Books I've Read: Stories of Your Life and Others

 

I don't often read short story collections and I really should do it more often.  A good short story is truly a work of art.  I only read this collection because it was suggested as our book club read for this month and I'm very glad it was.  It is certainly not something I would have picked up on my own, but I found myself enjoying it, even though the stories were basically all science fiction of one sort or another.  Or maybe philosophy?

As with most collections, there were some stories I liked more than others, but one thing I can say about the collection as a whole is that every one of the stories made me think.  It's been a long time since I read something this cerebral.  I'm not usually a fan of sci-fi, but because this all felt rooted in real science (except maybe the story about angels) I didn't mind it so much.

The title story surprised me by being the story on which the film Arrival was based.  I now kind of want to re-watch the film to see how like the story the film is.  It's been a long time since I saw it...

I think my favourite story was the first one in which the author imagines what the tower of Babylon might be like if it existed as it was described in the Bible.  The physics of such a thing is kind of staggering to start with, but even more so, the human side of it, for those who worked to build this structure.

I also enjoyed the story about angels visiting Earth and that their arrival might not be as benign as we imagine, but accompanied by huge natural disaster-type disturbances.  I also liked its depiction of hell as being just like real life, but eternal.

In fact, all the stories I enjoyed the most in this collection had elements of theology involved.  The other one I liked a lot was about a world in which golem were used as a part of everyday life, as simple machines to aid in manufacturing. 

But even the ones I didn't enjoy as much were intriguing and thought provoking.  I can't claim to fully understand the mathematics involved in the one about a man whose wife basically lost the will to live over a mathematical theorem, but as an idea it was interesting nonetheless.

So, I'd recommend this one - I know, me endorsing sci-fi.  They're well-written stories and definitely will get you thinking about things in a new and different way.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

What if men built a tower from Earth to Heaven-and broke through to Heaven's other side? What if we discovered that the fundamentals of mathematics were arbitrary and inconsistent? What if there were a science of naming things that calls life into being from inanimate matter? What if exposure to an alien language forever changed our perception of time? What if all the beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity were literally true, and the sight of sinners being swallowed into fiery pits were a routine event on city streets? These are the kinds of outrageous questions posed by the stories of Ted Chiang. Stories of your life . . . and others.