Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction(newyorker.com)
newyorker.com
Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/ted-chiangs-soulful-science-fiction
79 comments
> That if only we too had undergone the experiences of the person who we're reading about, we too would be that acclaimed sci-fi writer, or famous entrepreneur, or asshole president.
This reminds me of a great line from a story by Borges:
> El método inicial que imaginó era relativamente sencillo. Conocer bien el español, recuperar la fe católica, guerrear contra los moros o contra el turco, olvidar la historia de Europa entre los años de 1602 y de 1918, ser Miguel de Cervantes.
> The first method that he imagined [in order to write Don Quixote from scratch centuries later] was relatively simple. Learn Spanish well, return to the Catholic faith, fight against the Moors or against the Turk, forget the history of Europe between the years 1602 and 1918, be Miguel de Cervantes.
I highly recommend the story (called "Pierre Menard, Autor del Quijote" or "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote").
http://hispanlit.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/06/Borges-P...
This reminds me of a great line from a story by Borges:
> El método inicial que imaginó era relativamente sencillo. Conocer bien el español, recuperar la fe católica, guerrear contra los moros o contra el turco, olvidar la historia de Europa entre los años de 1602 y de 1918, ser Miguel de Cervantes.
> The first method that he imagined [in order to write Don Quixote from scratch centuries later] was relatively simple. Learn Spanish well, return to the Catholic faith, fight against the Moors or against the Turk, forget the history of Europe between the years 1602 and 1918, be Miguel de Cervantes.
I highly recommend the story (called "Pierre Menard, Autor del Quijote" or "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote").
http://hispanlit.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/06/Borges-P...
> What's interesting for me is I feel like this armchair psychologizing we all do is getting worse.
I'm sorry, but you have to admit if you read back your own comment, it's mostly filled with armchair psychologizing.
I'm sorry, but you have to admit if you read back your own comment, it's mostly filled with armchair psychologizing.
That's fun, but surely TFA can be held to a higher standard than an HN comment? It read like a Terry Gross interview, for goodness' sake.
> I really enjoyed the frustration of the article's author in trying to attribute Ted Chiang's writing to his personal life or history.
I thought that recent article in Vanity Fair about AI risk and Elon Musk was a great example of this instinct to try to reduce everything down to personal traumas or monkey politics. Apparently Musk cannot really be concerned about AI risk, it has to be some ulterior reason: perhaps he's envious of Larry Page! Or it's propaganda for Tesla! Or desperate attention-whore behavior (because he doesn't get enough attention?) or something, anything, which is not, y'know, being worried about creating intelligences without builtin human morality & limits.
I thought that recent article in Vanity Fair about AI risk and Elon Musk was a great example of this instinct to try to reduce everything down to personal traumas or monkey politics. Apparently Musk cannot really be concerned about AI risk, it has to be some ulterior reason: perhaps he's envious of Larry Page! Or it's propaganda for Tesla! Or desperate attention-whore behavior (because he doesn't get enough attention?) or something, anything, which is not, y'know, being worried about creating intelligences without builtin human morality & limits.
I learned about the phenomenon you're describing in English class. The professor's thesis was that the desire to create a narrative is a fundamental part of the human experience. In essence what you're saying is that The Social Network's narrative--the entirety of Facebook [is] about [Mark Zuckerberg's] rejection by a girl--is not a compelling enough narrative for you. For you, you would much prefer a different narrative--that he was building something cool for its own sake. As an engineer I can relate to your preferred narrative, but Hollywood doesn't consider us its target audience.
This raises the question: what's a good metric that's used to decide what the narrative is?
This raises the question: what's a good metric that's used to decide what the narrative is?
A major theme in non-fiction writing today is to construct a narrative around the events and objects.
That the writer couldn't do this with Chiang is hilarious. Chiang sounds like a great guy at a dinner party: incredibly nerdy and learned, but not playing the normal social games.
That the writer couldn't do this with Chiang is hilarious. Chiang sounds like a great guy at a dinner party: incredibly nerdy and learned, but not playing the normal social games.
The article writer's inability to grok Chiang's work is an amusing illustration of (among other things) the divide between Snow's "Two Cultures".
Too bad the article's author hadn't read other Chiang's works: I'd love to see an article which derives "Understand", "Seventy-Two Letters", "The Evolution of Human Science" or "Exhalation" from the personal history.
Tower of Babylon was superb, I read it with the other short stories (can't remember the name of the collection) a month or so ago.
Wasn't so sure about the rest of them though, I felt the Babylon story kind of eclipsed all of them.
Wasn't so sure about the rest of them though, I felt the Babylon story kind of eclipsed all of them.
I got the audiobook from Audible [1] after reading about it on HN and that's the only story I asked my wife to listen to - she loved it and she's not a science fiction fan.
[1] http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Stories-of-Your-Lif...
[1] http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Stories-of-Your-Lif...
Interesting - i've tried to find Ted's books on Audible several times with no results. And it happens to be regional restriction.
