Stories of Your Life and Others # SSC (Vintage)

Includes "Story of Your Life" the basis for the major motion picture Arrival , starring Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker, Jeremy Renner, and directed by Denis Villeneuve. "Shining, haunting, mind-blowing tales . . . Ted Chiang is so exhilarating, so original, so stylish he just leaves you speechless." —Junot Díaz Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic. 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--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 of 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 fiery pits were a routine event on city streets? These are the kinds of outrageous questions posed by the stories of Ted Chiang. Stories of your life . . . and others. "Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of masterpieces and recently it has taken Hollywood by storm. The lead story in the collection will soon to be a major motion picture starring Amy Adams, while another story has been optioned by Fox and is in development. Offering readers the dual delights of the very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change. In the amazing and much-lauded "Story of Your Life," a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her new knowledge of an alien language and its nonlinear structure. In "Liking What You See: A Documentary," a clever pastiche of news reports and interviews chronicle a college's initiative to turn off the human ability to recognize beauty. In "Understand," a young man has an amazing reaction to an experimental drug used to heal brain damage. In each story, with sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by wonder"-- Provided by publisher "Soon to be a major motion picture starring Amy Adams. Combining the precision and scientific curiosity of Kim Stanley Robinson with Lorrie Moore's cool, clear love of language and narrative intricacy, this award-winning collection offers readers the dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar. Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change--the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens--while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story, a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection. A clever pastiche of news reports and interviews chronicles a college's initiative to "turn off" the human ability to recognize beauty in "Liking What You See: A Documentary." With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty and constant change, and also by beauty and wonder"-- Provided by publisher From the author of Exhalation , an award-winning short story collection that blends "absorbing storytelling with meditations on the universe, being, time and space ... raises questions about the nature of reality and what it is to be human" ( The New York Times). Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic. Includes “Story of Your Life”—the basis for the major motion picture Arrival Ted Chiang's first published story, "Tower of Babylon," won the Nebula Award for 1990. Now, collected for the first time, are all seven of this extraordinary writer's extraordinary stories--plus a new story written especially for this volume One of the best short story collections of the last ten years, back in print in a new edition