Book Review: Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

This book contains several short stories of speculative science fiction that focus on the personal impact of the imagined technologies. The back of the book has some short notes about what inspired Chiang to write each story, which helps to give insight into the stories. Here's a bunch of mini-reviews:

1. The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate--Abbas is a merchant in Middle Ages Arabia who comes upon a shop with truly unique objects. The shop owner explains how he got the objects. He's crafted the Alchemist's Gate, which allows him to travel into the future or the past (depending on which way he goes through the gate). He has allowed others to use the gate. Abbas tells the stories of a few people who have used the gate, including his own story. The entire story is like The Arabian Nights, with a main storyteller who gives several interrelated stories. Time travel is a tricky topic to deal with--everyone wants to go into the past and change things. That's not possible here, though people do learn and grow through their time travel experiences. It's rare to find a good and consistent time travel story that doesn't fall down into ridiculous paradoxes but Chiang has done it here. Even better, the story shows a lot of human need and satisfaction that naturally result from the tales told. This is one of the best time travel stories I've ever read.

2. Exhalation--In a seemingly robotic society, a scientist dissects his own brain to discover why a time discrepancy has cropped up all over his world. People are thinking slower. This society is powered by air pressure, using a high-pressure pocket of air in the planet's crust to power people. The problem is the eventual equalization of pressure between the atmosphere and the pocket below. The scientists foresees the doom of their reality. The story is less about the mechanics of the end and more about the meaningfulness of life for the in-story author. I found the story more interesting than compelling.

3. What's Expected of Us--A warning from the near future tells about the ultimate let-down: A new toy on the market will prove experientially that free will does not exist. I read this story as a bit of comedic nonsense, but judging by the notes the author takes it more seriously (but not too seriously--he was inspired by a Monty Python skit, after all).

4. The Lifecycle of Software Objects--reviewed in depth here.

5. Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny--A Victorian-era scientist named Dacey decides to make a mechanical nanny when he discovers that human nannies do not fit his ideal for child raising. The product is immensely popular for six months until one of the robo-nannies accidentally kills an infant. Then everyone throws away their mechanical nannies. Years later, Dacey's son gets one of the automata and tries the experiment again on an adopted child. The story is a creative and thoughtful way to explore parenting issues.

6. The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling--A journalist tries to write a story about how terrible a new technology is. Remem will use people's lifelog (a video recording of everything they've ever witnessed) to search for the video footage related to memories of past events. The Remem story is paralleled with one about a South Pacific islander learning from a missionary how to write and the impact of writing on the islander's life. Chiang has the journalist look at the situation from so many angles that he gives the reader a lot to think about, agree with, and disagree with. The conclusion doesn't so much resolve these issues, rather it asks the reader to be aware of the issues. Awareness is enough to push us into being better people.

7. The Great Silence--This isn't so much a story as a bunch of related commentaries from a parrot's perspective. The parrot is musing on the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico, which is a massive human project to contact other intelligent species in outer space. The parrot laments humanity's lack of interest in parrots as an intelligent species. The parrot also laments the possible loss of parrot culture as they face extinction, especially as the telescope displaces their natural habitat. Like "What's Expected of Us," this could easily be interpreted as a parody of human self-importance and fear of extinction but Chiang is able to give a surprising amount of pathos to the parrot.

8. Omphalos--An archeologist lives on an alternate Earth where all the physical scientific evidence points to the Earth being only six thousand years or so old. In this world, science still goes by the old-fashioned name Natural Philosophy and it works hand in hand with belief in God. For the most part. An unusual set of circumstances leads her to an unpublished but sure to be controversial astronomy paper. The sky doesn't have many stars (due to the six thousand year-old universe) but the article describes astronomical guesswork about another observed planet where intelligent life might exist and might even predate life on their Earth. Or worse, that life might be more important than life on their Earth. Either way, belief in God is clearly in jeopardy. This story brings up a lot of interesting ideas and discussion points but is unsatisfying in itself.

9. Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom--People use a new technology called "prisms" that not only generates a parallel reality but also enables the owner to communicate with their "paraself" in the other reality. The other reality is altered on a quantum level at first. The changes bloom rather quickly generating more substantial differences between the para-realities. As with all technology, at first it is too expensive for regular people to own. Eventually the prices drop and private companies offer access to prisms, including buying and selling of prisms. Nat and Morrow work at one company. They both come from questionable pasts, though Morrow is more of a hustler than Nat. Morrow schemes to make money off the prisms in very questionable ways. These schemes create the drama of the story just as much as the prisms do. The story is another meditation on free will, this time looked at with regard to parallel worlds where other selves may or may not take the same actions. The story is more convincing in its human drama than in its scientific exegesis. I enjoyed it.

Overall, I found these stories thought-provoking and interesting, even when I didn't agree with them. Chiang has a very creative and very humane way of writing. The people seem like real people and they deal with situations in believable ways. I will probably read more from him in the future.

Some of the stories are discussed on Episode 216 of A Good Story is Hard to Find.