11 ms·

Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction

202 points by samclemens 10y ago

intrasight 10y ago
I just finished the audio version of "Stories of Your Life and Others" and did enjoy it very much.
- thisone 10y ago
  Aye, I read it and it's been a long time since I found a short story collection that made me miss university. Lots to unpack in those stories.
frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
Hell is the Absence of God is really great and I don't normally go for that sort of thing. There used to be an audiobook version on youtube which looks like it's been taken down now. Anyways hunt it up if you can, it's great commute material.
hammerzeit 10y ago
I really enjoyed the frustration of the article's author in trying to attribute Ted Chiang's writing to his personal life or history. We as humans seem to have this unceasing tendency to essentialize -- to believe that everything we do comes from deep-seated psychological needs. We project every action onto some event from years past with a parent, a lover, a friend. I feel like this is borne out of a desire to believe that behavior is deterministic. That if only we too had undergone the experiences of the person who we're reading about, we too would be that acclaimed sci-fi writer, or famous entrepreneur, or asshole president. It excuses, to some extent, the fact that we are not that person. But sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes we just build shit for fun. It doesn't all have to be us coming to terms with our distant father. Zuckerberg, of all people, once had a quote vis-a-vis The Social Network (can't seem to find it) that basically amounted to the idea that they had to make the entirety of Facebook be about his rejection by a girl because the idea of people building something cool for its own sake doesn't make a good movie. What's interesting for me is I feel like this armchair psychologizing we all do is getting worse. I don't have any evidence to back this up, just a feeling -- as we're exposed to more people's behaviors, we fall back to essentialist attributions of that behavior more and more.
- dottedmag 10y ago
  Too bad the article's author hadn't read other Chiang's works: I'd love to see an article which derives "Understand", "Seventy-Two Letters", "The Evolution of Human Science" or "Exhalation" from the personal history.
- tux1968 10y ago
  > What's interesting for me is I feel like this armchair psychologizing we all do is getting worse. I'm sorry, but you have to admit if you read back your own comment, it's mostly filled with armchair psychologizing.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    That's fun, but surely TFA can be held to a higher standard than an HN comment? It read like a Terry Gross interview, for goodness' sake.
- schoen 10y ago
  > That if only we too had undergone the experiences of the person who we're reading about, we too would be that acclaimed sci-fi writer, or famous entrepreneur, or asshole president. This reminds me of a great line from a story by Borges: > El método inicial que imaginó era relativamente sencillo. Conocer bien el español, recuperar la fe católica, guerrear contra los moros o contra el turco, olvidar la historia de Europa entre los años de 1602 y de 1918, ser Miguel de Cervantes. > The first method that he imagined [in order to write Don Quixote from scratch centuries later] was relatively simple. Learn Spanish well, return to the Catholic faith, fight against the Moors or against the Turk, forget the history of Europe between the years 1602 and 1918, be Miguel de Cervantes. I highly recommend the story (called "Pierre Menard, Autor del Quijote" or "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"). http://hispanlit.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/06/Borges-Pierre-Menard.pdf http://hispanlit.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/06/Borges-P...
- ctchocula 10y ago
  I learned about the phenomenon you're describing in English class. The professor's thesis was that the desire to create a narrative is a fundamental part of the human experience. In essence what you're saying is that The Social Network's narrative--the entirety of Facebook [is] about [Mark Zuckerberg's] rejection by a girl--is not a compelling enough narrative for you. For you, you would much prefer a different narrative--that he was building something cool for its own sake. As an engineer I can relate to your preferred narrative, but Hollywood doesn't consider us its target audience. This raises the question: what's a good metric that's used to decide what the narrative is?
Jun8 10y ago
