Exhalation

Last month (May, 2019), the world became a little brighter – Ted Chiang published Exhalation, a short story collection brimming with another nine short stories. Some of these stories were published previously while others are brand new and original to this collection. All are heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Throughout, this collection contains the same balance of fanciful speculation and hard science fiction as his last collection. This, in short, is very Ted Chiang.Of these nine stories, I was moved to tears by five. I was so moved by three that I immediately sent quotes to friends and family. During one, I had to pause twice: once to cry, and once to head to Amazon and order two more copies for friends.It’s safe to say that I’m a fan.As a whole, the collection is admittedly a little disjointed. Most of the stories in this collection are a familiar length, while one is over a hundred pages. No matter how good the stories are (and they are good – have I said that enough?) this was jarring. The stories also swing wildly in tone and genre. While Chiang’s last collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, covered a similar tonal scope, something about these felt somehow disjointed. Knowing how much care Chiang puts into his work I can only believe that this impression is intentional. I’m afraid, however, that the effect was lost on me.Exhalation:As the titular story from this collection, Exhalation may be perfect. I hardly know what to say about it. The story is breathtaking and very, very Chiang.Told from the perspective of characters it’s immediately apparent are not entirely human, it covers so many of the science fiction throughlines: the impact scientific advancement has on society, the way personal perspectives limit research, where consciousness comes from, where memory resides."None of us can remember much more than a hundred years in the past, and written records – accounts that we ourselves inscribed but have scant memory of doing so – extend only a few hundred years before that. How many years did we live before the beginning of written history?Where did we come from?"Full disclosure: this is the story that moved me so thoroughly I had to buy two more copies for friends. They’re currently in transit. I fully expect that 15 years from now I’ll still be referencing this story (one specific visual in particular). Be forewarned.The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling:This story is a bit of a sleeper. It’s on the longer side for this collection (still not even half the length of the longest story) and uses every page to great effect. While it’s entirely science fiction in familiar ways, Chiang introduces its themes subtly and carefully, so that you’re half-way through before you realize the water around you is boiling and you’re lost to the story.Or at least I was.It may be that I was easy prey for this one, though. It lines up a lot of my favorite themes, delivering them in a way that’s simultaneously intriguingly fresh and comfortingly familiar. It’s also one of the only stories that didn’t remind me of other works of fiction. For me, at least, while it played with all these familiar and beloved bits it was somehow not just unique but singular in that special way only art can be.This story, too, contained the most human characters. There’s something about them – their cares, their woes – that felt elevated, and the characters were more vivid and realized than you really find in short fiction."Jijingi realized that, if he thought hard about it, he was now able to identify the words when people spoke in an ordinary conversation. The sounds that came from a person’s mouth hadn’t changed, but he understood them differently; he was aware of the pieces from which the whole was made. He himself had been speaking in words all along. He just hadn’t known it until now."Omphalos:Omphalos is perhaps the most ponderous inclusion in this collection. It’s a meditative read, with a very narrow narrative perspective, assembled solely of ruminations. It is a meditation on nothing short of man’s place in the universe, and is exemplar of what I believe is Chiang’s great strength – a fully-realized fictional world, whose oddities, rules, and circumstances he illustrates perfectly as the narrative unfolds. I’ve not encountered anyone does this better than he."I began my lecture by discussing the growth rings of a tree trunk, and how the thickness of each ring depends on the rainfall during that year of the tree’s growth, so that a succession of narrow rings indicated a period of drought. I explained that by counting back from the year a tree was felled, we can compile a chronology of weather patterns going back many decades, beyond the memory of any person living. The past has left its traces on the world, and we only have to know how to read them."Imagine, now, a world in which the oldest trees have no growth rings at their core. In which the oldest mammals have no growth plates in their bones. What could the far reaches of the past in this world hold? What mystery? What miracle?

After reading both of his collections in a relatively short span, I am utterly impressed with Ted Chiang. The most important thing for a writer working in a short format is that they have a mind for ideas. For novel concepts; or for established concepts with a novel spin. And Ted Chiang has that in spades. More importantly though, being a writer of science-fiction, he has an incredible understanding of human nature, and of logical progression, evolutions which would arise from his concepts; his invented technologies. It always makes for a thought-provoking read. Standouts here are The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate and Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom.I wish only that I could reach for a third collection.

