Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - Exhalation

Here's the fun of getting into reading a book without knowing much about it: you never know when you're about to stumble on one of your favorite reads of all time.

This book is made of short stories, mainly with aspects of speculative fiction, that dive into the complexity of what it means to be human. With a hint of Black Mirror attached to its lines, Ted Chiang's ideas are mind-bobbling futuristic "what ifs?" that don't stop at just the fun of speculating whether it'd be cool to have giant robots living amongst society or if it would be nice to be able to see your past through a toilet's reflection. It takes everything a step further, making a run for it directly into the human's psyche. To me, there were two fundamental aspects of this collection.

The first one is lined by Chiang's amazing ability to submerge himself into the ocean of possibilities that could've been our past (and could be our future), a sea widely explored by previous authors and Twitter conspirators, and be able to bring us original visions. Even when there's clear reference to old tropes, they're explored in refreshing and unique ways. We're talking about alien robot races that can dissect their own brains, devices that can prove the inevitability of actions, future days where we can communicate to and impact alternate versions of our lives, the list goes on. You'd have to read these stories to understand that none of them are simply recycled sci-fi ideas, but actually quite unique spins with creative details that showcases the amount of thought put into them. They are mainly tales about possible future technologies and the many ways they integrate into society, and this brings me to the second fundamental aspect of them.

Chiang's universes are capable of, in a short amount of pages, exploring many sideways and alleys of the human experience. In other words, it's a very human book. He brilliantly narrates the dilemmas and complex chains of feelings of his characters, navigating through different points of view and times during all stories. There' so much to uncover here, I'd hardly be able to mention all of the insights these dramas are able to give you: thoughts on what it is to be human, on the possibilities of free will and inevitable fatalism, on the ways we consider ourselves the center of, well, everything. These dilemmas are of times that never existed, yet they are incredibly real and plausible. It really comes to show that, while we've had major changes in the ways we live as humans in the past, the human experience is an ever-present factor, and its doubts are as ever-present as its dubious answers.

Chiang brings our old needs to new times. We can see a part of ourselves in a world where religion and science are intrinsically mixed, in a world where digital forms of life walk among us, in a world where prisms can give us access to ourselves in a different timeline. Chiang's translation of our major doubts and questions into future times prepares us for the inevitable change, and it does it with a somewhat soothing writing style. If anything, I felt more human while connecting with these stories.

There's a phrase said in the last short story I think encapsulates well what this is all about: "I want to know whether my decisions matter!". While you may think that many of the plots here brings the characters onto dead-ends, this collection is, ironically, a clear message that life is anything but a dead-end.

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fox_at_the_circus's review

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challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This is one of the few short story collections where I enjoyed every single story. A big reason for this is that the stories are all so diverse in both themes and writing style and length, so reading them always feels fresh.
The stories cover all the big sci-fi themes: time travel, free will, AI, etc. and they add interesting new nuances or takes to them. The stories range from newspaper article like to fable to general prose, it is really amazing seeing one author nail all of them.
It's really hard to pick my favourite story, I think it comes down to either the Parrot's story or the Archeologist's story.
The book also comes with some explanations/notes on the stories by the author. It's interesting to see, where he got his inspiration from and his reasoning for some of his choices.

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talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

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challenging reflective medium-paced

4.0

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rnbhargava's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The short stories across this book are mostly sci-fi tinged, character based, moral dilemma narratives. Of course there will always be subjective mileage on subject matter for different readers but I was always quite engaged, feeling all sorts of emotions and reactions while reading through all the different stories. It’s a pretty good collection, some stories might be too slight or too bloated to some readers but they’re all pretty worthwhile for me.

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