Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang

Like many readers, my first exposure to Ted Chiang was through the movie The Arrival, which is based on "Story of Your Life."  This short story, along with seven others, are found in Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others.  As is the case with almost any collection of short stories, this collection is uneven.  I got the feeling that some of them were experimental pieces where he took a germ of an idea and tried to build a story around it but it never really sprouted into a complete work of fiction.  A few are strong stand-along pieces.

"Story of Your Life" was a bit of a let down after I saw the movie.  I know, I know, movies and stories are separate works and exist independently.  I saw the movie first, was disappointed, then read the story, and was even more disappointed.  Alas.  "Tower of Babylon" was a treat, as it sort of told the story of the biblical Tower of Babel.  "Understand" was an interesting attempt to explore the implications of artificially inducing tremendous mental powers on an individual.  "Liking What You See: A Documentary" is written as a series of interview responses about calliagnosia, a neurological treatment that blocks neural pathways by which we judge people's ugliness or beauty.  I enjoyed both the story-telling technique and the thoughtful reflection of this piece.

Stories of Your Life and Others shows Chiang as a writer whose big ideas are not easily contained in a mere story.  Readers who enjoy a good story will ultimately be disappointed in Chiang's writing, but readers who don't care so much about minor details like plot and character development will delight in Chiang's ideas.