"We're sorry. Due to publishing rights restrictions, we are not authorized to sell this item in the country where you live."
Sigh.
"We're sorry. Due to publishing rights restrictions, we are not authorized to sell this item in the country where you live."
Sigh.
I agree, it was the first story in the book and after that masterpiece it was hard for the other ones to live up to it.
Stories of Your Life and Others.
Agreed, that is the standout. I enjoyed the one about not being able to see beauty, but I felt it didn't go anywhere.
Stories Of Your Life takes the central idea of Slaughterhouse-Five and dresses it up with physics. Its good, but its like a remix more than anything.
Stories Of Your Life takes the central idea of Slaughterhouse-Five and dresses it up with physics. Its good, but its like a remix more than anything.
Interesting way to see it. If anything, Chiang took all the humor out of Vonnegut's story, which made the ludicrous bearable by making us laugh as well as cry.
"Exhalation" is my favourite Ted Chiang story. It can be read at Lightspeed [1].
I'm probably in the minority here, but I didn't really enjoy "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". I though it was too long and, while I work in firmware, the story's software model didn't connect with me.
[1] http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/
I'm probably in the minority here, but I didn't really enjoy "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". I though it was too long and, while I work in firmware, the story's software model didn't connect with me.
[1] http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/
> "Exhalation" is my favourite Ted Chiang story.
I haven't audibly exhaled (I am honestly not trying to pun here) at a story this way in quite a while. Thank you.
I haven't audibly exhaled (I am honestly not trying to pun here) at a story this way in quite a while. Thank you.
I'm probably in the minority here
Are you? I've never met anyone who includes Lifecycle of Software Objects in their favorite Ted Chiang stories
Are you? I've never met anyone who includes Lifecycle of Software Objects in their favorite Ted Chiang stories
Well, the reviews of it that I've read have been complimentary, like those on Goodreads [1] and other SF related publications. So I naturally assume that I was in the minority since I didn't enjoy it as much as Ted Chiang's other stories.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7886338-the-lifecycle-of...
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7886338-the-lifecycle-of...
Wow, there are so many interesting bits here that I felt compelled to comment on some:
1. "... they gave thanks that they were permitted to see so much, and begged forgiveness for their desire to see more.” When I discover with mind-blowing physical discovery (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Boreal...) I sometimes feel this way about humanity's great foray into the universe.
2. "He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had science existed then." I interpret this to be a very insightful comment on what SF is. Some people take SF to be inventing stuff, humans always did that sort of thing through mythology (in fact one can argue that in the past we had much more of it and science kills it). OTOH I think the real SF is taking a scientific framework and tweaking parts of it what-ifs to demonstrate aspects of humanity, in way any other work of literature operates. This does require science.
3. "Chiang’s vision of a world without faith, in which the certain and proven existence of God is troubling, rather than reassuring." This is absolutely true, if the existence of God were to be proven beyond doubt (which, if you think about it seems paradoxical) existence would be intolerable, much more so than if the reverse was proven.
4. "I believe that the universe is deterministic, but that the most meaningful definition of free will is compatible with determinism”. Spot on! "We must believe in free will -- we have no choice." - Isaac Bashevis Singer
5. “There’s a book by Umberto Eco called ‘The Search for the Perfect Language,’ ” he said. Great book that I would recommend to anyone.
6. "In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind." After finishing Snow Crash I have been thinking that some form of brain hacking should be possible using light pulses and linguistics as input (http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11187/are-the-langu...).
Altogether an amazing guy, ordering his books from Amazon right now.
1. "... they gave thanks that they were permitted to see so much, and begged forgiveness for their desire to see more.” When I discover with mind-blowing physical discovery (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Boreal...) I sometimes feel this way about humanity's great foray into the universe.
2. "He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had science existed then." I interpret this to be a very insightful comment on what SF is. Some people take SF to be inventing stuff, humans always did that sort of thing through mythology (in fact one can argue that in the past we had much more of it and science kills it). OTOH I think the real SF is taking a scientific framework and tweaking parts of it what-ifs to demonstrate aspects of humanity, in way any other work of literature operates. This does require science.
3. "Chiang’s vision of a world without faith, in which the certain and proven existence of God is troubling, rather than reassuring." This is absolutely true, if the existence of God were to be proven beyond doubt (which, if you think about it seems paradoxical) existence would be intolerable, much more so than if the reverse was proven.
4. "I believe that the universe is deterministic, but that the most meaningful definition of free will is compatible with determinism”. Spot on! "We must believe in free will -- we have no choice." - Isaac Bashevis Singer
5. “There’s a book by Umberto Eco called ‘The Search for the Perfect Language,’ ” he said. Great book that I would recommend to anyone.
6. "In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind." After finishing Snow Crash I have been thinking that some form of brain hacking should be possible using light pulses and linguistics as input (http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11187/are-the-langu...).
Altogether an amazing guy, ordering his books from Amazon right now.
> the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind
You'd want a backup before trying anything substantial.
You'd want a backup before trying anything substantial.
