Taking Things Literally
Feb. 13th, 2007 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselDec 2006
Stories of your Life and Others - Ted Chiang - Tor, 2002
* * * * *
Even if you are an SF aficionado, the chances are that you will not have heard of Ted Chiang. Which is odd, really, because he has been writing for over fifteen years and has won pretty much every prize going in the field including the Hugo - three times - and the Nebula. There are two reasons for this lack of recognition. One is that he is an incredibly slow writer - his entire published opus to date consists of this one book. The other is that he writes in that most difficult of fictional forms, the short story.
Well, not short short stories, the ones that manage to pack an emotional punch in a dozen pages or less. Ray Bradbury is still the master of those. No, these are classic SF tales in which a what-if premise is introduced and logically developed to a satisfying conclusion in a minimum of spare and elegant prose. Chiang is very much a tale-teller in the Asimovian mode rather than a stylist like William Gibson. His style is cool and clear, but still manages to induce feelings in the reader. The only noticeable flaw - common to many short stories - is that the dialogue can come across as stilted when it is trying both to explain concepts and to elaborate character.
The joy of these tales is in how Chiang describes and develops his often fairly banal what-ifs in ways that are logical, surprising and affecting. The nearest equivalent I can think of is the manner in which Beethoven develops the usually trite opening themes of his music. The stories are very varied but can be classified into two main categories. The first is the examination of the effects of medical or intellectual transformations on human personalities or relationships. For example, “Understanding” takes the old concept of a person developing super-intelligence as a side-effect of an experimental treatment for brain damage and runs with it, while in “Story of Your Life” the narrator finds that her attempts to understand an alien language result in a whole new way of looking at the world which intriguingly solves the old problem of how human free will can exist (or appear to exist) in a deterministic universe.
The other category of stories derive from taking religious concepts literally and contains my two personal favourites, “Tower of Babylon” and “Hell is the Absence of God”. The former is based on the Genesis story and describes the experiences of a group of miners who are travelling up a tower that stretches from the earth to the sky in order to tunnel their way in to heaven and thereby create a direct connection with God. The gradual unfolding of the strange alternate world where this is possible is brilliantly handled and the ending, which on the face of it can only be a disappointment with such an epic destination, is clever and effective.
“Hell is the Absence of God” starts from a literal reading of the more knuckle-headed Book of Revelation-inspired Christian fundamentalist texts and is a sharp satire based on the hilariously blasphemous idea of support groups for victims of the dreadful physical effects of angelic visitations (earthquakes, tornadoes, tidal waves etc). It also tackles a recurring obsession of mine, which is the logical disconnect present in the majority interpretations of all the major monotheistic religions between the idea of God as loving, just, good or merciful and the idea of God as sole creator of a physical universe which manifestly isn't. As Chiang puts it, “if they wish to love [a creator] God, they [must] be prepared to do so no matter what His intentions. God is not just, God is not kind, God is not merciful, and understanding that is essential to true devotion.”
Chiang’s explorations of the worlds created by taking philosophical systems literally and the human transformations resulting from technological development or encounters with new world views are the essence of what science fiction is all about, and anyone with an interest in such ideas is strongly recommended to read this book. Chiang has been quiet for the past five years, but I notice that a new book by him (The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate) is mentioned on Amazon, presumably his long-awaited first novel. Hopefully it will bring him the recognition he deserves, and I for one will be looking out for it.
Stories of your Life and Others - Ted Chiang - Tor, 2002
* * * * *
Even if you are an SF aficionado, the chances are that you will not have heard of Ted Chiang. Which is odd, really, because he has been writing for over fifteen years and has won pretty much every prize going in the field including the Hugo - three times - and the Nebula. There are two reasons for this lack of recognition. One is that he is an incredibly slow writer - his entire published opus to date consists of this one book. The other is that he writes in that most difficult of fictional forms, the short story.
Well, not short short stories, the ones that manage to pack an emotional punch in a dozen pages or less. Ray Bradbury is still the master of those. No, these are classic SF tales in which a what-if premise is introduced and logically developed to a satisfying conclusion in a minimum of spare and elegant prose. Chiang is very much a tale-teller in the Asimovian mode rather than a stylist like William Gibson. His style is cool and clear, but still manages to induce feelings in the reader. The only noticeable flaw - common to many short stories - is that the dialogue can come across as stilted when it is trying both to explain concepts and to elaborate character.
The joy of these tales is in how Chiang describes and develops his often fairly banal what-ifs in ways that are logical, surprising and affecting. The nearest equivalent I can think of is the manner in which Beethoven develops the usually trite opening themes of his music. The stories are very varied but can be classified into two main categories. The first is the examination of the effects of medical or intellectual transformations on human personalities or relationships. For example, “Understanding” takes the old concept of a person developing super-intelligence as a side-effect of an experimental treatment for brain damage and runs with it, while in “Story of Your Life” the narrator finds that her attempts to understand an alien language result in a whole new way of looking at the world which intriguingly solves the old problem of how human free will can exist (or appear to exist) in a deterministic universe.
The other category of stories derive from taking religious concepts literally and contains my two personal favourites, “Tower of Babylon” and “Hell is the Absence of God”. The former is based on the Genesis story and describes the experiences of a group of miners who are travelling up a tower that stretches from the earth to the sky in order to tunnel their way in to heaven and thereby create a direct connection with God. The gradual unfolding of the strange alternate world where this is possible is brilliantly handled and the ending, which on the face of it can only be a disappointment with such an epic destination, is clever and effective.
“Hell is the Absence of God” starts from a literal reading of the more knuckle-headed Book of Revelation-inspired Christian fundamentalist texts and is a sharp satire based on the hilariously blasphemous idea of support groups for victims of the dreadful physical effects of angelic visitations (earthquakes, tornadoes, tidal waves etc). It also tackles a recurring obsession of mine, which is the logical disconnect present in the majority interpretations of all the major monotheistic religions between the idea of God as loving, just, good or merciful and the idea of God as sole creator of a physical universe which manifestly isn't. As Chiang puts it, “if they wish to love [a creator] God, they [must] be prepared to do so no matter what His intentions. God is not just, God is not kind, God is not merciful, and understanding that is essential to true devotion.”
Chiang’s explorations of the worlds created by taking philosophical systems literally and the human transformations resulting from technological development or encounters with new world views are the essence of what science fiction is all about, and anyone with an interest in such ideas is strongly recommended to read this book. Chiang has been quiet for the past five years, but I notice that a new book by him (The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate) is mentioned on Amazon, presumably his long-awaited first novel. Hopefully it will bring him the recognition he deserves, and I for one will be looking out for it.