The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
by Ted Chiang · first published 2007
73% recommend27% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short time-travel story set in a storytelling-style past that stays meaningful and avoids paradox, with beautiful prose and themes of guilt and repentance. Suits readers who like idea-driven fiction.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
This story concerns a Baghdad merchant. Mr. Chiang says the story was inspired in part by the work of physicist Kip Thorne. (forward in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
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Another favorite Ted Chiang short story: "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate". To me, it's one of the few stories that manage to incorporate time travel and still have it be meaningful while avoiding paradoxes.
on ““Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (2008)” ↗Ted Chiang's "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" novella was read (by J.J. Campanella) on Starship Sofa back in 2008, it is one of the best things I've read/listened: http://www.starshipsofa.com/2008/03/23/aural-delights-no-15-... "Understand" is…
on “Understand - A novelette by Ted Chiang” ↗The novella "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is a great longer Ted Chiang piece, hard to find nowadays but Starship Sofa did an audiobook reading of it (starts at about 2:03 mark): http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2008/03/23/aural-delights-n...…
on “"Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang [pdf]” ↗I would pay a ridiculous amount of money for a Ted Chiang novel - "Story of Your Life" is one of the greatest short stories I have ever read, and others like "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" are spectacular as well.
on “Understand - A novelette by Ted Chiang” ↗I recommend "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang! An excellent sci-fi story set in the past that explores themes of guilt and repentance.
on “Ask HN: What's the most thought provoking short story you've read?” ↗While also not quite what you asked for, Ted Chiang's short story "What's Expected of Us" deals with some of the emotional issues of determinism. Oh, and his "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is a stylistically beautiful exploration of people intertwined through time travel.
on “Paradox-free time travel is theoretically possible” ↗Ted Chiang wrote an excellent novelette about this, called "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (published in his book "Exhalation").
on “Novikov Self-Consistency Principle” ↗For an excellent story on this theme you can read Ted Chiang’s “ The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_and_the_Alchemi.... I think it’s one his best.
on “The past is not true” ↗…read both collections after, like others, getting introduced to Ted Chiang because of Arrival, and both rank highly among my favorites. Chiang can write some beautiful prose (best exemplified by "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate") and excels at taking a single interesting idea and taking it somewhere fascinating. With very few exceptions, his stories don't have real characters - they're just named tools to express ideas - but…
on “Ted Chiang has won the PEN/Faulkner Foundation's short story prize” ↗If you liked that story, you should really read the full anthology, called Exhalation. Ted Chiang is a wonderful writer, and there are a lot of great stories in that book. I think my favorite was The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate.
on “Design and evaluation of a parrot-to-parrot video-calling system (2023)” ↗Ted Chiang's "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" does this pretty well. It's a fun read (and short).
on “Time travel is self-suppressing” ↗The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate is by far my favourite of all Chiang's stories. It is always great intellectual pleasure to read them, however sometimes I find his writing style a bit dry and I don't get so involved emotionally as with…
on “Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing” ↗'Exhalation' is a revelation, and reminded me how good fiction could be. The first story in the collection, 'The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate', instantly rose to the top of my all time favorite short stories.
on “Ask HN: What is the best book you read in 2020?” ↗I loves his new collection of a short stories, some are better than others, but overall there are a ton of unique ideas on display. The Merchant and The Alchemist's Gate is such a great time travel story in particular. I didn't enjoy the one about digital creatures (it went on for way too long!) or the one about the child-bearing device.
on “Ted Chiang: Realist of a Larger Reality” ↗The first story though, in Exhalation, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", is one of my favorites. It's also available standalone.
on “A parrot has a question for humans” ↗