Probably, but it doesn't protect you against bad edge cases, like screwing with your own mind so much that you no longer can or want to activate the backup.
Kind of like when you could set your screen resolution to a value that wasn't supported by your screen and it didn't reset automatically after 30 seconds.
Those are interesting issues. The answer, I guess, would be to only work on copies. But even then, nuking a copy of yourself would be troubling.
(Tiny rick)
Understand was a wonderful. I thought it perfectly encapsulated the inevitable outcome of such a scenario.
Hell is the Absence of God is really great and I don't normally go for that sort of thing. There used to be an audiobook version on youtube which looks like it's been taken down now. Anyways hunt it up if you can, it's great commute material.
Chiang's "Understand" and "Story of Your Life" are two of the best stories ever written in my view. They evince a mastery of prose craftsmanship that's incredibly rare, combined with fascinating but logical plot ideas.
Being a Chiang fan is frustrating though because he writes so little!
Being a Chiang fan is frustrating though because he writes so little!
I specifically read "Story of Your Life" a few months back prior to watching Arrival, as some people here claimed they liked the movie Adaptation better. I have to say I agree. It was a fine short story, and had some very good conceptual elements, but I found his explanation of the phenomenon and it's consequences for people subject to it lacking (or perhaps I misunderstood a portion of it). The movie skirted actual explanations with respect to this, but thus wasn't subject to scrutiny that may have shown it to be less solid than was supposed.
SPOILERS AHEAD
I don't like how the movie makes her daughter to be dying of a disease. In the book, she dies in a climbing accident, which the protagonist knows full well will happen but does nothing to prevent it, thus demonstrating how committed she was to an immutable, deterministic future.
I liked the story better. I think it helped that the actress reading the story in the audiobook was excellent.
I don't like how the movie makes her daughter to be dying of a disease. In the book, she dies in a climbing accident, which the protagonist knows full well will happen but does nothing to prevent it, thus demonstrating how committed she was to an immutable, deterministic future.
I liked the story better. I think it helped that the actress reading the story in the audiobook was excellent.
I think some aspects of that are covered that well in the movie, in that she knew her daughter would die, and made a choice to have one anyways, and subject her husband to that pain presumably without his knowledge or consent.
The problem I had with the story, if I understood it correctly, is not that she chose to be committed, but that she actually had no choice. This is, essentially the part of the story I found problematic. It was explained enough to bypass my suspension of disbelief, but not enough to provide an explanation I could accept. How do you have free through without free action?
I would love to revisit the story and find evidence to support that point, or to find that I misread or misunderstood, but I unfortunately don't have a way to do that right now. :/
The problem I had with the story, if I understood it correctly, is not that she chose to be committed, but that she actually had no choice. This is, essentially the part of the story I found problematic. It was explained enough to bypass my suspension of disbelief, but not enough to provide an explanation I could accept. How do you have free through without free action?
I would love to revisit the story and find evidence to support that point, or to find that I misread or misunderstood, but I unfortunately don't have a way to do that right now. :/
This is directly addressed in the books, sufficiently, in my opinion:
> The heptapods are neither free nor bound as we understand those concepts; they don't act according to their will, nor are they helpless automatons. What distinguishes the heptapods' mode of awareness is not just that their actions coincide with history's events; it is also that their motives coincide with history's purposes. They act to create the future, to enact chronology.
> Freedom isn't an illusion; it's perfectly real in the context of sequential consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it's simply a different context, no more or less valid than the other. It's like that famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an elegant young woman, face turned away from the viewer, or a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on her chest. There's no "correct" interpretation; both are equally valid. But you can't see both at the same time.
> Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it.
> The heptapods are neither free nor bound as we understand those concepts; they don't act according to their will, nor are they helpless automatons. What distinguishes the heptapods' mode of awareness is not just that their actions coincide with history's events; it is also that their motives coincide with history's purposes. They act to create the future, to enact chronology.
> Freedom isn't an illusion; it's perfectly real in the context of sequential consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it's simply a different context, no more or less valid than the other. It's like that famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an elegant young woman, face turned away from the viewer, or a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on her chest. There's no "correct" interpretation; both are equally valid. But you can't see both at the same time.
> Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it.
> Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it.
That right there pretty much sums up the point I had trouble with. How does knowledge make it impossible to exercise free will? Or since it's stated the other way around, is it that you just don't know the things you would be compelled to change, so it's not that you see all of the future, but that you only see the future that you can't or won't change?
In any case, I find "Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future" hard to accept at face value. I find it hard to reconcile how free will will coexists with a system like this, since I imagine someone will try to fight that purely on principle. Maybe those people would know little or nothing about the future though, since their desire to change it would prevent it's knowledge in the first place.
Finally, "including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it." is odd to me. Why do they not talk about it? To me, this implies a lack of free will, otherwise again, someone would talk about it, even after the fact. Is it really that people do not or is it that they can not, because I can't really see do not being followed.
