Kevin Kuhn's Reviews > Stories of Your Life and Others

Ted Chiang asks brilliant questions, of this there is no doubt.

What if someone developed an undeniable proof that demonstrated that mathematics is unreliable? That everything we thought about geometry and physics was built on an inconsistent structure? What would that do to a brilliant, mathematical mind?

What if science developed the ability to create ‘beauty blindness’? What if society were given the ability to turn on and off the ability to perceive physical attractiveness in others?

What if the Tower of Babylon was real? What would it be like to make the ascent? And what would mankind find when they reached the vault of heaven?

What if a pharmaceutical treatment expanded intelligence to the maximum limit of the brain? What if it allowed full self-awareness, true enlightenment?

What if evidence of Heaven and angels were regularly physically manifested on Earth? What if the existence of God was undeniable?

I find this review maddening. Once again, I find myself up against the inadequacy of my own ability to control my expectations. This collection of short stories is full of Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. Reviews on the cover and inside of the book include phrases such as, “most anticipated short story collection of it’s generation”, “best and smartest writers working today”, and “explode into your awareness with shocking, devastating force.” So, forgive me if I went into this one with the highest of expectations. In some ways, the collection succeeds, but overall, I couldn’t help but be disappointed.

Again, Chiang’s ability to ask massive, thought provoking questions is clear-cut. His intelligence shines through his story, despite his unpretentious, straightforward prose. He discusses mathematics, linguistics, and physics with an ease that only one with a robust grasp can achieve. I adored some of the stories. “Liking What You See: A Documentary” is a fascinating exploration of human’s bias of beauty. The documentary format allows Chiang to explore it from every angle, like examining an idea through the many facets of a diamond. “Story of Your Life” is a brilliant tale of a language expert attempting to understand and translate alien communication. The aliens have an astonishingly different perception of reality that impacts the main character in profound ways. The story is also interspersed with a very tender and human backstory (sort of) of said main character. So, without my absurd expectations, these two stories alone might have carried the collection. However, the rest of the stories honestly disappointed me.

While I believe a great writer asks more questions than they answer, I think it’s not enough to ask the big questions. I want an exceptional story to also provide some insights, whether they are explicit or implicit. “Tower of Babylon”” and “Hell is the Absence of God” dances around the implication of a verifiable God, but never really reach a conclusion. I found the ending of “Hell is the Absence of God” to be cold and disappointing (maybe that’s the point?). With “Seventy-Two Letters,” I kept waiting for a punchline that never came. “The Evolution of Human Sciences” read more to me like the author’s notes of a story, waiting to be written. “Understand” was smartly written, but I felt the ending was telegraphed and anti-climactic.

In summary, an excellent collection of short speculative fiction stories that I found to be intriguing but in total did not live up to my (somewhat irrational) expectations of a near perfect collection.