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Exhalation is a book of short speculative-fiction stories by Ted Chiang. The tales in this collection run the gamut from an Arabian Nights-style time travel story to automotons discovering the true meaning of entropy to examinations on how we might treat artificial life.
The thing that seems to bind all of these stories together is that there is no connective tissue between them. Each stands on its own, isolated from the whole, forcing the reader each time to adjust their orientation with the text -- which can be quite a feat, since many of the stories are captivating and draw you in with interesting and thought provoking world-building. I found it important to give myself a pause to breathe between each tale so I could appreciate both the one I'd just read and also adapt to the next in the sequence.
Many but not all of the stories include an O Henry style twist, and much like William Sydney Porter's endings, these twists are not simple gotchas but instead are the point to which the story has been leading inevitably when looked at with the gift of hindsight. It's important to note that some stories don't really have a traditional ending; these tales simply stop when the story is told. I found this a touch jarring because I wanted to continue to dwell in the world that had been created, but each time this happened I did have to concede that the piece was stronger for not continuing (perhaps with the exception of "The Lifecycle of Software Object" which I felt left an unmined ending on the table).
If you feel like some science fiction with a philosophical bent, I recommend Exhalation. It won't be for everyone, but then again, what book is?
The thing that seems to bind all of these stories together is that there is no connective tissue between them. Each stands on its own, isolated from the whole, forcing the reader each time to adjust their orientation with the text -- which can be quite a feat, since many of the stories are captivating and draw you in with interesting and thought provoking world-building. I found it important to give myself a pause to breathe between each tale so I could appreciate both the one I'd just read and also adapt to the next in the sequence.
Many but not all of the stories include an O Henry style twist, and much like William Sydney Porter's endings, these twists are not simple gotchas but instead are the point to which the story has been leading inevitably when looked at with the gift of hindsight. It's important to note that some stories don't really have a traditional ending; these tales simply stop when the story is told. I found this a touch jarring because I wanted to continue to dwell in the world that had been created, but each time this happened I did have to concede that the piece was stronger for not continuing (perhaps with the exception of "The Lifecycle of Software Object" which I felt left an unmined ending on the table).
If you feel like some science fiction with a philosophical bent, I recommend Exhalation. It won't be for everyone, but then again, what book is?
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