In the end, I'm left with a very muddy and inconsistent view of how this works because of those explanations. Then again, doing this well may have been an impossible task for me. If there isn't an explanation that blends free will and knowledge of the future that exists, or in a way I can understand and accept, the alternative for this story is no free will, and while consistent, it's also bleak and disconcerting, since I'm not sure there's much that's quite as bad as knowledge of the future and along with it knowledge that you can do nothing to change it. Either you never want to change it, which points to sentience being a lie, or you do but cannot, in which case you are a prisoner in your own body. :/
That right there pretty much sums up the point I had trouble with. How does knowledge make it impossible to exercise free will? Or since it's stated the other way around, is it that you just don't know the things you would be compelled to change, so it's not that you see all of the future, but that you only see the future that you can't or won't change?
In any case, I find "Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future" hard to accept at face value. I find it hard to reconcile how free will will coexists with a system like this, since I imagine someone will try to fight that purely on principle. Maybe those people would know little or nothing about the future though, since their desire to change it would prevent it's knowledge in the first place.
Finally, "including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it." is odd to me. Why do they not talk about it? To me, this implies a lack of free will, otherwise again, someone would talk about it, even after the fact. Is it really that people do not or is it that they can not, because I can't really see do not being followed.
In the end, I'm left with a very muddy and inconsistent view of how this works because of those explanations. Then again, doing this well may have been an impossible task for me. If there isn't an explanation that blends free will and knowledge of the future that exists, or in a way I can understand and accept, the alternative for this story is no free will, and while consistent, it's also bleak and disconcerting, since I'm not sure there's much that's quite as bad as knowledge of the future and along with it knowledge that you can do nothing to change it. Either you never want to change it, which points to sentience being a lie, or you do but cannot, in which case you are a prisoner in your own body. :/
I read it differently from you. What I read is that there are two "modes", one with free will but with no knowledge of the future, and one with knowledge of the future but that effectively "forces" you to play your part in what you know the future to be. I feel that this explanation agrees with the two "interpretations" of refraction mentioned in the book.
However, then the question arises: How do you reconcile the fact that some beings can see the future when there are other beings in the world that have free will (and thus are able to change the future that the former see)?
I consider the explanation in the book sufficient, though. I don't expect my fiction to be perfectly consistent with everything, and this particular story passes my personal, subjective bar.
However, then the question arises: How do you reconcile the fact that some beings can see the future when there are other beings in the world that have free will (and thus are able to change the future that the former see)?
I consider the explanation in the book sufficient, though. I don't expect my fiction to be perfectly consistent with everything, and this particular story passes my personal, subjective bar.
> I consider the explanation in the book sufficient, though. I don't expect my fiction to be perfectly consistent with everything, and this particular story passes my personal, subjective bar.
Sure, and that's your prerogative. For me, the explanation made me think about some of the mechanics more than I had bothered to up to that point, and what I viewed as inconsistencies actually detracted from the story and ruined some of the immersion. It changed my opinion of the story from "great" to just "very good, with some problems".
In the end, the movie was a bit more hand-wavey on the specifics, but in this case, I found that to provide for a tighter story, and one in which I wasn't plagued by some confusion at some point. So, I subjectively liked the movie as a story more, as it was more able to sustain a suspension of disbelief in my opinion, but that's not to imply I disliked the short story.
Sure, and that's your prerogative. For me, the explanation made me think about some of the mechanics more than I had bothered to up to that point, and what I viewed as inconsistencies actually detracted from the story and ruined some of the immersion. It changed my opinion of the story from "great" to just "very good, with some problems".
In the end, the movie was a bit more hand-wavey on the specifics, but in this case, I found that to provide for a tighter story, and one in which I wasn't plagued by some confusion at some point. So, I subjectively liked the movie as a story more, as it was more able to sustain a suspension of disbelief in my opinion, but that's not to imply I disliked the short story.
In the book she has no choice, knowing the future doesn't allow you to change it, it's deterministic. Free Will doesn't exist. In the movie they went out of their way to make it clear the future can be changed, and she does change it with the phone call. Which undermines the much cleaner scientific premise of the book and also makes her a bit selfish to decide to have the child anyway and only tell her husband months before she gets sick.
I don't think the suggestion is that she can change the future in the movie.
My interpretation of the phone call is that it demonstrates the reverse causality that is now possible thanks to her new understanding. It doesn't mean the cause nor the effect are mutable, just that they are now accessible in a different order than is typical.
I think in the movie the decision to have the child is also immutable. So when in the final scene she commits to that path - it is because of the paradoxical freedom born of fatalism that she manages to be cheerful. There is literally no other way things could go - so why worry?
If she's selfish - she's deterministically, immutably selfish. Under the new model - the concept of a "change" to the future through action is incomprehensible. The future just "is".
My interpretation of the phone call is that it demonstrates the reverse causality that is now possible thanks to her new understanding. It doesn't mean the cause nor the effect are mutable, just that they are now accessible in a different order than is typical.
I think in the movie the decision to have the child is also immutable. So when in the final scene she commits to that path - it is because of the paradoxical freedom born of fatalism that she manages to be cheerful. There is literally no other way things could go - so why worry?
