Trish's Reviews > Stories of Your Life and Others
Stories of Your Life and Others
by
by
![3461034](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p2/3461034.jpg)
Review once I'm home. For now, let's just say that the final story got me into trouble with some people at the train station. *lol*
...
Now that I've had some time to reflect on all the stories I've listened to in this collection, I can honestly say that not one was bad. Sure, three were rather mediocre, but the others were either at least good or even so exceptional that they made up for the mediocre ones without much effort.
There are 8 short stories in this book:
1) Tower of Babylon
2) Understand
3) Division by Zero
4) Story of Your Life
5) Seventy-Two Letters
6) The Evolution of Human Science
7) Hell Is the Absence of God
8) Liking What You See - A Documentary
The first was good but not outstanding, the second and third were mediocre, the fourth (which is the basis for the movie Arrival that is now in theatres and the reason I read this book) was spectacular, the fifth was mediocre again, the sixth was as good as the first, and the last two were as fantastic as the fourth.
For this review I'd like to focus on the three stories I found exceptional.
Stories of Your Life: As a linguist, I was delighted to find a story where a linguist is the most important person. Because I can tell you from personal experience (and yes, I'm totally biased) that linguistics is NOT boring. Quite the contrary. Nevertheless, I often see people's eyes glaze over when I try to explain why not. To see Hollywood making linguistics popular (hopefully) is therefore a dream come true. The story did not progress the way I had expected but the concept as well as the execution were so stunningly beautiful that I'm still marvelling at both. Also, the emotional and moral implications are very heavy (in the best of ways). And the process of establishing communications with the aliens was fairly realistic (fairly because we're talking about aliens, realistic definitely in Terran terms like when the author explains the importance and difference between written and spoken language).
Here is a link a friend here on GR posted, showing the opinion of a linguist who saw the movie (beware of spoilers!): http://gizmodo.com/what-arrival-gets-...
I, personally, haven't read the article yet since it contains spoilers to the movie (which seems to be slightly different from the book so I wanted to wait) so I will get into more detail after having seen the movie.
Hell Is the Absence of God: The story was fantastically sarcastic - or at least I chuckled and laughed out loud at it. It shows very clearly why I could never be religious and everything that is wrong about religion (which means some people should probably not read it). Again, very intelligently executed too. Also, which is very important especially with such a topic, the reader is not forced to accept the author's opinion because he doesn't exactly show it - instead we have all the facets and are given the choice whether we hold with this or that character in the story and the respective world view.
Liking What You See - A Documentary: This was by far the funniest. A very important story especially nowadays that so many groups of people claim the moral high-ground, are constantly offended by everything so they constantly cry "ban this" or "ban that" and voluntarily hand over their rights and freedoms because they are desperate to feel "safe" (aka they are addicted to the illusion of being safe). I was very impressed with the different POVs here.
Some of the ideas used in this book aren't new but the way they were presented was always intelligent (yes, even in the mediocre stories). What I also liked was that there were two narrators alternating in narrating the stories (except for in the last one where they both narrated together, depending on who "spoke").
Although every story was completely different from the others, the characters were always true to life, their fates moving, and every situation was portrayed in a sort of 360°-examination; I suspect so as not to influence the reader opinion-wise.
Overall, this little collection proves that the author knows a lot about science and classic scifi themes and that he has a great talent for writing and making readers think critically about the world around them. I'm not surprised his stories have won several different awards and am now impatient to see the movie Arrival!
...
Now that I've had some time to reflect on all the stories I've listened to in this collection, I can honestly say that not one was bad. Sure, three were rather mediocre, but the others were either at least good or even so exceptional that they made up for the mediocre ones without much effort.
There are 8 short stories in this book:
1) Tower of Babylon
2) Understand
3) Division by Zero
4) Story of Your Life
5) Seventy-Two Letters
6) The Evolution of Human Science
7) Hell Is the Absence of God
8) Liking What You See - A Documentary
The first was good but not outstanding, the second and third were mediocre, the fourth (which is the basis for the movie Arrival that is now in theatres and the reason I read this book) was spectacular, the fifth was mediocre again, the sixth was as good as the first, and the last two were as fantastic as the fourth.
For this review I'd like to focus on the three stories I found exceptional.
Stories of Your Life: As a linguist, I was delighted to find a story where a linguist is the most important person. Because I can tell you from personal experience (and yes, I'm totally biased) that linguistics is NOT boring. Quite the contrary. Nevertheless, I often see people's eyes glaze over when I try to explain why not. To see Hollywood making linguistics popular (hopefully) is therefore a dream come true. The story did not progress the way I had expected but the concept as well as the execution were so stunningly beautiful that I'm still marvelling at both. Also, the emotional and moral implications are very heavy (in the best of ways). And the process of establishing communications with the aliens was fairly realistic (fairly because we're talking about aliens, realistic definitely in Terran terms like when the author explains the importance and difference between written and spoken language).
Here is a link a friend here on GR posted, showing the opinion of a linguist who saw the movie (beware of spoilers!): http://gizmodo.com/what-arrival-gets-...
I, personally, haven't read the article yet since it contains spoilers to the movie (which seems to be slightly different from the book so I wanted to wait) so I will get into more detail after having seen the movie.
Hell Is the Absence of God: The story was fantastically sarcastic - or at least I chuckled and laughed out loud at it. It shows very clearly why I could never be religious and everything that is wrong about religion (which means some people should probably not read it). Again, very intelligently executed too. Also, which is very important especially with such a topic, the reader is not forced to accept the author's opinion because he doesn't exactly show it - instead we have all the facets and are given the choice whether we hold with this or that character in the story and the respective world view.
