Chiang, Ted - Stories of Your Life and Others
Mon, Nov. 2nd, 2009 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI read the titular story several years ago, and although I understood it, I don't think I got it.
I'm still not sure if I completely got it this time around either, although knowing the twist at the end gives the story more emotional resonance throughout instead of only at the last moment.
I picked Chiang up again despite knowing I usually suck at reading short stories because I've been listening to short story podcasts when I run, and the two of his I've listened to ("Exhalation," which isn't in this collection, and "Hell Is the Absence of God," which is) were fairly engaging.
I suspect Chiang works better for me as a audio experience; I read too quickly to completely figure out what's going on in his stories until they're already over. Unsurprisingly, the two that worked best for me in this collection were the ones I've read or listened to before, along with "Seventy-Two Letters," which I read as fantasy.
On a whole, I would say the collection is very concept-driven; Chiang usually grabs a cool, SFnal idea and centers a story around that idea.
I had issues with the portrayal of disability in "Hell Is the Absence of God" and with the parallels he draws between lookism and social justice issues in "Liking What You See." It's nothing I can quite put my finger on, save that I dislike how disability can be God-given in the first story and how much of the language in the story is about being a saintly disabled person or resenting it, but how the bottom assumption always seems to be that disability is a terrible thing to happen to someone.
I also find it very interesting that three of the stories in the collection have to do with religion. This includes my favorite story of the collection, "Seventy-Two Letters," which has golems! Sadly, they aren't the center of the piece, but still.
In conclusion: extremely interesting read, still puzzling over some of them, and I feel Chiang's brain really does not work the way mine does (not a compliment or an insult, just an observation).
I'm still not sure if I completely got it this time around either, although knowing the twist at the end gives the story more emotional resonance throughout instead of only at the last moment.
I picked Chiang up again despite knowing I usually suck at reading short stories because I've been listening to short story podcasts when I run, and the two of his I've listened to ("Exhalation," which isn't in this collection, and "Hell Is the Absence of God," which is) were fairly engaging.
I suspect Chiang works better for me as a audio experience; I read too quickly to completely figure out what's going on in his stories until they're already over. Unsurprisingly, the two that worked best for me in this collection were the ones I've read or listened to before, along with "Seventy-Two Letters," which I read as fantasy.
On a whole, I would say the collection is very concept-driven; Chiang usually grabs a cool, SFnal idea and centers a story around that idea.
I had issues with the portrayal of disability in "Hell Is the Absence of God" and with the parallels he draws between lookism and social justice issues in "Liking What You See." It's nothing I can quite put my finger on, save that I dislike how disability can be God-given in the first story and how much of the language in the story is about being a saintly disabled person or resenting it, but how the bottom assumption always seems to be that disability is a terrible thing to happen to someone.
I also find it very interesting that three of the stories in the collection have to do with religion. This includes my favorite story of the collection, "Seventy-Two Letters," which has golems! Sadly, they aren't the center of the piece, but still.
In conclusion: extremely interesting read, still puzzling over some of them, and I feel Chiang's brain really does not work the way mine does (not a compliment or an insult, just an observation).
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