If she's selfish - she's deterministically, immutably selfish. Under the new model - the concept of a "change" to the future through action is incomprehensible. The future just "is".
She can act on the knowledge of the future. She could have decided not to have the child right? The same as she decided to act to stop the Chinese. It's very inconsistent to argue she had to have the child and that he couldn't have told her husband earlier, since she eventually told him. In the book that's impossible, the present is not affected by the knowledge of the future. Things go along exactly in the same way, it's just that she perceives the future the same way as she perceives the past. It's difficult to understand because we are use to thinking we have free will. The book takes away that and makes us face the strangeness of this hypothetical reality. In the movie it's just inconsistent in my opinion.
> She could have decided not to have the child right?
There is nothing in the movie that explicitly supports this.
(Spoilers ahead.) My take is that as she learns the language, her mind is changed. Not only can she remember the future, she comes to understand that she cannot change it. Just like the other heptapod knew it was going to die, but came to Earth anyway because the future is immutable.
Giving her free will introduces a paradox: the future which she remembers will no longer exist if she veers off the path. Unless she can see all possible futures, which is a different story to Arrival altogether (see Dune). The whole visit could be pointless in any case (again, spoilers) if Earth decides not to help the heptapods in the far future. The entire plot hinges on an immutable future.
There is nothing in the movie that explicitly supports this.
(Spoilers ahead.) My take is that as she learns the language, her mind is changed. Not only can she remember the future, she comes to understand that she cannot change it. Just like the other heptapod knew it was going to die, but came to Earth anyway because the future is immutable.
Giving her free will introduces a paradox: the future which she remembers will no longer exist if she veers off the path. Unless she can see all possible futures, which is a different story to Arrival altogether (see Dune). The whole visit could be pointless in any case (again, spoilers) if Earth decides not to help the heptapods in the far future. The entire plot hinges on an immutable future.
She comes to understand she cannot change it, yet from her point of view, she decides to call the Chinese. And she chooses, from her point of view, when she tells her husband. She does actions that would have been impossible without knowledge of the future. Maintaining that she didn't have free will when her actions depend on that knowledge is very difficult in my opinion. You have the subjective impression of free will, if you have certain knowledge and you can sometimes act on it, why not always? The book fixes this making it irrelevant to have that knowledge. The movie crosses the line when some causality is reversed.
It's possible that she decided to have the child knowing what would happen to her, and that's why she can see that future, but that's still her making her own selfish decision. If she wouldn't have done that, then she wouldn't "remember" having a child. I think this is why they changed how the child dies from the book. In the book she dies in a perfectly preventable accident. In the movies is kind of pre-arranged. Making her die in an accident that the mother know is going to happen would have been very obviously evil when it's been proven she can sometimes act on knowledge of the future. The book makes the situation maximize the fatalism of the character: she knows her daughter is going to die in that climbing trip, yet she can't do anything to avoid it, she's just an observer, a passenger in her own life.
It's possible that she decided to have the child knowing what would happen to her, and that's why she can see that future, but that's still her making her own selfish decision. If she wouldn't have done that, then she wouldn't "remember" having a child. I think this is why they changed how the child dies from the book. In the book she dies in a perfectly preventable accident. In the movies is kind of pre-arranged. Making her die in an accident that the mother know is going to happen would have been very obviously evil when it's been proven she can sometimes act on knowledge of the future. The book makes the situation maximize the fatalism of the character: she knows her daughter is going to die in that climbing trip, yet she can't do anything to avoid it, she's just an observer, a passenger in her own life.
According to the screenwriter, they hedged a bit on the question of free will in the movie compared to the book. He specifically addresses this here: https://youtu.be/xzEPU2PTjT4?t=23m55s
Agreed, he's one of the best sci-fi writers. He's got the rigor and imagination of Greg Egan but he's a much better writer and his characters are better defined. For me, the perfect combination. If he wrote more he'd be the best. Unfortunately his output is tiny.
I just finished the audio version of "Stories of Your Life and Others" and did enjoy it very much.
Aye, I read it and it's been a long time since I found a short story collection that made me miss university. Lots to unpack in those stories.
There are major spoilers to the movie Arrival in this article, so make sure you watch it (or read the short story) before reading this.
Stories of your life and others has got to be one of my favorite collections of science fiction short stories.
Any other recommendations?
Any other recommendations?
chiang got me into borges, and i can't recommend him enough if you're a fan of the former. i love chiang but borges has become my favorite fiction author. borges also seems quite popular among programmers.
Borges' one-paragraph story "On Exactitude in Science":
"... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography."
"... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography."
"The Library Of Babel" by Borges was great. As was "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote."
Stanislaw Lem, and the Strugatsky Brothers - I think that Soviet-era SF really asked the 'big' questions and is far away from today's 'SF but actually just an action movie with lasers instead of bullets' standard.
