Before I started my internship at Tor I had never even heard of Ted Chiang. Then, one day at work, while I was complaining about the paucity of literary science fiction, one of the staffers rolled off a list of names I should check out.
Properly chastened, I did indeed check out some of those names.
A few days later, that staffer handed me a collection of short stories. Underneath the author's name was the impressive accolade of 'Two-Time Nebula Award Winner'. For those not into sci-fi, the Nebula, along with the Hugo, is one of the highest awards given to sci-fi writers. Collectively, the Nebula and Hugo are like the Golden Globes and Oscars of sci-fi and fantasy.
So I took the book home, shelved it between some other books I hadn't read yet, and continued reading John Scalzi's "The Android's Dream".
After finishing that and "The Martian Child", I started reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Ghostlight". I did not, and do not, like what I've read to date. So I put it aside, and, skimming the books I hadn't read yet, started the staffer's gift.
The collection is called "Stories of Your Life and Others". It contains eight short stories, including Chiang's first published work, "Tower of Babylon", which opens the collection. I liked "Tower of Babylon". The writing was assured, the story was great, and the style and substance of the piece worked together. Often you read something that doesn't seem written right - the story is great, and the writing is great, but the structure just doesn't seem to fit. I'm thinking specifically of last year's collection of "Best American Short Stories", which featured far too many 'slice of life' stories written exactly like that - beginning on one day and continuing chronologically, and ending on another day - without giving consideration to the topical content of the story.
But this was not the case with "Tower of Babylon". The story is about a group of men who build the tower, spending decades so that they can break through the literal vault of heaven. As for the form of the story, it begins with detailed descriptions of closely-spaced days, then widens to generally cover long expanses of time. Then, as the men reach the vault, the description narrows to closely-spaced days again. This perfectly captured the experience of such an endeavor, I thought.
But while I liked "Tower of Babylon", I wasn't completely sold. The writing was assured, but there wasn't a musicality to it. In the best writing, I think, you can hear music in the way the words are put together; sentences transcend grammar and punctuation and general clumsiness, and almost achieve the dimensions and sinuosity of feelings. I felt that way while reading "The Line of Beauty", and also "A Home at the End of World". I didn't feel that while reading "Tower of Babylon".
But I did while reading "Understand".
The second story of the collection, "Understand" is about a man who receives a life-changing injection. I don't want to spoil the plot, because everything that happens after that is part of the sickening beauty of the story, and in any case is not what this post is about. What really knocked me over was the way the story is told. How the words flow into one another, and how each sentence fits into the whole. And the final revelation of the story's title, how perfectly that is written.
After reading "Understand", I was completely sold.
There will always be people that I admire but don't really get. I admire Robert Jordan, but reading "The Wheel of Time" is like listening to disjointed machinery. Ted Chiang, on the other hand... I believe I am a convert.
And now, to end this post, an edited blurb for "Stories of Your Life and Others":
"...What if men built a tower from Earth to Heaven - and broke through to Heaven's other side? What if we discovered that the fundamentals of mathematics were arbitrary and inconsistent? What if there were a science to naming things that calls life into being from inanimate matter? What if exposure to an alien language forever changed our perception of time? What if all the beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity were literally true, and the sight of sinners being swallowed into pits were a routine event on city streets?"
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