Wow, there are so many interesting bits here that I felt compelled to comment on some: 1. "... they gave thanks that they were permitted to see so much, and begged forgiveness for their desire to see more.” When I discover with mind-blowing physical discovery (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Borealis_Great_Wall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Boreal...) I sometimes feel this way about humanity's great foray into the universe. 2. "He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had science existed then." I interpret this to be a very insightful comment on what SF is. Some people take SF to be inventing stuff, humans always did that sort of thing through mythology (in fact one can argue that in the past we had much more of it and science kills it). OTOH I think the real SF is taking a scientific framework and tweaking parts of it what-ifs to demonstrate aspects of humanity, in way any other work of literature operates. This does require science. 3. "Chiang’s vision of a world without faith, in which the certain and proven existence of God is troubling, rather than reassuring." This is absolutely true, if the existence of God were to be proven beyond doubt (which, if you think about it seems paradoxical) existence would be intolerable, much more so than if the reverse was proven. 4. "I believe that the universe is deterministic, but that the most meaningful definition of free will is compatible with determinism”. Spot on! "We must believe in free will -- we have no choice." - Isaac Bashevis Singer 5. “There’s a book by Umberto Eco called ‘The Search for the Perfect Language,’ ” he said. Great book that I would recommend to anyone. 6. "In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind." After finishing Snow Crash I have been thinking that some form of brain hacking should be possible using light pulses and linguistics as input (http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11187/are-the-language-elements-in-snow-crash-supported-by-science http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11187/are-the-langu...). Altogether an amazing guy, ordering his books from Amazon right now.
- nkrisc 10y ago
  Understand was a wonderful. I thought it perfectly encapsulated the inevitable outcome of such a scenario.
- mirimir 10y ago
  > the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind You'd want a backup before trying anything substantial.
ismail 10y ago
Stories of your life and others has got to be one of my favorite collections of science fiction short stories. Any other recommendations?
- dottedmag 10y ago
  His newer short stories.
- rndmize 10y ago
  "The Hard SF Renaissance" is one of my favorites and usually sits on my coffee table when I don't have it loaned out to friends.
- imh 10y ago
  The Lifecycle of Software Objects is one of my all time favorites. Exhalation is really great too.
  - panglott 10y ago
    The prices for print copies of this on Amazon are just out of control, hundred of dollars. Fortunately they are available online. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang#Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang#Works
- nyolfen 10y ago
  chiang got me into borges, and i can't recommend him enough if you're a fan of the former. i love chiang but borges has become my favorite fiction author. borges also seems quite popular among programmers.
  - mercer 10y ago
    "The Library Of Babel" by Borges was great. As was "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote."
  - ryanplant-au 10y ago
    Borges' one-paragraph story "On Exactitude in Science": "... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography."
djhworld 10y ago
Tower of Babylon was superb, I read it with the other short stories (can't remember the name of the collection) a month or so ago. Wasn't so sure about the rest of them though, I felt the Babylon story kind of eclipsed all of them.
- ltnately 10y ago
  Stories of Your Life and Others.
- himlion 10y ago
  I agree, it was the first story in the book and after that masterpiece it was hard for the other ones to live up to it.
- exhilaration 10y ago
  I got the audiobook from Audible [1] after reading about it on HN and that's the only story I asked my wife to listen to - she loved it and she's not a science fiction fan. [1] http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Stories-of-Your-Life-and-Others-Audiobook/B00I5S2PI4 http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Stories-of-Your-Lif...
  - iwintermute 10y ago
    Interesting - i've tried to find Ted's books on Audible several times with no results. And it happens to be regional restriction. "We're sorry. Due to publishing rights restrictions, we are not authorized to sell this item in the country where you live." Sigh.
- voidifremoved 10y ago
  Agreed, that is the standout. I enjoyed the one about not being able to see beauty, but I felt it didn't go anywhere. Stories Of Your Life takes the central idea of Slaughterhouse-Five and dresses it up with physics. Its good, but its like a remix more than anything.
  - sooheon 10y ago
mind_heist 10y ago
I just got his book yesterday after realizing that the movie "Arrival" was based on one of his short stories. Really looking forward to reading it !
TheGRS 10y ago
There are major spoilers to the movie Arrival in this article, so make sure you watch it (or read the short story) before reading this.
nyolfen 10y ago
