by Ted Chiang

I read Ted Chiang’s other short story collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, last month. I absolutely loved it. This collection had a different energy. Stories seemed to be optimistic, or at least open-hearted, about the future of humanity & the nature of technology. Exhalation still has plenty of great stories (notably, The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling) but overall seemed to have a more pessimistic, anxious tone. This is especially driven by the story that dominates the middle of the book, The Lifecycle of Software Objects, which was not for me at all. I’m still looking forward to whatever he puts out next, but I definitely have my preferences regarding his existing oeuvre 🙂.