Stories of Your Life
and Others
By Ted Chiang
(Small Beer Press, Paperback, 9781931520720, 320pp.)
Publication Date: October 2010
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover, Paperback
Categories: Science Fiction - Short Stories
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This new edition of Ted Chiang's masterful first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, includes his first eight published stories plus the author's story notes and a cover that the author commissioned himself. Combining the precision and scientific curiosity of Kim Stanley Robinson with Lorrie Moore's cool, clear love of language and narrative intricacy, this award-winning collection offers readers the dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar.
Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story, a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection. A clever pastiche of news reports and interviews chronicles a college's initiative to "turn off" the human ability to recognize beauty in "Liking What You See: A Documentary." With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty and constant change, and also by beauty and wonder.
Ted Chiang is one of the most celebrated science fiction authors writing today and is the author of numerous short stories, including most recently "Exhalation," which won the Hugo, British Science Fiction, and Locus awards. He lives near Seattle.
Ted Chiang: Ted Chiang lives near Seattle, Washington.
"Shining, haunting, mind-blowing tales…this collection is a pure marvel. [Ted] Chiang is so exhilarating so original so stylish he just leaves you speechless. I always suggest a person read at least 52 books a year for proper mental functioning but if you only have time for one, be at peace: you found it."—Junot Díaz
"Meticulously pieced together, utterly thought through, Chiang’s stories emerge slowly…but with the perfection of slow-growing crystal."—Lev Grossman
"United by a humane intelligence that speaks very directly to the reader, and makes us experience each story with immediacy and Chiang’s calm passion."—China Mieville
"Ted is a national treasure…each of those stories is a goddamned jewel."—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing
"Confirms that blending science and fine art at this length can produce touching works, tales as intimate as our own blood cells, with the structural strength of just-discovered industrial alloys."—Seattle Times
"Chiang derides lazy thinking, weasels it out of its hiding place, and leaves it cowering."—Washington Post
"Essential. You won’t know SF if you don’t read Ted Chiang."—Greg Bear
"Chiang writes seldom, but his almost unfathomably wonderful stories tick away with the precision of a Swiss watch—and explode in your awareness with shocking, devastating force."—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
"The first must-read SF book of the year."—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"He puts the science back in science fiction—brilliantly."—Booklist (Starred Review)
This book is on these lists:
Nathanhalter's Wish List by nathanhalterSmall Beer Press books by gavingrant
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