Arrival (Stories of Your Life MTI) Paperback – November 1, 2016

For some background, this usually isn't the genre of books I read (I love short stories, but I'm not usually into Sci-fi). However, I recently discovered the TV show Black Mirror, searched for books that were similar to the show, and found this book. And I am so happy I did!As this is made up of individual stories, here are my individual reviews. Overall, I rate this book as a 5 despite what any of my individual reviews are because it really challenged my thinking and introduced some new concepts I've never even considered before. I can also say that I learned some things from this book that I did not know before, especially in the areas of science and religion.1. Tower of Babylon - 4 starsThe story is based on the story of the Tower of Babel, a biblical story about a tower that was constructed to reach heaven. Ted Chiang took this to another level and answered the question, how would such a tower be engineered and what would the social implications of such a tower be? He explored concepts ranging from what would be needed resource wise to build the tower, what would the earth (and eventually space) look like from such a high tower, and how would it affect the people who were employed to build the tower? The story also questioned whether or not a tower would even be approved of from a religious standpoint, did God even want people to reach Heaven? Overall, this story was both entertaining and educating and it was a great start to a great collection of short stories.2. Understand - 3 starsI will admit, as someone who is not very good with science, some of the stories in this book were challenging to read through and understand 100% and this was one of them. This story looked at the idea of regenerating a person's brain after they had suffered from some sort of brain damage. It is quickly discovered that for some people, the technology used not only just recovered their brain's original capabilities, but increased their intelligence even further. The main character's intelligence is enhanced each time he receives an injection. The story is told through the main character's thoughts, which get more and more intelligent throughout the story. It examines what the implications of having someone with a high level of intelligence might be, to that person and others, whether good or bad.Division by Zero - 2.5 StarsAs stated above, I am not very science oriented, however I love math, so this story was of interest to me. It examined the idea of what would happen if someone was able to prove that the basic assumptions behind most of mathematics were wrong and what effect would that have on someone? Could 1 be mathematically proven to equal 2 and if so, what would that mean? This story unfortunately did not take this concept beyond the main character and the effect it had on her. It did not apply the meaning to a larger group and that is why I only gave this 2.5 stars. I think this could have been developed more fully.Story of Your Life - 5 starsThis is the story that leads many readers to this book and was adapted into the film Arrival. In this story, Earth is visited by aliens who speak a different language than anyone on Earth. A team of scientists, including the main character who is a linguist, are employed to find a way to communicate with the aliens to see what they want and also what could be learned from them. Through alternating story lines, it is revealed that the main character had a daughter who dies untimely and looks at her life from the time she was born until her death. As the main character begins to examine the way the aliens write, it is discovered that their way of thinking is not linear, but rather spontaneous. They experience the past, present, and future all at the same time, which challenges our way of thinking in terms of past, then present, then future. This is definitely the most emotional story of the group. I had to go back and re-read a few paragraphs as this is one of the tougher reads, but it is worth it.Seventy Two Letters - 4 StarsI will admit, I had to read and re-read the first couple of pages before I understood what this story was about. The story takes place in a time in the past (it seemed to be around the industrial revolution). Nomenclature, "the devising or choosing of names for things" is presented as an magical idea that asks the question "Is there a name that can be assigned to an object that is so perfect that it can make the object come to life?" The story looks at the idea of assigning names to inanimate objects to make them move and perform certain tasks. It pushes the boundaries even further by asking, can a name be chosen that so perfectly describes a human that it can create life? This was one of the other stories I had a hard time reading because of the over abundance of scientific terms, however it is also one of the stories I can't stop thinking about.The Evolution of Human Science - N/AThis is a very short essay that I skipped over.Hell is the Absence of God - 5 StarsThis is truly one of the greatest stories in this book. It explores the concept of religion, of heaven vs. hell, and right vs. wrong. There is one main character and 2 supporting characters who all share one common thing, they live in a world where angels literally show up and perform miracles or damage. For some, such as the main character, it is damage in the form of his wife being killed during the visit of an angel. The characters subsequently end up in a support group to try to process how the angel's visit was supposed to affect their lives. In this world, people often get glimpses into heaven and hell and know who ended up where after they died. For the main character, he knows his wife is in heaven and must now to try to find a way to earn himself a way into heaven so that he can be with her again. However, he struggles with this as he is angry at God for taking away his wife in the first place. This was a truly great, thought provoking story, that was also one of the easier reads of the whole book.Liking What You See: A Documentary - 4 StarsThis story is told from the viewpoints of many different characters (although the first character in the story reoccurs throughout the rest). A new science has come out that can make a person be oblivious to the idea of beauty; when people have this technology turned on in their brain, they can not distinguish an ugly person from a good looking person appearance wise. The only thing they can see is inner beauty. The story then asks the question, if this technology is available, should it be used? What effect does outer beauty have on our lives and could it be a good or a bad thing to take away these effects? This was also one of the easier reads and I think it is extremely relevant to today's society as some people get plastic surgery and alter their outer appearance, but are not necessarily good people on the inside.Overall, I am happy I read this book and I still am thinking about the individual stories and their meanings. They are certainly not easy reads, but if you like to challenge yourself and your way of thinking, this is a great book to read. Ted Chiang is a masterful author who clearly not only understands multiple fields of science and religion, but takes these concepts and challenges them.