I dug these up and posted them in the last Chiang thread I saw, here are some links to his short stories: Division by Zero: https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/division/full/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantas... > A brilliant mathematician wrestles with the consequences of her earthshattering proof. Understand: https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infini... > An experimental treatment bestows a regular person with superintelligence, propelling him into a dangerous series of mindgames. Story of Your Life: https://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy.objectis.net/prose/storyofyourlife https://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy... > A talented linguist reflects on her life as she struggles to grasp the meaning of an alien language. Nebula Award (Best Novella). [this is the story the recent film Arrival is based on] Seventy-Two Letters: https://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.com/72ltrs.html https://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.co... > In a world where mystical scrolls impart animating power, a shocking discovery threatens to upend society. Hell is the Absence of God: http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-_Hell_Is_the_Absence_of_God.html http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-_Hell... > An unbeliever struggles with the question of faith when God is scientific fact and angels routinely visit the earth. Hugo, Locus, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette). What's expected of us: http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/whats_expected.html http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/w... > A simple time machine undermines the concept of free will, with disastrous consequences. The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate: https://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?16,22867,22867 https://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregst... > An ancient alchemist introduces a traveling merchant to a mysterious time-traveling gateway. Hugo, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette). [I looted these from here, fixing the broken links I could and excluding the ones I couldn't: http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-science-fiction http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-... -- there are a few more links in there, including some essays.]
kaycebasques 10y ago
Fun fact: he is (or maybe "was", now that his fiction is so successful) a technical writer.
- jkchu 10y ago
  The article mentions this several times. He still is a technical writer, and it is his primary source of income because he only writes when a good idea comes to him. I would be curious to find out how much he got paid for "Arrival".
- state 10y ago
  Someone just told me this yesterday, and I found it so interesting. I'd be so curious to know what he was writing / who he was writing for. Those must be some fantastic docs!
  - philiplu 10y ago
    Well, 25 years ago, he worked down the hall from me at Microsoft, writing docs for the Fortran compiler. Not sure if he ever wrote docs for the C/C++ compiler that I worked on (this was pre-Visual C++ or maybe just as VC got started), nor do I remember how long he was there. But I do remember being thrilled that a Nebula and Campbell award winner was a co-worker.
    - moyix 10y ago
      I asked him about this at a reading he did a few months ago – apparently he still does technical writing for them, and at least some of it is still in their C++ documentation.
6stringmerc 10y ago
I've yet to have the chance to read any of his work, mostly because I'm working on my own things now and don't have a lot of time for pleasure, which would be the point of reading these first and foremost. That noted, I'm happy to see people take an interest in reading fiction again. It was nice with Harry Potter. It's nice with Ted Chiang. My hope is that the accessibility and popularity inspire additional interest in fiction reading, and I'm sure it happens as with music. There's a catch though. The unfortunate part is that both JK Rowling and Ted Chiang are, practically and reasonably speaking, genre authors and that can be limiting to growth as a reader. I love genre works of quality, because, just being real here, the signal-to-noise ratio of quality-to-sub-par in certain genres is abhorrent. It's like finding a great "Metal" proximity band like Tool, checking out all their work, and wanting more, going back into the category and finding...definitely not more Tool. I'm very happy for him and hope he enjoys the success, fiscal rewards, and, best of all, freedom to write! Take careful note, all would-be writers: >In 1989, he attended the Clarion Workshop, a kind of Bread Loaf for sci-fi and fantasy writers... Sure, he's a hobbyist but that's a hobby that's been going for almost 30 years. Practice makes better. He's no overnight sensation...y'all just finally found him. >“But what makes any human being a good, reliable worker?” he asked me. “A hundred thousand hours of good parenting, of unpaid emotional labor. That’s the kind of investment on which the business world places no value; it’s an investment made by people who do it out of love.” This is an absolutely wonderful perspective, and can truly be applied to creative endeavors as well.
- RangerScience 10y ago
  If you're working on your own work, reading high-quality works can really tell you how to do things. Among other things, Ted Chiang is excellent at non-linear storytelling, and at communicating complex and nuanced ideas through narrative. The actual definition of a genre is based on sales demographics ("do people who buy SciFi buy this book?" - why Vonnegut is in Literature, and LeGuin is in fantasy), but if I had to pick... SciFi is about consequences (what happens when....) Fantasy is about narrative (a story about a boy....) Literature is about a message that cannot be communicated any other way than the story that is told. I have no idea how to tell you what Arrival was about without retelling the story.
