Review Summaries

• Readers and critics praise its intellectual construction and quiet emotional force, especially how a scientific idea leads to a human resonance.

Reviews

• Absolutely mesmerizing

  Mesmerizing collection of short stories. I am turned into an immediate fan.

• You be good. I love your stories.

  Though slightly less than 'The Story of Your Life', this new second edition of Ted Chiang's works are astonishing.He is still the finest SF novelist in the world. especially, 'Exhalation' is elegant. 'The Lifecycle of Software Objects' is stunning. 'The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling' is philosophially sublime. 'Anxiety Is The Dizziness of Freedom' is another version of 'The Story of Your Life' concerning about questioning 'free will'. In addition, Youtube version of 'The Great Silence' is very good! You be good. I love you. (from a japan)

• FS perfetta

  Uno dei migliori libri di FS che abbia mai letto. Un grande autore!

• Brilliant

  Ted Chiang comes across as a thoughtful, intelligent, warm and dignified person in these endearing stories. Highly revered in the sf world, he seems set to command a wider audience with the publication of this book. The saddest story is one where a parrot ponders the lack of human insight into its intelligence and worldview even as humans destroy parrot habitat and look for signs of intelligent life in space. It’s based on the experience of Irene Pepperberg with African grey parrot Alex who would say to her, “Be good. I love you. Goodbye.” In the opening story a merchant in old Baghdad discovers both a time travel gate and the fact that although the past cannot be changed our understanding of life can be. He finds forgiveness. In another story, people explore determinism or the lack of it in establishing character in a world where through “prisms” they can access alternative versions of themselves in a constantly branching universe. In another, a mechanical scientist, on discovering the entropy that will lead to the extinction of his culture leaves a warm message for the archaeologists of the future. A long story (more a novella) explores the ethical concerns and duties humans will have towards AI creatures as a former zookeeper, re-trained in software, parents a “digient”. Along the same lines, a supposed catalogue for an exhibition of old machines describes the effect on a child of being reared by a mechanical nanny. Banished to a home for the feeble-minded, it becomes apparent to a scientist that the boy is only capable of interacting with machines. In notes at the end, where Chiang describes what prompted the stories, we learn that the origin of this story is the work of an early 20th C psychologist who warned against showing affection to children. His own suffered depression and suicide attempts, one succeeding. Another long story - two stories in one - compares the similar effect of literacy on an oral culture and a future technology which accurately preserves memories. A father finds that he has built his concept of self on a false memory, ascribing to his daughter harsh words which were in fact said by him. Newly humbled, he seeks her forgiveness. It will be apparent that Chiang is deeply concerned with questions that have fascinated us for ages: determinism/free will, our ethical and humane duties to other creatures of all types, seeing clearly and unfearingly (if that’s a word). Heartily recommended, all the more so for being hopeful, rather than dystopian.

• Science fiction, hope and love.

  The feeling I had when the lights went on after ‘Arrival’, the movie, is comparable to the feeling after finishing this book, and after most of the stories it contains. The words would be ‘gentleness’, and ‘optimism’. English is not my first language; I only started reading English books when I was in my forties (some 30 years ago), but that is not what made some of these stories difficult to read: sometimes I just didn’t feel intelligent enough to follow Mr Chiang’s lines of reasoning. But time and again I did not end up being intimidated but impressed and touched. The precious time I spent with this book, in the company of such a gentle mind, I felt a better version of myself.

• Do yourself a favor and read Ted Chiang

  I do not need to tell you that much about this book. I am just happy that I had the opportunity to read such wonderful, well thought out stories. Just read Ted Chiang. He is one of the bests in speculative fiction and his story telling style is so satisfying. Just read all his work; please. You'll do yourself a huge favor.

• What Worlds You Will See

  Ted Chiang is a magician. His stories take you down roads that seem almost dreamlike. His settings, characters and plotlines are almost surreal. Exhalation is a book of parables, set in a near-future, embedded in timelessness.

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