Arrival
2016 • 304 pages
Ratings12
Average rating4
15
Ratings12
Average rating4
Previously published as Stories of Your Life and Others. Includes "Story Of Your Life," the basis for the major motion picture Arrival, starring Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker, Jeremy Renner, and directed by Denis Villeneuve. “A swell movie adaptation always sends me to the source material, so Arrival had me pick up Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others: lean, relentless, and incandescent.” —Colson Whitehead, GQ Ted Chiang has long been known as one of the most powerful science fiction writers working today. Offering readers the dual delights of the very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, Arrival presents characters who must confront sudden change. In "Story of Your Life," which provides the basis for the film Arrival, alien lifeforms suddenly appear on Earth. When a linguist is brought in to help communicate with them and discern their intentions, her new knowledge of their language and its nonlinear structure allows her to see future events and all the joy and pain they may bring. In each story of this incredible collection, with sharp intelligence and humor, Ted Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by wonder.
Reviews with the most likes.
Tower of Babylon - 4/5
The ending made it worth the read. Loved the twist.
Understand - 5/5
Best short story in this collection, hands down. Page turner I couldn't stop reading.
Division by Zero - 2/5
Here's the first stinker. Chiang tries to create a cosmic horror by math breakthrough but it's ridiculous and changes nothing about the reality of the universe.
Story of Your Life - 4/5
My all time favorite movie is based on this but I had a feeling that the short story would come short compared to it and I was right. Still solid and enjoyable.
Seventy-two Letters - 3/5
Weird one. Feel like a novel set in this world would fare better.
The Evolution of Human Science - 1/5
Thank god it's three pages long. You know, for fiction to be good it needs to make internal sense. The world author creates can't be a mix of garbled nonsense, there has to logic to it. There's none here.
Hell is the Absence of God - 2/5
Am I suppose to sympathize with a jealous prick that sends angels to kill and mutilate people as side effect to miracles and brainwashes some of them? Cuz the best part of this story was description of fallen angels - freedom and independence.
Liking What You See: A documentary - 1/5
I almost never give out one star ratings but I really struggled with this one and if it wasn't the last one in the book I'd probably just skip it. Not only is it dry and slow but it also goes against all of my moral and ethical principles. At the same time I feel like after wokists are done with racism and sexism they could very easily go for “lookism” in our real world as well. The issue is that author is biased towards this and actually states in his story note that he wants this to be a thing.
A really good collection of short stories, each one unique and strong on its own as well. This collection gives me a nice glimpse into Ted Chiang's recurring themes, and I'm looking forward to reading more from him.
Precise rating: 4.5 ⭐
This book was absolutely brilliant! I can't get over how much I actually liked every single story. But “Story of Your Life” and “Liking What You See: A Documentary” were definitely the highlights!
Tower of Babylon
4.5 ⭐
Read it to my boyfriend over Discord, we both enjoyed it a lot and had a nice discussion about it afterwards!
Yes, I know; a movie tie-in edition. But, I bought the book around the time the movie came out, and I loved that movie. And I quite like the movie-poster.
I own a lot of short story collections and anthologies. I don't read them enough. So, I made a bit of a project. I put a few short story collections in my reading pile and tried to read a couple of stories each week. This is the first one I finished.
Eight very well-written stories. I didn't love all of them, though they were all very clever, and quite impressive. I didn't dislike any of them.
My favourite story was definitely Story of Your Life, that inspired the movie. But I also really appreciated Seventy-Two Letters, Hell Is the Absence of God and Liking What You See: A Documentary.
I'm definitely interested in reading Exhalation.
