Stories of Your Life and Others
by Ted Chiang
Rating: 5.0 / 5 · Read · Finished 2017-05-31
Seriously some of the best sci-fi I’ve ever read. Every single one of these stories get a recommendation from me. Each explores one or more really interesting what-ifs and they all go really deep into the consequences. He also plays with a variety of writing styles, story structures and narrators.
The movie “Arrival” is based on “Stories of Your Life.” I liked the book better than the movie, but most of the stories here are actually much better!
My ranking of the stories:
- “Tower of Babylon”
- “Hell Is the Absence of God”
- “Liking What You See: A Documentary”
- “Understand”
- “Seventy-Two Letters”
- “Story of Your Life”
- “The Evolution of Human Science”
- “Division by Zero”
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On second reading, my ranking is:
- “Hell Is the Absence of God”
- “Liking What You See: A Documentary”
- “Seventy-Two Letters”
- “Liking What You See: A Documentary”
- “Tower of Babylon”
- “The Evolution of Human Science”
- “Understand”
- “Division by Zero”