- 10y ago
cqlchess 10y ago
Chiang's "Understand" and "Story of Your Life" are two of the best stories ever written in my view. They evince a mastery of prose craftsmanship that's incredibly rare, combined with fascinating but logical plot ideas. Being a Chiang fan is frustrating though because he writes so little!
- kbenson 10y ago
  I specifically read "Story of Your Life" a few months back prior to watching Arrival, as some people here claimed they liked the movie Adaptation better. I have to say I agree. It was a fine short story, and had some very good conceptual elements, but I found his explanation of the phenomenon and it's consequences for people subject to it lacking (or perhaps I misunderstood a portion of it). The movie skirted actual explanations with respect to this, but thus wasn't subject to scrutiny that may have shown it to be less solid than was supposed.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    SPOILERS AHEAD I don't like how the movie makes her daughter to be dying of a disease. In the book, she dies in a climbing accident, which the protagonist knows full well will happen but does nothing to prevent it, thus demonstrating how committed she was to an immutable, deterministic future. I liked the story better. I think it helped that the actress reading the story in the audiobook was excellent.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      I think some aspects of that are covered that well in the movie, in that she knew her daughter would die, and made a choice to have one anyways, and subject her husband to that pain presumably without his knowledge or consent. The problem I had with the story, if I understood it correctly, is not that she chose to be committed, but that she actually had no choice. This is, essentially the part of the story I found problematic. It was explained enough to bypass my suspension of disbelief, but not enough to provide an explanation I could accept. How do you have free through without free action? I would love to revisit the story and find evidence to support that point, or to find that I misread or misunderstood, but I unfortunately don't have a way to do that right now. :/
sohkamyung 10y ago
"Exhalation" is my favourite Ted Chiang story. It can be read at Lightspeed [1]. I'm probably in the minority here, but I didn't really enjoy "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". I though it was too long and, while I work in firmware, the story's software model didn't connect with me. [1] http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/
- dagw 10y ago
  I'm probably in the minority here Are you? I've never met anyone who includes Lifecycle of Software Objects in their favorite Ted Chiang stories
  - sohkamyung 10y ago
    Well, the reviews of it that I've read have been complimentary, like those on Goodreads [1] and other SF related publications. So I naturally assume that I was in the minority since I didn't enjoy it as much as Ted Chiang's other stories. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7886338-the-lifecycle-of-software-objects https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7886338-the-lifecycle-of...
- mrkgnao 10y ago
  > "Exhalation" is my favourite Ted Chiang story. I haven't audibly exhaled (I am honestly not trying to pun here) at a story this way in quite a while. Thank you.
andrewflnr 10y ago
A script based on another of his stories, “Understand,” is also in development. How in blazes do you make a movie of a story that happens almost entirely in the guy's head? And what on Earth did they do to the ending to make it mainstream-palatable? That said, I sort of feel like the author buried the lede, with this one. It's one of my favorite stories, and I hope they do it justice.
- andyjohnson0 10y ago
  [Mild spoilers ahead] There's the drama of the initial accident, then the recovery. Stealing the vials. Pursuit by the government agency. Locating the opponent, and the final conflict between them. Plenty to work with there, I think. The challenge, as you say, would be to do justice to the story and not turn it into some kind of car-chase/superhero mess.
mrkgnao 10y ago
> In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind. He knits together the vocabularies of science and art, memory and prediction, literature and math, physics and emotion. “He’s searching for the perfect language, a cognitive language in which he can think,” Chiang said. “A language that will let him think the kinds of thoughts he wants.” I wonder how many of us have, at some point, harbored the (if poorly formed and not at all thought-through) beginnings of such an idea.
WCityMike 10y ago
"He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had science existed then" made me think with amusement of caveman science fiction [1]. I've been a fan of Chiang for a very long time. I'm a real fan of superintelligence fiction [2] and "Understand" [3] was the first to catch my attention. [1] http://dresdencodak.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2009-09-22-caveman_science_fiction.jpg http://dresdencodak.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2009-09-2... [2] https://ask.metafilter.com/286008/Seeking-Hyperbrain-Books-Films-Chiangs-Understand-Lucy-Limitless https://ask.metafilter.com/286008/Seeking-Hyperbrain-Books-F... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infini...

