’t always satisfying…
I’ll admit, I mainly sought out and purchased this book because of the praise for The Arrival (which I just saw last night and was fantastic!) and wanted to know what all the fuss was about before seeing the movie. The Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of ten short stories by Ted Chaing. Instead of commenting on each story individually, I’m going to pick a couple of my favorites. Story of Your Life is hard to summarize for me – I found it heartbreaking, yet […]
Thought-provoking and … kind of freaky
I purchased Story of Your Life and Others after I saw Arrival in theaters, which rocked me to my core, and I wanted to see just how it translated from the page to the screen. The answer? Very differently. For one, Chiang is a lot more technical in his descriptions, and I really appreciate the sparse-ness of his language. He does not use wordy descriptions to manipulate emotions out of his readers; he simply lets the readers draw the parallels between the science-y concepts he talking about […]