These stories, on the whole, are cleverly told and entertaining, and they ask deep questions of the same kind presented in Arrival. The linguistics part was fun, but the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is long since debunked, and the idea of learning a new language hacking your brain to give you superpowers is just plain silly, and I think Robert Heinlein did it better in Stranger in a Strange Land.Īll this means that my expectations weren’t high when I started Exhalation: Stories, but I was pleasantly surprised. But I also wasn’t thrilled with the premise. I admit I was underwhelmed by Arrival when it came out, although its worst excesses seem to have been added to the original novella. But this book came up on my book club’s reading list, so I gave it a shot. I generally find full-length novels more interesting. I don’t read that many short stories, and I almost never read anthologies. This collection compiles nine recent short stories by the author of “Story of Your Life,” on which the movie Arrival was based. One of the top science fiction books of 2019, even reaching the summer reading list of former President Barack Obama, was Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang.
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