
Absolutely wonderful ideas and story. I found the way this is written quite fascinating, as Ted Chiang utilizes unexpected uses of tense in order to communicate the core "gimmick" (which I won't mention to avoid spoilers). I love to see a medium used in a way that would be impossible on other mediums.
Which brings me to the film adaptation, Annihilation. For some context, I saw Arrival before I was even aware of this Novella and it's one of my absolute favorites. Thus, comparison between the two was inevitable.
While the two versions are quite different from one another and I'd definitely recommend both, I think Arrival is the better version.
Story of Your Life has, at least to me, a pretty large flaw: it is way too interested in the nitty gritty of linguistics. While this was a really interesting insight and perspective, it also distracts from what I actually enjoyed about the Novella. Namely, cooperation in the face of an alien "invasion", the aforementioned gimmick, and its repurcussions.
Absolutely wonderful ideas and story. I found the way this is written quite fascinating, as Ted Chiang utilizes unexpected uses of tense in order to communicate the core "gimmick" (which I won't mention to avoid spoilers). I love to see a medium used in a way that would be impossible on other mediums.
Which brings me to the film adaptation, Annihilation. For some context, I saw Arrival before I was even aware of this Novella and it's one of my absolute favorites. Thus, comparison between the two was inevitable.
While the two versions are quite different from one another and I'd definitely recommend both, I think Arrival is the better version.
Story of Your Life has, at least to me, a pretty large flaw: it is way too interested in the nitty gritty of linguistics. While this was a really interesting insight and perspective, it also distracts from what I actually enjoyed about the Novella. Namely, cooperation in the face of an alien "invasion", the aforementioned gimmick, and its repurcussions.