202 points by samclemens 10y ago

intrasight 10y ago

I just finished the audio version of "Stories of Your Life and Others" and did enjoy it very much.

thisone 10y ago
Aye, I read it and it's been a long time since I found a short story collection that made me miss university. Lots to unpack in those stories.

frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago

Hell is the Absence of God is really great and I don't normally go for that sort of thing. There used to be an audiobook version on youtube which looks like it's been taken down now. Anyways hunt it up if you can, it's great commute material.

hammerzeit 10y ago

I really enjoyed the frustration of the article's author in trying to attribute Ted Chiang's writing to his personal life or history. We as humans seem to have this unceasing tendency to essentialize -- to believe that everything we do comes from deep-seated psychological needs. We project every action onto some event from years past with a parent, a lover, a friend. I feel like this is borne out of a desire to believe that behavior is deterministic. That if only we too had undergone the experiences of the person who we're reading about, we too would be that acclaimed sci-fi writer, or famous entrepreneur, or asshole president. It excuses, to some extent, the fact that we are not that person. But sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes we just build shit for fun. It doesn't all have to be us coming to terms with our distant father. Zuckerberg, of all people, once had a quote vis-a-vis The Social Network (can't seem to find it) that basically amounted to the idea that they had to make the entirety of Facebook be about his rejection by a girl because the idea of people building something cool for its own sake doesn't make a good movie. What's interesting for me is I feel like this armchair psychologizing we all do is getting worse. I don't have any evidence to back this up, just a feeling -- as we're exposed to more people's behaviors, we fall back to essentialist attributions of that behavior more and more.

dottedmag 10y ago
Too bad the article's author hadn't read other Chiang's works: I'd love to see an article which derives "Understand", "Seventy-Two Letters", "The Evolution of Human Science" or "Exhalation" from the personal history.
tux1968 10y ago
> What's interesting for me is I feel like this armchair psychologizing we all do is getting worse. I'm sorry, but you have to admit if you read back your own comment, it's mostly filled with armchair psychologizing.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  That's fun, but surely TFA can be held to a higher standard than an HN comment? It read like a Terry Gross interview, for goodness' sake.
schoen 10y ago
> That if only we too had undergone the experiences of the person who we're reading about, we too would be that acclaimed sci-fi writer, or famous entrepreneur, or asshole president. This reminds me of a great line from a story by Borges: > El método inicial que imaginó era relativamente sencillo. Conocer bien el español, recuperar la fe católica, guerrear contra los moros o contra el turco, olvidar la historia de Europa entre los años de 1602 y de 1918, ser Miguel de Cervantes. > The first method that he imagined [in order to write Don Quixote from scratch centuries later] was relatively simple. Learn Spanish well, return to the Catholic faith, fight against the Moors or against the Turk, forget the history of Europe between the years 1602 and 1918, be Miguel de Cervantes. I highly recommend the story (called "Pierre Menard, Autor del Quijote" or "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"). http://hispanlit.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/06/Borges-Pierre-Menard.pdf http://hispanlit.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/06/Borges-P...
ctchocula 10y ago
I learned about the phenomenon you're describing in English class. The professor's thesis was that the desire to create a narrative is a fundamental part of the human experience. In essence what you're saying is that The Social Network's narrative--the entirety of Facebook [is] about [Mark Zuckerberg's] rejection by a girl--is not a compelling enough narrative for you. For you, you would much prefer a different narrative--that he was building something cool for its own sake. As an engineer I can relate to your preferred narrative, but Hollywood doesn't consider us its target audience. This raises the question: what's a good metric that's used to decide what the narrative is?

