Stories of Your Life and Others
by Ted Chiang · first published 2002
83% recommend16% neutral1% critical
Why HN recommends it
Short science fiction collection where each story builds on one big idea, such as a language hypothesis, taken seriously as science. It includes the story behind Arrival; a good start for readers new to Chiang.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Ted Chiang's first published story, "Tower of Babylon," won the Nebula Award in 1990. Subsequent stories have won the Asimov's SF Magazine reader poll, a second Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Sidewise Award for alternate history. He won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992. Story for story, he is the most honored young writer in modern SF. Now, collected here for the first time are all seven of this extraordinary writer's stories so far--plus an eighth story written especially for this volume. What if men built a tower from Earth to Heaven--
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I've given out several copies of "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson and "Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang.
on “Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?” ↗Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of short stories by Ted Chiang. The stories explore wildly different topics, but every one of them is amazing. Someone on HN had recommended The Box by Marc Levinson. It's a history…
on “Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?” ↗Nice, I had no idea Arrival was adapted from a Ted Chiang story. Maybe I'll have to check it out. For those who aren't familiar with his work, I highly recommend Stories of Your Life and Others. It's perhaps the most amazing collection of SF short stories I've read. It's hard to describe it, but there's something about his work that makes it feel both simultaneously more real and more mind-bending…
on “Interview with Ted Chiang” ↗…want smaller, quicker payoffs (but in no way cheaper!), consider the anthologies of short stories by Ted Chiang. Most of them are 15-45 minutes to read, with a couple longer (1-2 hours). I've read both "Stories of Your Life and Others" and "Exhalation" in the last month and I turned to my wife and said "that story just blew my mind" for probably 75% of the stories. You can find a few online. Here is a very short but brain-tickling…
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?” ↗Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others is the best, single-author collection of short stories I've ever read. If you like that, you might also enjoy The Lifecycle of Software Objects, an absolutely heartbreaking novella about simulated children,…
on “Ask HN: I only read tech/business books – recommend me some fiction?” ↗If you've read Ted Chiang's "Understand," you'll understand why this headline made my eyes pop out. For those who haven't, it's in the "Stories of Your Life and Others" collection, which includes the short story that the film Arrival was based on.
on “UCLA discovers first stroke rehabilitation drug to repair brain damage” ↗Another contemporary author I haven't seen mentioned is Ted Chiang. I've read 'Stories Of Your Life and Others' by him, a collection of short stories. While I've found them to have unsatisfying endings, the ideas they explore are great. Especially liked 'Division by Zero', 'Story Of Your Life', and 'Seventy-Two…
on “Sci-Fi Novels You Should Read” ↗…actually wrote a response to one of Ted Chiang's stories. http://kenliu.name/stories/single-bit-error/ is a response/exploration of the same world and ideas as Chiang's "Hell is the Absence of God", in Stories of Your Life and Others. I recommend reading the Chiang story first.
on “Interview with Ted Chiang” ↗…have you read that you've found helped the most with your critical faculties and such? In this area, I feel I've learned the most from reading commentary in the New Yorker. For enjoyment, I've read: * Stories of Your Life and Others by Chiang * The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson * What The F by Bergen * Blindsight by Watts
on “Ask HN: What influenced your personal growth the most?” ↗…checking out some short story collections. Story stories are maybe the perfect format for science fiction, since it lets brilliant ideas play out rapidly. Check out “The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson”, “Stories of Your Life and Others” and “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang, “Pump Six and Other Stories” by Paolo Bacigalupi, and “Burning Chrome” by William Gibson.
on “Neal Stephenson – Announcing Termination Shock” ↗…Paulo Coelho ‘Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress’ by Steven Pinker ‘Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You’ by Bill Burnett, Dave Evans ‘Exhalation’ and ‘Stories of Your Life and Others’ by Ted Chiang Movies ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ ‘King Richard’ ‘Shawshank Redemption’ Anything Studio Ghibli
on “Ask HN: What are some good inspirational and uplifting books?” ↗I'd recommend Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang [0]. It's often billed as "speculative fiction", and I'd describe it as a series of short stories that define worlds slightly-to-extremely dissimilar to ours, and explores what that means…
on “Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective” ↗If you haven't read Ted Chiang's short stories yet, do so. His first collection (Stories of Your Life and Others) was my favourite, but his more recent one (Exhalation) was also very good (the title story, Exhalation, is gorgeous). Stories of your Life is what the movie Arrival was based on and (as ever) the story…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023” ↗I enjoyed Arrival and recently learned that the movie was based off a short story by Ted Chiang, "Stories of Your Life And Others". I recently read his other book, "Exhalation" and wholeheartedly recommend it.
on “Arrival's Designers Crafted a Mesmerizing Alien Alphabet” ↗You are working on a lot more cool things than I was when I was 17. Rock on! If you enjoyed "I, Robot" I recommend Ted Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others". The movie Arrival was based of one of the short stories in this collection.
on “Show HN: How did YOUR computer reach my server?” ↗