A telling of the construction and journey up the tower of Babylon, and what lies beyond the vault of heaven. The Old Testament cosmology was especially fun to hear described–passing beyond the moon, sun and stars, etc. Civilization now depends on self-deception. The reality isn’t important: what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma.
It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don’t. “My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. He impressed the hell out of me with every sentence. I’ve never come across a creative powerhouse like this guy. Every story genuinely feels like it could be penned by a different author. If the quality among these 8 stories wasn’t at such a consistently high level, I’d say that Chiang was merely a ghostwriting team, comprised of 8 different authors, all exceptionally talented, each with different interests, politics and prose styles. Every single story is incredibly unique, tonally diverse and powerful in different ways. High concept science fiction that is grounded heavily in the real world. I figured I should probably do myself a service and check this collection out.Īfter reading it, I have to agree that his writing is mind-blowing.
Specifically Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham (who collectively write the Expanse series under the pseudonym James S. I’ve heard him referenced as an inspiration by several authors that I enjoy reading. He’s greatly admired among authors and almost entirely unknown by most readers. He’s never written a novel, but his short fiction has won nearly every SF award that exists.
Ted Chiang’s name continually comes up in lists of great short stories.