Exhalation
Ratings440
Average rating4.3
Took a long time to finish this book but it was not because the book wasn't engaging or anything.
Very intriguing, contemporary sci-fi stories where Ted Chang hides deep questions about our ethics, morals, decision making and life philosophy.
3.5 stars rounded up. This was like a collection of black mirror episodes that dove deeper into the science or technology that it would take to get to these points and then explored the limits of these scenarios morally and ethically. I enjoyed it even though sometimes I struggle with the science part of sci-fi and I can easily recommend it for sci-fi fans who enjoyed Black Mirror.
I found all of these to be drier than a vacuum cleaner. Ideas themselves are good but the way he writes is a mix of 1800s Frankenstein and 2000s white paper on social economics written by an AI. The only story that has stuck with me in a positive way is The Great Silence, but I've heard that one a long time ago on Curio.
I think my favourite stories were the first and the last one, though all of these were really enjoyable.
The author is extremely creating and some of these stories are quite deep, but without using a heavy handed style.
Brilliant! Ted Chiang is a master at his craft. I was frequently smiling with delight as I read this. Loved the longer stories - the digients-as-parenting-parable, the wonderful prism story about counterfactuals and fate vs. free will (aka networking with alternative universes). I could have done without the pontificating parrot, but - for a short story collection - that one was literally the only miss. All the others were hits. Bravo, Ted Chiang!
This book just jumped to the top of my list of favorite short story collections. Chiang is so brilliant and imaginative. I cannot believe the diversity and creativity of this collection. I cannot wait to dive into more of his work.
Highly recommended to all looking for something unique and inventive, whether or not you've read much sci-fi before.
J'ai trouvé ce second tome de nouvelles de Ted Chiang globalement plus accessible que le premier tout en étant aussi génial et plaisant. Chaque histoire possède son lot de richesse et force à la réflexion tout en proposant un caractère absolument unique. Ted Chiang confirme sa position en tant que très grand auteur de SF et ça fait extrêmement plaisir !
Fantastic stories
The shorts explore fascinating ideas, classics of sci-fi but always from a unique angle, creating whole new universes in only a few pages and unique stories that are hard to put down (and forget about).
I only didn't enjoy one of the shorts. The rest were masterpieces.
m-am convins: Ted Chiang chiar nu-mi place deloc. Povestirile nu sunt proaste, dar 1. mă plictisesc de mor 2. sunt simpliste (au doar câte o idee/fir narativ, mai dezvoltat sau nu, dar numai 1); 3. deși pe subiecte pur SF (roboți, călătorii în timp), se simt întotdeauna (la feeling, să zic așa) drept realism magic.
4.5 stars
As noted in other reviews, these short stories are original and very different from each other, and Chiang is pretty good at maintaining scientific consistency in each. Starts strong and ends strong.
Un gran ejemplo de ciencia ficcion especulativa, de la que te hace pensar e imaginar que harias en esta situacion si fueras tu, alguna de estas historias son de las mejores que he leido en este genero:
- The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
- Exhalation
- What's Expected of Us
- The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling
- Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom
5 estrellas a todas estas, pero el resto son 3 o 4 estrellas. Estan bien.
Bastante recomendable, lo bueno en una coleccion asi es que si una historia no te interesa, siempre hay otra para compensar.
This was brilliant!!!
I can't wait to read Chiang's first collection too. But for now, there's a lot to think about. There are so many great ideas and fantastic writing here that I'll have to digest it all first.
Many of the stories are glaringly built around a fixed idea so that the notes at the end are redundant—or are more interesting than the stories themselves. The surrounding texts are more filler than breathing worlds. “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate”, “The Lifecycle of Software Objects”, and “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” are the most organic.
Except for the story which was essentially a long-winded AI version of neopets, I loved all the other stories especially one that dealt with parallel lives, timelines and creationism.
Ted Chiang's style has the same steady, metronomic pace as that of an exam scenario writer, avoiding any flair and unnecessary imagery. But instead of asking us to calculate how many leftover fish we have, we're given depictions of the moral choices that might be common in our cybernetic future and asked to contemplate them as if they were here in the world today. The lack of any commonplace SciFi tropes or attempts at impressive visuals means every line is dedicated to the story's ideas. This is a good thing, because Ted's ideas are phenomenal in their own right. The Lifecycle of Software Object kept my mind in a constant runaway state as I thought about AI rights and our obligations to them, each page turned in a dazed state. That same actuarial style - and Ted's light use of realistic jargon - makes it easy to imagine these moral choices as being tangibly relevant to us.
The only downside, of course, is that unless the dilemmas are of any interest to you in the first place, the underlying story will be as dry and boring as a biscuit. I haven't read anything else by Ted at this time; all I can say is this: this approach could have easily failed if he had chosen a slightly less interesting topic.
I listened to the audiobook version of this and found fascinating story ideas delivered in an almost textbook like fashion - devoid of emotion, tension, scares, or anything else that could have drawn me in. Perhaps it was the narration of the audiobook, which had a strange, almost robotic delivery to it. I found myself bored for the majority of it, setting it aside for weeks at a time before I forced myself back because “maybe the next one is better”. I finally made it 25% of the way through the final story and then bailed. I know Ted Chiang is a revered author, but for me this just didn't connect.
I picked this book up after listening to the New York Times Top 10 Books of 2019 and hearing it was by the author who wrote the story that the film Arrival was based off of.
I absolutely loved the first story, which is kind of a fable set in medieval Baghdad that uses time travel to explore fate. There's another great story later on that deals with memory, language, and writing by contrasting new technology and old customs.
However, about a third of the entire book is taken up by my least favorite story here, The Lifecycle of Software Objects, which was just a dull story about the morality of our treatment of AI that never really went anywhere interesting.
Overall though, this is a great little set of philosophical sci fi stories that I'm glad I read. The author even had a short little blurb at the end of each story to explain what motivated him to write each of them, which I found very insightful.
Some of the short stories were much better than others but the best of them were brilliant.
Confession time: I am in love with Ted Chiang. Deeply. I fell hard in 2003 with his story “Liking What You See: A Documentary.” Today, having finished “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” and “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom,” I'm head over heels. What a beautiful mind. The stories in this collection all dance around the nature of consciousness; of personality, decisionmaking, determinism. Communication, empathy, freedom, culture, storytelling, adapting to change. Everything we think about what makes us human, he takes in interesting directions. All told with grace, empathy, humility, compassion and gentle humor. All of them, every one, making me stop reading afterward to reflect.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, read these. You'll grow.
You be good. I love you.