Liking What You See - A Documentary: This was by far the funniest. A very important story especially nowadays that so many groups of people claim the moral high-ground, are constantly offended by everything so they constantly cry "ban this" or "ban that" and voluntarily hand over their rights and freedoms because they are desperate to feel "safe" (aka they are addicted to the illusion of being safe). I was very impressed with the different POVs here.
Some of the ideas used in this book aren't new but the way they were presented was always intelligent (yes, even in the mediocre stories). What I also liked was that there were two narrators alternating in narrating the stories (except for in the last one where they both narrated together, depending on who "spoke").
Although every story was completely different from the others, the characters were always true to life, their fates moving, and every situation was portrayed in a sort of 360°-examination; I suspect so as not to influence the reader opinion-wise.
Overall, this little collection proves that the author knows a lot about science and classic scifi themes and that he has a great talent for writing and making readers think critically about the world around them. I'm not surprised his stories have won several different awards and am now impatient to see the movie Arrival!
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Stories of Your Life and Others.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
September 22, 2016
– Shelved
September 22, 2016
– Shelved as:
to-read
November 11, 2016
–
Started Reading
November 16, 2016
–
20.0%
"Now THIS seems to be a short story collection I can and will enjoy! Not really surprising since the author made the smart choice of starting with the Tower of Babylon. ❤️"
November 17, 2016
–
50.0%
"Read past the story that was the basis for the movie Arrival and loved it! I know the others aren't bad either but as a linguist, I appreciated Stories of Your Life (title of the short story itself) even more."
November 17, 2016
–
75.0%
"Thanks to MANY delayed trains I got to listen to quite a bit more. Two more stories in fact, both about free will and reproduction (as in the future of the human race). Interesting concepts but nothing is blowing me away as much as the story about the linguist."
November 18, 2016
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-29 of 29 (29 new)
date
newest »
![Down arrow](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/down_arrow-1e1fa5642066c151f5e0136233fce98a.gif)
message 1:
by
Matthias
(new)
-
added it
Nov 18, 2016 06:31AM
![Matthias](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1448737319p1/9889835.jpg)
reply
|
flag
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
![Bradley](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1508811508p1/4213258.jpg)
Hell, I thought they were all great stories. :) All different as can be, though. :)
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
![Veronique](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1651698435p1/12371602.jpg)
It is interesting to see which stories we prefer. 'Stories of your Life' is the common ground, and jewel of this compilation, but for the others we all differ slightly. I guess Tiang, with his diversity of themes, 'caters' for quite a wide public. Smart.
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
![LA](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1514579326p1/7862560.jpg)
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
![Kevin Ansbro](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1506848923p1/43579369.jpg)
Your loud chuckling?
Or your famous Gangnam Style dance routine?
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
Trust me when I say that for the sake of public safety I do not have any dance routine. Just like I don't sing if any living creature with ears is in a 100km radius. You're welcome, world.
I was listening to the audiobook, staring into nothing (I stood at the front, right next to the rails, no person before me) and had to chuckle two or three times because it was so funny. Then this guy appeared from behind me and not only tapped my arm but basically shoved me. So I turned around (probably with a confused face), already switching off the audio and grabbing a certain thing to use on him should he get violent, and said "Hey?!". He then started yelling at me how rude and arrogant it was of me to laugh about other people. I was totally confused at this point. However, it did fit with the story (people being too selfconscious, punishing others for it). I told him that I had no idea what his problem was but that I had not been laughing about people since I wasn't paying attention to anyone; that, instead, I was listening to my audiobook. He didn't believe me. When he didn't stop I put my hand up, trying to silence him, and told him that if he ever put a hand on me again for whatever reason, he'd regret it within a second. That confused him. *lol* I then asked in my scolding-nasty-children-voice if he understood what I had just told him. He nodded and I turned around (keeping an eye on him in the reflection of the billboard on the otehr side of the tracks).
He kept mumbling things but I had switched my audiobook back on and he never made a move, went in another door of the train even.
![Bradley](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1508811508p1/4213258.jpg)
*shiver*
*finds a corner to hide from Trish's wrath*
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
![Candace](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1462436823p1/3192690.jpg)
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
![Fabian {Councillor}](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1701516338p1/40792319.jpg)
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
![Alex ☣ Deranged KittyCat ☣](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1483783358p1/13555222.jpg)
I enjoyed your review, Trish, and this book just got higher on my short list (whatever the heck that means anymore *sigh*).
![Karen](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1391567121p1/27652377.jpg)
![Trish](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1588663568p1/3461034.jpg)
![William](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1593268986p1/36549125.jpg)
I can understand why Denis Villeneuve was chosen to direct Blade Runner 2049 and cringe if you will, BR49 is my favourite movie of all time. At the second viewing, you begin to notice the subtexts, the exquisite balance and beauty. After the 3rd viewing, you are eager for the 4th.
In all, I saw this BR49 five times in the cinema, something I’ve never ever done before. Not for any movie in my life. BR49 is a masterpiece of the heart, of human flaws, of human yearning for completion. Astounding.
...the fourth (which is the basis for the movie Arrival that is now in theatres and the reason I read this book) was spectacular...
Yes, totally. And I agree about the other stories in the book, many quite poor. Thank you for this loving review!