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Summary
Summary
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * Nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories--two published for the very first time--all from the mind of the incomparable author of Stories of Your Life and Others
Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity's oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine.
In "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In "Exhalation," an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom," the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will.
Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic--revelatory.
Author Notes
Ted Chiang's fiction has won four Hugo, four Nebula, and four Locus awards, and has been featured in The Best American Short Stories . His debut collection, Stories of Your Life and Others , has been translated into twenty-one languages. He was born in Port Jefferson, New York, and currently lives near Seattle, Washington.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hugo- and Nebula-winner Chiang's standout second collection (after 2002's Stories of Your Life and Others) explores the effects that technology and knowledge have on consciousness, free will, and the human desire for meaning. These nine stories introduce life-changing inventions and new worlds with radically different physical laws. In each, Chiang produces deeply moving drama from fascinating first premises. The title story follows a scientist whose self-experimentation reveals both the origin and eventual fate of consciousness. In "What's Expected of Us," a small device horrifically alters human behavior. Chiang's rigorous worldbuilding makes hard science fiction out of stories that would otherwise be fable, as in the Hugo and Nebula-winning novelette "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," a time travel story that employs both relativistic physics and an Arabian Nights-style structure. Others grapple with robots parenting humans, humans parenting AIs, the Fermi paradox, quantum mechanics, and what it means to be a sentient creature facing a potentially deterministic universe. As Chiang's endnotes attest, these stories are brilliant experiments, and his commitment to exploring deep human questions elevates them to among the very best science fiction. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Chiang's long-awaited second collection (after Stories of Your Life (2002), the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival) continues to explore emotional and metaphysical landscapes with precise and incisive prose. The stories range in length from ""The Great Silence,"" a brief and mournful account of humanity's search for other intelligent life from the point of view of a parrot, to ""The Lifecycle of Software Objects,"" a novella told from the perspective of the inventors and caretakers of digients, sentient software beings. Many stories explore the dynamics of a radically different cosmos, such as the titular ""Exhalation,"" set in a sealed metal world whose mechanical inhabitants rely on continuous supplies of air to operate their bodies, or the previously unpublished ""Omphalos,"" about a world where visible evidence of an active and creative God is everywhere. Other stories explore scenarios involving radical changes in human consciousness, such as ""Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom,"" where technology that allows communication with alternate selves results in a whole new set of anxieties and complexes. Chiang remains one of the most skilled stylists in sf, and this will appeal to genre and literary-fiction fans alike.--Nell Keep Copyright 2019 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Chiang (Stories of Your Life and Others) is always thought provoking, and his latest collection is no exception. "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" considers artificial intelligence, with one woman wondering if they should be treated as living beings. "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" asks, if the past cannot change, is life driven by fate? "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" posits a future in which we record every moment of our lives and how that affects us, with a second narrative featuring a man who learns to read and write and its impact on his oral storytelling culture. Two of the nine pieces are new: "Omphalos" deals with creationism as science, and "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" centers on talking to our other selves in alternate worlds. VERDICT Any sf reader can dive into these stories and find something exciting. Especially recommended for fans of Greg Egan, Ken Liu, and Netflix's Black -Mirror. [See Prepub Alert, 11/19/18]-Lucy Roehrig, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.