For Lem, try Solaris, or His Master's Voice. He often dealt with how alien intelligence is impossible to understand (compare Wittgenstein: if a lion could speak we would not understand him). He also wrote many satires (Pilot Pirx / Fables for Robots).
The English translations of the Strugatsky Brothers you commonly get aren't good as they're translated from (I think) German, not Russian, but the new direct translations from Olena Bormashenko are MUCH better, they flow so much better. Stay away from the old ones.
Get Hard To Be A God, or maybe Stalker.
Also seconding Borges, and perhaps Umberto Eco, and Hesse's The Glass Bead Game.
For Lem, try Solaris, or His Master's Voice. He often dealt with how alien intelligence is impossible to understand (compare Wittgenstein: if a lion could speak we would not understand him). He also wrote many satires (Pilot Pirx / Fables for Robots).
The English translations of the Strugatsky Brothers you commonly get aren't good as they're translated from (I think) German, not Russian, but the new direct translations from Olena Bormashenko are MUCH better, they flow so much better. Stay away from the old ones.
Get Hard To Be A God, or maybe Stalker.
Also seconding Borges, and perhaps Umberto Eco, and Hesse's The Glass Bead Game.
David Marusek[1] is sadly under-appreciated, he's written some great short fiction, and a couple of pretty mind-boggling novels too.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Marusek
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Marusek
The Lifecycle of Software Objects is one of my all time favorites. Exhalation is really great too.
The prices for print copies of this on Amazon are just out of control, hundred of dollars. Fortunately they are available online. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang#Works
The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu -- read this after finishing 'Stories of Your Life' and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Greg Egan. If you like solid science there's just nobody at that level. Chiang would be if he wrote more.
"The Hard SF Renaissance" is one of my favorites and usually sits on my coffee table when I don't have it loaned out to friends.
Redemolished, which is a collection of short stories and articles by Alfred Bester.
You'll need to like, or be open to, 50s-60s style sci-fi, however.
You'll need to like, or be open to, 50s-60s style sci-fi, however.
His newer short stories.
"He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had science existed then" made me think with amusement of caveman science fiction [1].
I've been a fan of Chiang for a very long time. I'm a real fan of superintelligence fiction [2] and "Understand" [3] was the first to catch my attention.
[1] http://dresdencodak.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2009-09-2...
[2] https://ask.metafilter.com/286008/Seeking-Hyperbrain-Books-F...
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infini...
I've been a fan of Chiang for a very long time. I'm a real fan of superintelligence fiction [2] and "Understand" [3] was the first to catch my attention.
[1] http://dresdencodak.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2009-09-2...
[2] https://ask.metafilter.com/286008/Seeking-Hyperbrain-Books-F...
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infini...
I dug these up and posted them in the last Chiang thread I saw, here are some links to his short stories:
Division by Zero: https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantas...
> A brilliant mathematician wrestles with the consequences of her earthshattering proof.
Understand: https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infini...
> An experimental treatment bestows a regular person with superintelligence, propelling him into a dangerous series of mindgames.
Story of Your Life: https://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy...
> A talented linguist reflects on her life as she struggles to grasp the meaning of an alien language. Nebula Award (Best Novella). [this is the story the recent film Arrival is based on]
Seventy-Two Letters: https://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.co...
> In a world where mystical scrolls impart animating power, a shocking discovery threatens to upend society.
Hell is the Absence of God: http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-_Hell...
> An unbeliever struggles with the question of faith when God is scientific fact and angels routinely visit the earth. Hugo, Locus, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette).
What's expected of us: http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/w...
> A simple time machine undermines the concept of free will, with disastrous consequences.
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate: https://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregst...
> An ancient alchemist introduces a traveling merchant to a mysterious time-traveling gateway. Hugo, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette).
[I looted these from here, fixing the broken links I could and excluding the ones I couldn't: http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-... -- there are a few more links in there, including some essays.]
Division by Zero: https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantas...
> A brilliant mathematician wrestles with the consequences of her earthshattering proof.
Understand: https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infini...
> An experimental treatment bestows a regular person with superintelligence, propelling him into a dangerous series of mindgames.
Story of Your Life: https://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy...
> A talented linguist reflects on her life as she struggles to grasp the meaning of an alien language. Nebula Award (Best Novella). [this is the story the recent film Arrival is based on]
Seventy-Two Letters: https://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.co...
> In a world where mystical scrolls impart animating power, a shocking discovery threatens to upend society.
Hell is the Absence of God: http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-_Hell...
> An unbeliever struggles with the question of faith when God is scientific fact and angels routinely visit the earth. Hugo, Locus, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette).
What's expected of us: http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/w...
> A simple time machine undermines the concept of free will, with disastrous consequences.
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate: https://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregst...
> An ancient alchemist introduces a traveling merchant to a mysterious time-traveling gateway. Hugo, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette).
[I looted these from here, fixing the broken links I could and excluding the ones I couldn't: http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-... -- there are a few more links in there, including some essays.]
I just got his book yesterday after realizing that the movie "Arrival" was based on one of his short stories. Really looking forward to reading it !
