Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang

[sophia_sol]

A collection of short stories by a renowned sff author. I've read a few Chiang stories before, but this was my first time reading a bunch of his work at once and my overwhelming impression is that he's very good at writing a very specific type of story and that type of story is mostly not my thing.

Chiang's stories are all "here is an idea, let's see all the ways we can use a narrative to explore the full implications of the idea," and characters are used solely as props for the narrative explorations rather than as full people worth being interested in. And I must say he's really good at coming up with interesting implications for his ideas and conveying them in a narrative!

But the thing about writing this sort of story is that it turns out that if I don't particularly care about the idea then I don't particularly care about the story, and at their worst the stories read like an essay with a thin veneer of storytelling. And even if I DO like a story I don't CARE about it, I'm just like "hmm how interesting" and then move on, because I'm not drawn in emotionally.

Occasionally Chiang does manage to integrate a character arc a little more fully into the idea he's exploring, stories where the idea and the human interest combine and affect each other. These are the strongest stories imo. "Stories of Your Life" is one of these, and it's rightly one of his better known stories - the one the film Arrival is based on, not that I've seen the movie. But I actually had a bit of a Feeling at the end of the story, and it's the only story of the bunch to manage that. It's about a linguist working to decipher the language of an alien species, and the way that her experience with the aliens affects her experience of her life, though also of course about exploring ideas around what language is and what it does.

I'd say the other strongest story in the collection is the last one, "Liking What You See: A Documentary." Although that MIGHT be just because I found it the most compelling idea to explore amongst them all It's about being able to turn off people's ability to see some humans as more beautiful than other humans, and what that would mean for a society.

Anyway. Not sure I'll bother to seek out more of Chiang's work specifically. He's very talented, for sure, but for the most part his works are aimed at a different kind of reader than me.

(Okay no I am going to probably read more of his work, apparently his book Exhalations includes a story about time travel and the Thousand and One Nights, so I need to read that story.)

Comments

[superborb]

Ooh, this is something that I hate and I always associate with SF -- that overemphasis on worldbuilding instead of character development. Works for some people, but certainly not me. (Though I did love Story of Your Life!)

[sophia_sol]

Yeah, I've occasionally seen it in fantasy but SF is where this approach to writing comes up so often! And it's just so not what I'm looking for in a book.

[luzula]

I usually need to connect emotionally to the characters, but Chiang transcends that for me! I enjoy his stories a lot.

[sophia_sol]

I'm glad you enjoy his works! Even though they aren't for me I can recognize and appreciate the skill that goes into them, and they deserve to have an audience :)

[chestnut_pod]

I do think you might like Exhalations better -- the first story and the title story seem a lot more up your alley, along the lines of "Stories of Your Life." Though I think there are also stories in that collection that you will really dislike, particularly one with angels and one with time travel.

[sophia_sol]

Oh, good to know! I will keep that in mind, thanks :) I think I actually have an ebook of Exhalations kicking around, maybe I'll get around to it sometime soon then.

[cahn]

ahahaha, this is where you and I differ in what we enjoy! :) Cause as you know I adore Chiang and I adore the worldbuilding of his stories.

Though I will admit that Stories of your Life has some wildly uneven stories. Like I thought the title story was amazing, but the one about the superintelligent guy just completely flopped for me. And then "Hell as the Absence of God" I just... I actually think it's a reasonably good story (with some weaknesses) because I dislike it so much rather than being "meh" about it (as I am for stories I don't think are good). But I really dislike it.

And then the Tower of Babel one, my husband (who also loves Chiang) read it and was like "uh, so, if it actually worked like this you could generate infinite energy," lol.

tl;dr: "Story of Your Life" definitely is the best of the bunch, even for this Chiang fan :P

[sophia_sol]

Haha yes, I do indeed know how much you love Chiang! :) I am glad to hear though that you agree the one about the superintelligent guy was a flop, because boy howdy did I think that one made some bad choices. The rest of the stories in the book that I didn't like I just thought "hmm not for me" but that one I was like, "NO. BAD. WHY."

I'm also intrigued that apparently we have different emotional reactions to stories we think are bad vs good but not for us! I agree that Hell is the Absense of God is a reasonably good story but didn't like it, but feel very "meh" about it, whereas I am definitely worked up about the superintelligent guy one!

Also, the tower of babel one bugged me too, not that I could articulate WHY like your husband did, but as much as I enjoyed the exploration of what life on such a tall tower would be like, the ending didn't feel right to me.