I really liked the ending of this, it was bittersweet and affirming, and the story as a whole held up a mirror to humanity and our own strive for knowledge and self-discovery -and implies that perhaps all science is limited by us being human, with all its implications -in a really original way.

It’s the first of his work that has left me stunned not only because of the story itself, but also because of the beauty of the writing.Īn argon-breathing creature made of aluminum and gold studies its own brain and makes a discovery with high-stakes consequences for its whole universe. Instead of focusing on the possible paradoxical consequences of time travel, he instead explores philosophical concerns in stories within stories, making this a moral fable about the immutability of fate and the lure of second chances, with more of a fantasy than sci-fi touch. Quite different from Chiang’s usual technical, hard sci-fi, it mimics the Persian storytelling style very well, and is thus unlike any story of his I’ve read so far. All of them are unique and visionary, and exhibit his signature compassionate, empathic touch -his stories make me glad to be a flawed human in this imperfect world.Īrabian Nights meets time travel in this Hugo and Nebula Award winning tale. He has a real gift for crafting compact stories -poignant and thought-provoking in their premise and scope, in spite of their brevity. I’d say that the stories in this collection show a wider thematic range than the ones included in his first one he usually has a very matter-of-fact way of writing, but he seems more confident in experimenting with both his prose and narrative style, and I have no doubt that he will rise to prominence in literary circles in defiance of being firmly rooted in a genre that’s often looked down on. As any other short story collection, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but the overall quality of Chiang’s work rises high above the merely mediocre even the one that didn’t work for me ( The Lifecycle of Software Objects) ended up winning the Hugo Award, so if you’re into any sort of speculative fiction at all, whether with a hard or soft sci-fi touch, there’ll likely be something to suit your taste in here the science is really just a fancy front to delve into the human (and sometimes beyond) condition with his unmatched delicacy. This book collects nine stories, two of which ( Omphalos and Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom) are previously unpublished works.

Exhalation: Stories was my most anticipated book release of the year, the long-awaited second collection by the perhaps most highly decorated SFF writer ever (seriously -on average, Chiang releases a short story every two years, and is seemingly incapable of publishing one without it being nominated for the genre’s top awards), a full seventeen years after his first one, Stories of Your Life and Others.

Ted chiang exhalation stories