The finest stories in the second Ted Chiang collection, Exhalation, are amongst the most thoughtfully written and thought-provoking works of fiction that I've ever read, and every single piece contained herein is a worthwhile journey. This master craftsman investigates, upends, and inverts big ideas by employing scientific tools: His well considered works are exemplar speculative fiction pieces that touch upon concepts no other genre can explore.Although I greatly enjoyed Chiang's first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, this new one is richer, more scientifically interesting, and very, very emotionally engaging. (An aside: I didn't care for 'Understand' in the first collection---the only story that he's written that I'd describe as commonplace---but I liked or relished all of the others.)Scientific explorations of religious themes/myths are present in both books, but I prefer 'Omphalos' in this new collection over his previous forays ('Hell is the Absence of God,' 'Seventy-Two Letters,' and 'Tower of Babylon'), as it cleverly underpins it's religion with science and then makes superb ontological extrapolations from there. The revelations in this piece about the day of creation and cosmology are truly brilliant fictional conceits.Even though I typically avoid time travel stories, 'The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate' proves that Chiang's talents, humanitarian voice, and clever plotting can create a strong entry in this category. It's a good, somber yet hopeful story.The ideas explored in the short tales between the long ones are thought-provoking catalysts for discussion on free will ('What's Expected of Us'), communication with non-human beings ('The Great Silence'), and the nature of nurture ('Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny'). Even these smaller works are valuable jewels.The two longest tales are amongst the best in the collection. 'The Lifecycle of Software Objects' explores Artificial Intelligence in such a way that the treatment of these beings (digients), their development, and the parameters of their worlds mirror our own kindnesses, weaknesses, and biological biases. In this story, Chiang brilliantly reconciles humanity's best traits and flaws with the inexorable, amoral, and valuable advances of science.'Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom' is an exploration that asks questions I've never even considered in relation to divergent quantum realities. As was the case with my favorite story from this author's first collection ('Liking What You See: A Documentary'), thoughtful and believable characters investigate inchoate moral issues that an advancement of science has presented, and the conclusions drawn by the inhabitants of this dizzying web continue to linger in my mind...My other favorite story in the collection, and one of the most daring works in this author's entire catalogue is the titular tale, 'Exhalation.' This universe is very different from our own: The protagonist's detective work/surgery/scientific musings are odd, memorable, and deftly done, and the thematic connections between this alien place and our own reality only enrich the experience. The bizarre setting of this tale is atypical for Ted Chiang (and feels a bit more like Greg Egan), but Chiang's subtle characterization, warmth, optimism, and introspection are present and make the big, strange ideas resonate universally and feel very personal.Ted Chiang's second story collection is one of the best science fiction books that I've ever read. I recommend it highly and rank it alongside other favorite works in this genre like Diaspora (Greg Egan), Dark Integers and Other Stories (Greg Egan), Permutation City (Greg Egan), Quarantine (Greg Egan), Appropriate Love (Greg Egan), Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke), Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke), Star Maker (Olaf Stapledon), Forge of God (Greg Bear), The Electric Ant (Philip K. Dick), The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (Philip K. Dick), Dragon's Egg (Robert L. Forward), Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. LeGuin), The Lotus Eaters (Stanley G. Weinbaum), Raft (Stephen Baxter), The Frame-by-Frame (qntm), I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is a Big Responsibility (qntm), The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal (Cordwainer Smith), and Black Fog (Donald Wandrei).

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.

These diverse set of stories set in varied sci-fi settings show us what it means to be a complicated mass of emotions and logic in a beautiful but at times terrifying universe.

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

Exhalation von Ted Chiang ist eine bemerkenswerte Sammlung von Kurzgeschichten, die Ihre Fantasie einfangen und Sie lange nach dem Lesen zum Nachdenken bringen wird. Chiangs Schreibstil ist klar, prägnant und tiefgründig, und er zieht Sie mit seinem überzeugenden Prosa und lebendigen Beschreibungen in jede Geschichte hinein.Die Geschichten selbst sind unglaublich vielfältig und behandeln eine Vielzahl von Themen und Themenbereichen, von der Natur des Bewusstseins und der Freiheit bis hin zu den Auswirkungen von Zeitreisen und alternativen Realitäten. Trotz dieser Vielfalt vereint Chiangs Geschichten ein gemeinsamer Faden, der die Grenzen menschlichen Wissens und Verständnisses erforscht und die Konsequenzen unserer Versuche, diese Grenzen zu überschreiten, aufzeigt.Was Exhalation von anderen Sammlungen von spekulativer Fiktion unterscheidet, ist Chiangs Fähigkeit, jeder Geschichte ein tiefes Gefühl von Menschlichkeit und Empathie zu verleihen. Ob er über einen Androiden schreibt, der versucht, sein eigenes Bewusstsein zu verstehen, oder einen Wissenschaftler, der mit den Auswirkungen einer bahnbrechenden Entdeckung ringt, Chiang behält immer den Fokus auf der menschlichen Erfahrung und erinnert uns an die ethischen und moralischen Implikationen wissenschaftlicher Fortschritte.Insgesamt ist Exhalation ein meisterhaftes Werk spekulativer Fiktion, das Sie intellektuell stimulieren und emotional bewegen wird. Ob Sie ein eingefleischter Science-Fiction-Fan sind oder einfach nur auf der Suche nach einem großartigen Buch, dieses Buch sollte nicht verpasst werden.

My first Ted Chaing book, but it will not be my last! I'm long-removed from science fiction, although I occasionally read "best-of-the-year" collections ... but these stories are so cleverly developed, so rich and distinctively varied, and offer such deep insight, that his other books will be high on my priority list. I'd give it six stars!