Jun8 10y ago

Wow, there are so many interesting bits here that I felt compelled to comment on some: 1. "... they gave thanks that they were permitted to see so much, and begged forgiveness for their desire to see more.” When I discover with mind-blowing physical discovery (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Borealis_Great_Wall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Boreal...) I sometimes feel this way about humanity's great foray into the universe. 2. "He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had science existed then." I interpret this to be a very insightful comment on what SF is. Some people take SF to be inventing stuff, humans always did that sort of thing through mythology (in fact one can argue that in the past we had much more of it and science kills it). OTOH I think the real SF is taking a scientific framework and tweaking parts of it what-ifs to demonstrate aspects of humanity, in way any other work of literature operates. This does require science. 3. "Chiang’s vision of a world without faith, in which the certain and proven existence of God is troubling, rather than reassuring." This is absolutely true, if the existence of God were to be proven beyond doubt (which, if you think about it seems paradoxical) existence would be intolerable, much more so than if the reverse was proven. 4. "I believe that the universe is deterministic, but that the most meaningful definition of free will is compatible with determinism”. Spot on! "We must believe in free will -- we have no choice." - Isaac Bashevis Singer 5. “There’s a book by Umberto Eco called ‘The Search for the Perfect Language,’ ” he said. Great book that I would recommend to anyone. 6. "In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind." After finishing Snow Crash I have been thinking that some form of brain hacking should be possible using light pulses and linguistics as input (http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11187/are-the-language-elements-in-snow-crash-supported-by-science http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11187/are-the-langu...). Altogether an amazing guy, ordering his books from Amazon right now.

nkrisc 10y ago
Understand was a wonderful. I thought it perfectly encapsulated the inevitable outcome of such a scenario.
mirimir 10y ago
> the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind You'd want a backup before trying anything substantial.

ismail 10y ago

Stories of your life and others has got to be one of my favorite collections of science fiction short stories. Any other recommendations?

dottedmag 10y ago
His newer short stories.
rndmize 10y ago
"The Hard SF Renaissance" is one of my favorites and usually sits on my coffee table when I don't have it loaned out to friends.
imh 10y ago
The Lifecycle of Software Objects is one of my all time favorites. Exhalation is really great too.
- panglott 10y ago
  The prices for print copies of this on Amazon are just out of control, hundred of dollars. Fortunately they are available online. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang#Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang#Works
nyolfen 10y ago
chiang got me into borges, and i can't recommend him enough if you're a fan of the former. i love chiang but borges has become my favorite fiction author. borges also seems quite popular among programmers.
- mercer 10y ago
  "The Library Of Babel" by Borges was great. As was "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote."
- ryanplant-au 10y ago
  Borges' one-paragraph story "On Exactitude in Science": "... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography."

djhworld 10y ago

Tower of Babylon was superb, I read it with the other short stories (can't remember the name of the collection) a month or so ago. Wasn't so sure about the rest of them though, I felt the Babylon story kind of eclipsed all of them.

ltnately 10y ago
Stories of Your Life and Others.
himlion 10y ago
I agree, it was the first story in the book and after that masterpiece it was hard for the other ones to live up to it.
exhilaration 10y ago
I got the audiobook from Audible [1] after reading about it on HN and that's the only story I asked my wife to listen to - she loved it and she's not a science fiction fan. [1] http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Stories-of-Your-Life-and-Others-Audiobook/B00I5S2PI4 http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Stories-of-Your-Lif...
- iwintermute 10y ago
  Interesting - i've tried to find Ted's books on Audible several times with no results. And it happens to be regional restriction. "We're sorry. Due to publishing rights restrictions, we are not authorized to sell this item in the country where you live." Sigh.
voidifremoved 10y ago
Agreed, that is the standout. I enjoyed the one about not being able to see beauty, but I felt it didn't go anywhere. Stories Of Your Life takes the central idea of Slaughterhouse-Five and dresses it up with physics. Its good, but its like a remix more than anything.
- sooheon 10y ago

mind_heist 10y ago

I just got his book yesterday after realizing that the movie "Arrival" was based on one of his short stories. Really looking forward to reading it !

