Stories of Your Life and Others

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

This thought provoking science fiction collection deals more with philosophy than hard science. (Though mathematicians and linguists may beg to differ.) The story notes were rather short and placed at the end rather than after each story.

Story List (titles rom Wikipedia entry):

"Tower of Babylon" (originally published in Omni, November 1990) (Nebula Award winner)

This is an exploration of the Tower of Babel with a "literal" cosmology like the bible. It is fun, but not super insightful.

"Understand" (originally published in Asimov's, August 1991)

A man receives a medical treatment that gives him super-human intellect. The scientists are trying to study this, but he is always one step ahead of them due to his abilities. He later secretly obtains more of the treatment, making him even more intelligent. He eventually connects with another super-human. They fight with their capabilities, leading to one surviving. Could we have any control over "super-capabilities"? Part of super-smartness would be an understanding of what people are trying to test, making it difficult to measure. 

"Division by Zero" (originally published in Full Spectrum 3, June 1991)

What if math were not fixed and division by zero were possible? The woman who discovers this struggles with sanity and causes issues with her marriage. Her husband is both her support and falling out of love with her.

"Story of Your Life" (originally published in Starlight 2, November 1998) (Nebula Award and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner)

How would we learn to communicate with aliens? A scientist is tasked with understanding the language of heptapods that have visited earth. Their language is structured different from ours, with a non-linear structure closely related to how they are. They also find some math "simple" that we find more advanced. It is an intriguing look at the challenges of communication when there are large differences. It also comes to an abrupt end when they decide it is time to leave.

"Seventy-Two Letters" (originally published in Vanishing Acts, June 2000) (Sidewise Award winner)

Names have power. While this was one of the reasons I read this collection, I was a bit lost in the story.

"The Evolution of Human Science" (originally published as "Catching Crumbs from the Table" in Nature, June 2000)

What would the role of humans be if we had "metahumans" with greater capacity?

"Hell Is the Absence of God" (originally published in Starlight 3, July 2001) (Hugo Award, Locus Award and Nebula Award winner)

In this world angelic visitations are common, but not worry free. Sometimes people are healed, while others may be injured by flying shrapnel. People may end up in heaven or hell depending on their behavior and everyone knows where they go. The story focuses on people with different faith journeys. It is portrayed as pure fantasy which allows it to better explore relationships between faith and knowledge. It has an interesting structure nearer to a documentary of intertwined people.

"Liking What You See: A Documentary"

People can get a special treatment that causes them to not notice people's looks. Thus they will not be lead astray by common concepts of beauty. Many parents would have their kids undergo this process. The central focus is a college where the students are voting to have this treatment mandatory so as not cause harm to people without good looks. It is an interesting exploration of equality gone to extremes, while also exploring how we often make bad decisions based on appearance. How would life be if we could have this treatment?