Arrival by Ted Chiang

Arrival

by Ted Chiang

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

Previously published as Stories of Your Life and Others

With his masterful first collection, multiple-award-winning author Ted Chiang deftly blends human emotion and scientific rationalism in eight remarkably diverse stories, all told in his trademark precise and evocative prose.

From a soaring Babylonian tower that connects a flat Earth with the heavens above, to a world where angelic visitations are a wondrous and terrifying part of everyday life; from a neural modification that eliminates the appeal of physical beauty, to an alien language that challenges our very perception of time and reality. . .

Chiang's rigorously imagined fantasia invites us to question our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

Reviewed by lisacee on

5 of 5 stars

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One short story in this collection inspired the movie Arrival, which I greatly enjoyed, but this book us far more than that.

I found nearly all of these stories thought provoking. It took me so long to read it because I was savoring the different worlds that Ted Chiang created in these stories.

I often do like like short stories because they don't give me a complete story, just a glimpse into a life. But these stories feel complete, though they are rarely finished in a cut and dry manner. Chiang leaves enough up to the reader for them to fill in any blanks in the stories he's created.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 15 March, 2017: Finished reading
  • 15 March, 2017: Reviewed