the famous one "Story of Your Life" (inspiring the upcoming movie Arrival) was a great story as I'm readying through it. thoughtful, well-written, bitter sweet, thought provoking, and absolutely thrilling to read . . . still thinking about it after having finished it several days ago. what's a bit odd is that feeling of "was there supposed to be something more to it . . . ?" it ended with a twist but somewhat anti climactic and bittersweet not in the sense of the plot itself necessarily (although obviously that was part of the challenge) but in that with all that "advanced" stuff (language, tech, anatomy, etc) it just came to an uninspiring conclusion. it's as if the Vulcans visited Earth and chose not to give us even their "live long and propser" idiom (in Vullcan) and then said "See Ya" . . . would they really have bothered to land in the first place . . . yea yea all the future is forgotten and we need to catch up to remember (blah blah blah) . . . very deep but terribly nonsensical from a story telling climax point of view. I know I know it's supposed to make you focus on the philosophical aspects of our lives, it's meaning in the grander context of the cosmos, and try to make us understand other ways to see life . . . and yet i'm left unfulfilled.that's sort of the tone for the other stories I've gotten through so far: Tower of Babel, Understand, Division by Zero, and the Evolution of Human Science. gave up on Seventy-Two Letters after a few pages, may be try again in a few days (hard to read with all of the fancy words). working on the last two stories shortly.

My apologies to William Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, George Orwell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Alex Haley. Your works might have been more historically significant, but I found more enjoyment in Ted Chiang's work. My apologies to J.K Rowling, George R.R. Martin, Alistair Reynolds, Mark Lawrence, Ramez Naam, and N.K. Jemisin, but your fantastic contemporary fiction only approximates the mastery of the English language demonstrated in this book.The Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of 8 short stories written by Ted Chiang. The stories are science fiction, fantasy, or both. They cover the topics of theology, philosophy, mathematics, neuroscience, class conflict, and linguistics. And yet, the stories are never boring. The characters are interesting and well developed (as much as can be in a short story), the worlds are beautiful, the prose is captivating, and the pacing is nearly perfect.Tower of Babylon is a re-imagining of the story of the Tower of Babel set in a flat-Earth world as imagined by ancient philosophers. The Earth is flat and the oceans spill from the sides into the abyss below. The tower itself rises into the sky without concern for wind that should topple it over or the gravity that should pull it back to Earth.Understand is the story of an individual that becomes a hyper-genius after receiving a treatment to repair brain damage received from falling into a coma. This is a familiar plot in science fiction. However, while reading this story you realize that no one has really taken this idea seriously. The story is told from the first-person perspective and Ted Chiang's ideas about what would happen if a person really became hyper-intelligent are fascinating.Division by Zero is a story that contemplates what it would be like for people to discover that mathematics has no basis in logic or reality. In fact, the name of the story is a reference to the mathematical law that forbids dividing numbers by zero. Dividing by zero is forbidden because it leads to non-sensical results like 1 = 2. Ted Chiang asks in this story, what if all mathematic laws reach this non-sensical conclusion?Story of Your Life is about aliens that visit Earth and teach a woman a new language that rejects the logical ordering of events (cause then effect). What if language itself is what leads us to believe that the past comes before the future? And, how do you resolve paradoxes when the future comes before the past?Seventy-Two Letters is a story about a golem “programmer.” Not the hulking golems that protect Jewish people, but small automata that can be “programmed” to perform rudimentary tasks. What would the worker class think of these golems that might take their jobs? What would the upper classes do with this kind of technology?The Evolution of Human Science is the shortest story in this book. It deals with the “end” of science caused by the creation of groups of hyper-intelligent humans. These posthumans take over the pursuit science but cease to interact with normal humans in a sensible manner.Hell Is the Absence of God takes us to a world where people can observe and interact with angels, demons, God, Heaven, and Hell yet still experience the random events that create happiness, pleasure, pain, and suffering to those that may or may not deserve it. This story is an interesting take on the classic problem of why some innocent people suffer and some unethical people prosper when God is supposed to be omnipotent and good.Liking What You See: A Documentary is about the development and deployment of a technology that neutralizes individuals’ ability to see physical attractiveness in themselves and others. Will people be worse off because they cannot appreciate beauty, or will they be better off because they can’t judge people who are ugly.