TheGRS 10y ago

There are major spoilers to the movie Arrival in this article, so make sure you watch it (or read the short story) before reading this.

nyolfen 10y ago

I dug these up and posted them in the last Chiang thread I saw, here are some links to his short stories: Division by Zero: https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/division/full/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantas... > A brilliant mathematician wrestles with the consequences of her earthshattering proof. Understand: https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infini... > An experimental treatment bestows a regular person with superintelligence, propelling him into a dangerous series of mindgames. Story of Your Life: https://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy.objectis.net/prose/storyofyourlife https://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy... > A talented linguist reflects on her life as she struggles to grasp the meaning of an alien language. Nebula Award (Best Novella). [this is the story the recent film Arrival is based on] Seventy-Two Letters: https://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.com/72ltrs.html https://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.co... > In a world where mystical scrolls impart animating power, a shocking discovery threatens to upend society. Hell is the Absence of God: http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-_Hell_Is_the_Absence_of_God.html http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-_Hell... > An unbeliever struggles with the question of faith when God is scientific fact and angels routinely visit the earth. Hugo, Locus, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette). What's expected of us: http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/whats_expected.html http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/w... > A simple time machine undermines the concept of free will, with disastrous consequences. The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate: https://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?16,22867,22867 https://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregst... > An ancient alchemist introduces a traveling merchant to a mysterious time-traveling gateway. Hugo, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette). [I looted these from here, fixing the broken links I could and excluding the ones I couldn't: http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-science-fiction http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-... -- there are a few more links in there, including some essays.]

kaycebasques 10y ago

Fun fact: he is (or maybe "was", now that his fiction is so successful) a technical writer.

jkchu 10y ago
The article mentions this several times. He still is a technical writer, and it is his primary source of income because he only writes when a good idea comes to him. I would be curious to find out how much he got paid for "Arrival".
state 10y ago
Someone just told me this yesterday, and I found it so interesting. I'd be so curious to know what he was writing / who he was writing for. Those must be some fantastic docs!
- philiplu 10y ago
  Well, 25 years ago, he worked down the hall from me at Microsoft, writing docs for the Fortran compiler. Not sure if he ever wrote docs for the C/C++ compiler that I worked on (this was pre-Visual C++ or maybe just as VC got started), nor do I remember how long he was there. But I do remember being thrilled that a Nebula and Campbell award winner was a co-worker.
  - moyix 10y ago
    I asked him about this at a reading he did a few months ago – apparently he still does technical writing for them, and at least some of it is still in their C++ documentation.

6stringmerc 10y ago

I've yet to have the chance to read any of his work, mostly because I'm working on my own things now and don't have a lot of time for pleasure, which would be the point of reading these first and foremost. That noted, I'm happy to see people take an interest in reading fiction again. It was nice with Harry Potter. It's nice with Ted Chiang. My hope is that the accessibility and popularity inspire additional interest in fiction reading, and I'm sure it happens as with music. There's a catch though. The unfortunate part is that both JK Rowling and Ted Chiang are, practically and reasonably speaking, genre authors and that can be limiting to growth as a reader. I love genre works of quality, because, just being real here, the signal-to-noise ratio of quality-to-sub-par in certain genres is abhorrent. It's like finding a great "Metal" proximity band like Tool, checking out all their work, and wanting more, going back into the category and finding...definitely not more Tool. I'm very happy for him and hope he enjoys the success, fiscal rewards, and, best of all, freedom to write! Take careful note, all would-be writers: >In 1989, he attended the Clarion Workshop, a kind of Bread Loaf for sci-fi and fantasy writers... Sure, he's a hobbyist but that's a hobby that's been going for almost 30 years. Practice makes better. He's no overnight sensation...y'all just finally found him. >“But what makes any human being a good, reliable worker?” he asked me. “A hundred thousand hours of good parenting, of unpaid emotional labor. That’s the kind of investment on which the business world places no value; it’s an investment made by people who do it out of love.” This is an absolutely wonderful perspective, and can truly be applied to creative endeavors as well.

RangerScience 10y ago
If you're working on your own work, reading high-quality works can really tell you how to do things. Among other things, Ted Chiang is excellent at non-linear storytelling, and at communicating complex and nuanced ideas through narrative. The actual definition of a genre is based on sales demographics ("do people who buy SciFi buy this book?" - why Vonnegut is in Literature, and LeGuin is in fantasy), but if I had to pick... SciFi is about consequences (what happens when....) Fantasy is about narrative (a story about a boy....) Literature is about a message that cannot be communicated any other way than the story that is told. I have no idea how to tell you what Arrival was about without retelling the story.
10y ago

cqlchess 10y ago

Chiang's "Understand" and "Story of Your Life" are two of the best stories ever written in my view. They evince a mastery of prose craftsmanship that's incredibly rare, combined with fascinating but logical plot ideas. Being a Chiang fan is frustrating though because he writes so little!

