Stories of Your Life and Others

Reading short stories was a nice change of pace after some of the monster epics I've been reading lately. As a whole, I found this collection both entertaining and challenging. While I can't speak for any of the science, I definitely found the human (and humanoid) aspects of the stories intriguing and occasionally disturbing. The themes run from primarily scientific exploration to primarily theological philosophy. Of my favorite stories, I'd give one to each category.

“Hell is the Absence of God” is sure to rankle many religious readers, and it would be easy for an atheist to take superficial delight, but I found it fascinating. This reads as a “what if Biblical times were now?” story and draws heavily from Judeo-Christian stories. However, in this world, Divine Intervention is basically a natural disaster and a similar culture springs up. Everything from support groups to storm chasers appears in this short but powerful piece. God, in this story, is truly beyond mortal comprehension while being utterly transparent in His actions. Everyone believes in God because, there's an Angel right there and oh, look down, there's Hell. Once you don't have to think about believing, you have to think about loving God as the one true path to Heaven. You can't fake it, but what if you can't feel it either? The situations the characters in this story find themselves in are ones I've wondered myself, and while I've read people complaining the ending is obvious, it's the natural one to explore the idea of God and what it really means to believe.

My other favorite is “Lifecycle of Software Objects,” a novella included with my ebook edition. At first, this story made me feel horribly guilty about dead tamagotchis and neglected Neopets, but it makes me feel that while reinventing the classic “what is life?” trope of science fiction. It combines this with the “what is an adult?” trope. As someone who spends most of the week working with children and trying to figure out when they get to make a decision for themselves, I found the latter aspect a brilliant contribution to the former. Also is I could actually have a digient it would be a tiny tapir and I would never suspend him no matter what.

The other stories were also quite enjoyable, and the only one that rubbed me slightly the wrong way was “Understand.” I just didn't like the pessimism of the two characters ultimate goals needing to result in one of their deaths. I may not be superintelligent, but it seems to me that two superintelligent people could master coexisting when their goals were not at all contradictory.

Definitely recommend this collection to people who like thoughtful science fiction, especially those who also enjoy a good modern myth.