Fun fact: he is (or maybe "was", now that his fiction is so successful) a technical writer.
The article mentions this several times. He still is a technical writer, and it is his primary source of income because he only writes when a good idea comes to him. I would be curious to find out how much he got paid for "Arrival".
Someone just told me this yesterday, and I found it so interesting. I'd be so curious to know what he was writing / who he was writing for. Those must be some fantastic docs!
Well, 25 years ago, he worked down the hall from me at Microsoft, writing docs for the Fortran compiler. Not sure if he ever wrote docs for the C/C++ compiler that I worked on (this was pre-Visual C++ or maybe just as VC got started), nor do I remember how long he was there. But I do remember being thrilled that a Nebula and Campbell award winner was a co-worker.
I asked him about this at a reading he did a few months ago – apparently he still does technical writing for them, and at least some of it is still in their C++ documentation.
> In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind. He knits together the vocabularies of science and art, memory and prediction, literature and math, physics and emotion. “He’s searching for the perfect language, a cognitive language in which he can think,” Chiang said. “A language that will let him think the kinds of thoughts he wants.”
I wonder how many of us have, at some point, harbored the (if poorly formed and not at all thought-through) beginnings of such an idea.
I wonder how many of us have, at some point, harbored the (if poorly formed and not at all thought-through) beginnings of such an idea.
A script based on another of his stories,
“Understand,” is also in development.
[Mild spoilers ahead] There's the drama of the initial accident, then the recovery. Stealing the vials. Pursuit by the government agency. Locating the opponent, and the final conflict between them. Plenty to work with there, I think.
The challenge, as you say, would be to do justice to the story and not turn it into some kind of car-chase/superhero mess.
The challenge, as you say, would be to do justice to the story and not turn it into some kind of car-chase/superhero mess.
I've yet to have the chance to read any of his work, mostly because I'm working on my own things now and don't have a lot of time for pleasure, which would be the point of reading these first and foremost.
That noted, I'm happy to see people take an interest in reading fiction again. It was nice with Harry Potter. It's nice with Ted Chiang. My hope is that the accessibility and popularity inspire additional interest in fiction reading, and I'm sure it happens as with music. There's a catch though.
The unfortunate part is that both JK Rowling and Ted Chiang are, practically and reasonably speaking, genre authors and that can be limiting to growth as a reader. I love genre works of quality, because, just being real here, the signal-to-noise ratio of quality-to-sub-par in certain genres is abhorrent. It's like finding a great "Metal" proximity band like Tool, checking out all their work, and wanting more, going back into the category and finding...definitely not more Tool.
I'm very happy for him and hope he enjoys the success, fiscal rewards, and, best of all, freedom to write!
Take careful note, all would-be writers:
>In 1989, he attended the Clarion Workshop, a kind of Bread Loaf for sci-fi and fantasy writers...
Sure, he's a hobbyist but that's a hobby that's been going for almost 30 years. Practice makes better. He's no overnight sensation...y'all just finally found him.
>“But what makes any human being a good, reliable worker?” he asked me. “A hundred thousand hours of good parenting, of unpaid emotional labor. That’s the kind of investment on which the business world places no value; it’s an investment made by people who do it out of love.”
This is an absolutely wonderful perspective, and can truly be applied to creative endeavors as well.
That noted, I'm happy to see people take an interest in reading fiction again. It was nice with Harry Potter. It's nice with Ted Chiang. My hope is that the accessibility and popularity inspire additional interest in fiction reading, and I'm sure it happens as with music. There's a catch though.
The unfortunate part is that both JK Rowling and Ted Chiang are, practically and reasonably speaking, genre authors and that can be limiting to growth as a reader. I love genre works of quality, because, just being real here, the signal-to-noise ratio of quality-to-sub-par in certain genres is abhorrent. It's like finding a great "Metal" proximity band like Tool, checking out all their work, and wanting more, going back into the category and finding...definitely not more Tool.
I'm very happy for him and hope he enjoys the success, fiscal rewards, and, best of all, freedom to write!
Take careful note, all would-be writers:
>In 1989, he attended the Clarion Workshop, a kind of Bread Loaf for sci-fi and fantasy writers...
Sure, he's a hobbyist but that's a hobby that's been going for almost 30 years. Practice makes better. He's no overnight sensation...y'all just finally found him.
>“But what makes any human being a good, reliable worker?” he asked me. “A hundred thousand hours of good parenting, of unpaid emotional labor. That’s the kind of investment on which the business world places no value; it’s an investment made by people who do it out of love.”
This is an absolutely wonderful perspective, and can truly be applied to creative endeavors as well.
What an amazingly snobby reply to an article about someone writing good fiction.
I'll leave a much better writer than me to do the arguing, Ursula K. LeGuin, although I realize you won't read either of these articles because you're too busy "working on [your] own things now," but I'll post them because they're great.