kbenson 10y ago
I specifically read "Story of Your Life" a few months back prior to watching Arrival, as some people here claimed they liked the movie Adaptation better. I have to say I agree. It was a fine short story, and had some very good conceptual elements, but I found his explanation of the phenomenon and it's consequences for people subject to it lacking (or perhaps I misunderstood a portion of it). The movie skirted actual explanations with respect to this, but thus wasn't subject to scrutiny that may have shown it to be less solid than was supposed.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  SPOILERS AHEAD I don't like how the movie makes her daughter to be dying of a disease. In the book, she dies in a climbing accident, which the protagonist knows full well will happen but does nothing to prevent it, thus demonstrating how committed she was to an immutable, deterministic future. I liked the story better. I think it helped that the actress reading the story in the audiobook was excellent.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    I think some aspects of that are covered that well in the movie, in that she knew her daughter would die, and made a choice to have one anyways, and subject her husband to that pain presumably without his knowledge or consent. The problem I had with the story, if I understood it correctly, is not that she chose to be committed, but that she actually had no choice. This is, essentially the part of the story I found problematic. It was explained enough to bypass my suspension of disbelief, but not enough to provide an explanation I could accept. How do you have free through without free action? I would love to revisit the story and find evidence to support that point, or to find that I misread or misunderstood, but I unfortunately don't have a way to do that right now. :/

sohkamyung 10y ago

"Exhalation" is my favourite Ted Chiang story. It can be read at Lightspeed [1]. I'm probably in the minority here, but I didn't really enjoy "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". I though it was too long and, while I work in firmware, the story's software model didn't connect with me. [1] http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/

dagw 10y ago
I'm probably in the minority here Are you? I've never met anyone who includes Lifecycle of Software Objects in their favorite Ted Chiang stories
- sohkamyung 10y ago
  Well, the reviews of it that I've read have been complimentary, like those on Goodreads [1] and other SF related publications. So I naturally assume that I was in the minority since I didn't enjoy it as much as Ted Chiang's other stories. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7886338-the-lifecycle-of-software-objects https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7886338-the-lifecycle-of...
mrkgnao 10y ago
> "Exhalation" is my favourite Ted Chiang story. I haven't audibly exhaled (I am honestly not trying to pun here) at a story this way in quite a while. Thank you.

andrewflnr 10y ago

A script based on another of his stories, “Understand,” is also in development. How in blazes do you make a movie of a story that happens almost entirely in the guy's head? And what on Earth did they do to the ending to make it mainstream-palatable? That said, I sort of feel like the author buried the lede, with this one. It's one of my favorite stories, and I hope they do it justice.

andyjohnson0 10y ago
[Mild spoilers ahead] There's the drama of the initial accident, then the recovery. Stealing the vials. Pursuit by the government agency. Locating the opponent, and the final conflict between them. Plenty to work with there, I think. The challenge, as you say, would be to do justice to the story and not turn it into some kind of car-chase/superhero mess.

mrkgnao 10y ago

> In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind. He knits together the vocabularies of science and art, memory and prediction, literature and math, physics and emotion. “He’s searching for the perfect language, a cognitive language in which he can think,” Chiang said. “A language that will let him think the kinds of thoughts he wants.” I wonder how many of us have, at some point, harbored the (if poorly formed and not at all thought-through) beginnings of such an idea.

WCityMike 10y ago

"He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had science existed then" made me think with amusement of caveman science fiction [1]. I've been a fan of Chiang for a very long time. I'm a real fan of superintelligence fiction [2] and "Understand" [3] was the first to catch my attention. [1] http://dresdencodak.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2009-09-22-caveman_science_fiction.jpg http://dresdencodak.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2009-09-2... [2] https://ask.metafilter.com/286008/Seeking-Hyperbrain-Books-Films-Chiangs-Understand-Lucy-Limitless https://ask.metafilter.com/286008/Seeking-Hyperbrain-Books-F... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infini...