In these days of constant media presence and social hype it sometimes can be quite difficult to remember that the main purpose of a writer is to.. well, write. Some do this by producing quantity, maintaining presence and popularity through continuous product. Others do it a different way.
Ted Chiang is one of those following a different path. In 28 years he has, at the time of writing, had only fifteen stories published, nine of them in this book – note, short stories and novellas (he doesn’t write novels.)
But out of those fifteen tales Ted has won four Hugo Awards, four Nebula and four Locus Awards, and has also been the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. He’s also had one of the stories turned into a big movie, Arrival.
The arrival of anything new by Ted is usually well-regarded. So when a copy of Exhalation (his second story collection), arrived, it was greeted with great excitement at Hobbit Towers.
And, as I had hoped, it is delightful.
There are a mere nine stories and novellas in this collection. The first story, The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate (first published 2007), is a tale of ‘old world’ meeting ‘new world’, a story about Muslims that begins like something set in The Arabian Nights but ends up about time travel and pocket wormholes. Imagine nearly instantaneous travel twenty years into the future and back again – would you? And would you change things, to make things better? It’s a great start, a positive time travel story, and deservedly won a Hugo and Nebula in 2008.
Exhalation (the titular tale, published 2008) also won a Nebula in 2009. For such a short story it deals with impressively big questions, a story of self-discovery by a robot determined to discover how he works and who reveals to himself concepts on the nature of the universe and what is it that makes us human. Asimov would be proud. Ted himself claims that it is a story based on the idea of consuming order and generating disorder that ultimately is the way of the universe. Once you’ve read it you will see why. Hugo Winner 2009.
What’s Expected of Us (first published 2005) is the shortest story here. It is about an invention called the Predictor, a toy that flashes an LED light one second before you press a button. It’s the ultimate in gameplay. Except that its not, and the consequences are severe. Most of all it’s a short yet effective story of the concept of free will – or lack of it.
And talking of inventions, The Lifecycle of Software Objects (first published 2011) is perhaps my favourite story of the book. It’s a story of how corporations develop artificial intelligence as robotic toys and what happens to them when society moves on told through their creators. It is a story of love, power and loss which is by turns heart-breaking and yet strangely affirming. It is a cautionary coming of age tale that will live with you long after you’ve finished reading it. For that reason, it made me think of Isaac Asimov’s story The Ugly little Boy but upgraded to the 21st century. In my opinion, the book is worth it for this tale alone. Hugo Winner 2011.
Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny (first published 2011) is another shorter story, and one that is lighter and intentionally rather amusing. It is written in the style of Victorian steampunk – not too surprisingly, as it was written for Jeff Vandermeer’s The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, a book of imaginary museum artefacts. As the title suggests, it is a story of the invention of a sub-robotic ‘artificial nanny’ and the consequences of its use, slyly examining at the same time the importance of maternal instincts and parenting to a child’s upbringing.
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling (first published 2013) is a story of the relationship between a father and his daughter in a future where people communicate through Remem, a search tool that allows lifelogging, the permanent storage of your life events – even your mundane ones! This is the logical conclusion of our digital presence and is another story where the unintended consequences of the invention are lifechanging. What happens when everything can be remembered in its entirety? Hugo Nominee, 2014.
The Great Silence (first published 2015) tackles the whole issue of the search for alien intelligence, or rather the lack of contact with other species, from a rather unusual perspective. This is one that hinges on a twist about misunderstood communication, which is well done – I didn’t see it until the end.
Most excitingly, there are two previously unpublished stories. The first, Omphalos, is a relatively short story about what happens when scientific revelation can undermine faith. It’s an intriguing moral and ethical dilemma.
The second, Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom, is another story of what can happen when an invention changes our lives. The Prism is a quantum communication device which allows a user to communicate with themselves and others on different lifepaths. The effects on society, told through the characters, are another intelligent extrapolation of issues around the impact of social media today.
At the end of the book Ted has put a series of story notes, explaining how each story came about and what he was trying to achieve with it. I like these details – they are the sort of thing that story collections used to have as ‘Afterwords’, and whilst I think that they could have been better placed in the book, they are an indulgence I appreciated.
In short then, sometimes less is more. Exhalation is an encapsulation of ideas put together in a way that makes the assembly something bigger. Each one is different and yet it adds to the whole.
I was prepared to be impressed and I was. I think that there are stories here that you will love, remember and want to reread again. I can’t think of another modern genre writer like him, myself: his tales make me think of the same sort of impact a Bradbury or a Heinlein story had in the Golden Age, where readers would read something just because it is written by the author.
Like Heinlein’s short stories, many of these are literate and intelligent, often reflecting current ideas and concerns. What is different here is that Ted’s stories that are of the now, though the concepts are pretty timeless – the questioning nature of Humanity, the need of humans for company and contact in an increasingly complex technological world, the unintended consequences of technology on a unsuspecting world. What makes them work for me is that whilst looking ahead they also look inward, that they deal with big issues so cleverly that you may not realise that they do – until you do.
If you have not read them before, you’re in for an almighty treat. Intelligently written, engaging and thought-provoking. Highly recommended.
Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Published by Picador, July 2019
368 pages
ISBN: 978-1-101-94788-3
Review by Mark Yon
Definitely on my To Buy List.