Ursula K. Le Guin talks to Michael Cunningham about genres, gender, and broadening fiction. [1]
> And that, of course, is the lingering problem: The maintenance of an arbitrary division between “literature” and “genre,” the refusal to admit that every piece of fiction belongs to a genre, or several of genres.
> Realism is of course a tremendous and wonderfully capacious literary genre, and it has dominated fiction since 1800 or before. But dominance isn’t the same thing as superiority. Fantasy is at least as immense as realism and much older — essentially coeval with literature itself. Yet fantasy was relegated for fifty years or sixty years to the nursery.
On Serious Literature. [2]
> But it [Genre fiction] was dead, dead! God damn that Chabon, dragging it out of the grave where she and the other serious writers had buried it to save serious literature from its polluting touch, the horror of its blank, pustular face, the lifeless, meaningless glare of its decaying eyes! What did the fool think he was doing?
1. https://electricliterature.com/ursula-k-le-guin-talks-to-mic...
2. http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Note-ChabonAndGenre.html
I'll leave a much better writer than me to do the arguing, Ursula K. LeGuin, although I realize you won't read either of these articles because you're too busy "working on [your] own things now," but I'll post them because they're great.
Ursula K. Le Guin talks to Michael Cunningham about genres, gender, and broadening fiction. [1]
> And that, of course, is the lingering problem: The maintenance of an arbitrary division between “literature” and “genre,” the refusal to admit that every piece of fiction belongs to a genre, or several of genres.
> Realism is of course a tremendous and wonderfully capacious literary genre, and it has dominated fiction since 1800 or before. But dominance isn’t the same thing as superiority. Fantasy is at least as immense as realism and much older — essentially coeval with literature itself. Yet fantasy was relegated for fifty years or sixty years to the nursery.
On Serious Literature. [2]
> But it [Genre fiction] was dead, dead! God damn that Chabon, dragging it out of the grave where she and the other serious writers had buried it to save serious literature from its polluting touch, the horror of its blank, pustular face, the lifeless, meaningless glare of its decaying eyes! What did the fool think he was doing?
1. https://electricliterature.com/ursula-k-le-guin-talks-to-mic...
2. http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Note-ChabonAndGenre.html
If you're working on your own work, reading high-quality works can really tell you how to do things.
Among other things, Ted Chiang is excellent at non-linear storytelling, and at communicating complex and nuanced ideas through narrative.
The actual definition of a genre is based on sales demographics ("do people who buy SciFi buy this book?" - why Vonnegut is in Literature, and LeGuin is in fantasy), but if I had to pick... SciFi is about consequences (what happens when....) Fantasy is about narrative (a story about a boy....) Literature is about a message that cannot be communicated any other way than the story that is told.
I have no idea how to tell you what Arrival was about without retelling the story.
Among other things, Ted Chiang is excellent at non-linear storytelling, and at communicating complex and nuanced ideas through narrative.
The actual definition of a genre is based on sales demographics ("do people who buy SciFi buy this book?" - why Vonnegut is in Literature, and LeGuin is in fantasy), but if I had to pick... SciFi is about consequences (what happens when....) Fantasy is about narrative (a story about a boy....) Literature is about a message that cannot be communicated any other way than the story that is told.
I have no idea how to tell you what Arrival was about without retelling the story.
> the signal-to-noise ratio of quality-to-sub-par in certain genres is abhorrent
Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crap
re: overnight success, Ted Chiang got a Nebula Award for "Tower of Babylon" (1990) which was his first published work when he was 23. He wasn't writing for extremely long before he was recognized for his talent.
Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crap
re: overnight success, Ted Chiang got a Nebula Award for "Tower of Babylon" (1990) which was his first published work when he was 23. He wasn't writing for extremely long before he was recognized for his talent.
1990 to 20XX is a long path. I perhaps mis-spoke in the sense that "people didn't invest in his work and bring it to a wide audience by way of a film adaptation until recently" which I intend to mean the concept of 'crossing over.' Recognition outstide of one's genre is an appreciation of talent and craft in ways that might be hard to understand, and I don't mean to be insulting. There are conventions, and rising above them is worth appreciation.
We as humans seem to have this unceasing tendency to essentialize -- to believe that everything we do comes from deep-seated psychological needs. We project every action onto some event from years past with a parent, a lover, a friend.
I feel like this is borne out of a desire to believe that behavior is deterministic. That if only we too had undergone the experiences of the person who we're reading about, we too would be that acclaimed sci-fi writer, or famous entrepreneur, or asshole president. It excuses, to some extent, the fact that we are not that person.
But sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes we just build shit for fun. It doesn't all have to be us coming to terms with our distant father.
Zuckerberg, of all people, once had a quote vis-a-vis The Social Network (can't seem to find it) that basically amounted to the idea that they had to make the entirety of Facebook be about his rejection by a girl because the idea of people building something cool for its own sake doesn't make a good movie.
What's interesting for me is I feel like this armchair psychologizing we all do is getting worse. I don't have any evidence to back this up, just a feeling -- as we're exposed to more people's behaviors, we fall back to essentialist attributions of that behavior more and more.