
Ted Chiang on Seeing His Stories Adapted and the Ever-Expanding Popularity of SF - curtis
https://electricliterature.com/the-legendary-ted-chiang-on-seeing-his-stories-adapted-for-the-screen-and-the-ever-expanding-916a9530e598
======
curtis
One of the things that Ted Chiang talks about is the adaptation of James
Ellroy's novel _L.A. Confidential_ to the film of the same name:

 _If I had read the novel first, I would have said it was impossible to adapt
into a movie. But what the screenwriters did was take the protagonists of the
novel and construct a completely new plot in which those characters could play
the same basic roles. The resulting movie is faithful to the spirit of the
novel even though it’s radically unfaithful to the text. That’s an approach
that would never have occurred to me; I think I’d be too reverent of the
original to adapt anything to film._

I think the challenges of adapting _Story of Your Life_ to film were
different, but it was certainly something I was thinking about when I walked
into the theater. I personally think they did a pretty good job, but I suppose
that depends on what you thought the essential part of _Story of Your Life_
was.

Now that I think about it, the movie _Ender 's Game_ was pretty faithful to
the source novel, but probably fell down as a movie because of it. It's
interesting to think about how that movie might have been better if it had
tried to be (as Chiang says of _L.A. Confidential_ ) "faithful to the spirit
of the novel" while playing faster and looser with the actual source material.

~~~
ghaff
You may be right about Ender's Game. I'm not sure what was exactly wrong with
it; I just found it flat and fairly uninteresting while the original novella
is one of the best.

Of course, it's tough in SF where there's always a loud contingent (of what is
your most natural constituency) over pretty much any deviations from a beloved
book. Yet, there are aspects to novels that don't translate well into film
and, in most cases, films need to simplify--dropping characters and
streamlining plots.

~~~
curtis
I think adapting the original _Ender 's Game_ novella rather than the novel
would have made a lot of sense and would have made for a much tighter movie. I
think there's just too much stuff in the full novel and trying to cram it all
into the film made it impossible to pace things well.

I've long been of the opinion that novella-length stories are the best match
for movie length (2-ish hours) adaptations and that novels usually just have
too much stuff for a faithful adaptation. The _Ender 's Game_ movie just
happens to be a really good recent example.

~~~
dTal
>I think adapting the original Ender's Game novella rather than the novel
would have made a lot of sense and would have made for a much tighter movie.

Was that not what they did? Having read the novella but not the novel, I don't
particularly remember any scenes I didn't recognise...

As to shorter stories being easier to adapt than longer ones, I have often
thought the same - though I would strengthen that to "short stories" rather
than "novellas", especially when it comes to sci-fi.

------
neves
This thread had 2 very good links to Chiang short stories:

[http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/](http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/)

[http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_...](http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_lifecycle_of_software_objects_by_ted_chiang)

Do you have any more good links to free Chiang stories?

~~~
nyolfen
Division by Zero:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantas...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/division/full/)

> A brilliant mathematician wrestles with the consequences of her
> earthshattering proof.

Understand:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infini...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm)

> An experimental treatment bestows a regular person with superintelligence,
> propelling him into a dangerous series of mindgames.

Story of Your Life:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy....](http://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy.objectis.net/prose/storyofyourlife)

> A talented linguist reflects on her life as she struggles to grasp the
> meaning of an alien language. Nebula Award (Best Novella). [ _this is the
> story the recent film_ Arrival _is based on_ ]

Seventy-Two Letters:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.com...](http://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.com/72ltrs.html)

> In a world where mystical scrolls impart animating power, a shocking
> discovery threatens to upend society.

Hell is the Absence of God:
[http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-
_Hell...](http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-
_Hell_Is_the_Absence_of_God.html)

> An unbeliever struggles with the question of faith when God is scientific
> fact and angels routinely visit the earth. Hugo, Locus, Nebula Awards (Best
> Novelette).

What's expected of us:
[http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/w...](http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/whats_expected.html)

> A simple time machine undermines the concept of free will, with disastrous
> consequences.

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregsto...](http://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?16,22867,22867)

> An ancient alchemist introduces a traveling merchant to a mysterious time-
> traveling gateway. Hugo, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette).

[I looted these from here, fixing the broken links I could and excluding the
ones I couldn't: [http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-
grandfathers-...](http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-
science-fiction) \-- there are a few more links in there, including some
essays.]

~~~
teraflop
I think "Seventy-Two Letters" might be of particular interest to the HN
audience. It's not that amazing in terms of literary merit (especially the way
it just just sort of fizzles out at the end) but it's based on a particularly
clever combination of ideas.

~~~
SonOfLilit
And if you liked it you might love Scott Alexanders short The Study of
Anglophysics[1] and his web serial Unsong[2]

[1] [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/03/the-study-of-
anglophysi...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/03/the-study-of-
anglophysics/) [2] [https://www.unsongbook.com](https://www.unsongbook.com)

------
mad44
EDIT: SPOILER alert for the sensitive gents

I read the "Story of Your Life", which Arrival was based on. It was a very
good read. I read it 2 hours in one breath. Here is a tongue-in-cheek review.

The aliens were using a declarative language. (The narrative calls it
teleological, but I like the programming language analogy.)
[https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=imperative+lang...](https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=imperative+language&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=declarative+language)

The linguist uses imperative language.
[https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=imperative+lang...](https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=imperative+language&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

At the end of the story, the linguistic sees the benefits of using
declarative/functional language and becomes a convert ;-)

~~~
ssivark
[SPOILER ALERT]

My interpretation of the duality was somewhat different. Human speech is
sequantial and the signal is transmitted as a time-series. On the other hand,
it seemed like the language used by the aliens was much more like a Wavelet
transformed [1] version of the time-series signal, where: The structure is
decomposed into coarse and fine details. The coarse details (forming the
backbone of the message) do not have a particular location in the sequential
representation. The finer details are placed at an appropriate position (the
sequential part is important).

I now wonder if there is a link between what I thought and what you pointed
out :-)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelet_transform#Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelet_transform#Principle)

------
joggery
_Exhalation_ is one of the best SF stories ever written:

[http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/](http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/)

(Somewhere out there is an audio version crisply and cerebrally voiced by Tom
Dheere.)

~~~
hentrep
I don't think this is the recording you refer to, but here is an audio version
of Exhalation:
[http://escapepod.org/2009/04/10/ep194-exhalation/](http://escapepod.org/2009/04/10/ep194-exhalation/)

~~~
joggery
Thank you! That's actually the one I meant.

(With apologies to Mr Dheere. I haven't heard his rendition.)

Ray Sizemore reads it in a detached manner (reminiscent of the Emergency
Medical Hologram in Star Trek _Voyager_ ) which is highly suited to the
material.

Consider: A monologue. No relationships. No sex. No strikingly new ideas.
Mostly expositional. Yet so darned good.

------
moyix
One little-known fact about Ted Chiang is that he also works as a technical
writer and has written documentation for Microsoft (on MSDN). If you've read
their C++ documentation, it's possible you've already read some of his work!

~~~
zeristor
Then perhaps he is the sort of person who reads HackerNews...

------
sanxiyn
Ted Chiang also wrote "The Lifecycle of Software Objects", where said objects
are sentient digital pets. The story is freely (and legally) available on the
web. Highly recommended.

~~~
quantumhobbit
Link for those like me that want to read it:
[http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_...](http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_lifecycle_of_software_objects_by_ted_chiang)

------
intrasight
I saw "Arrival" last night. I enjoyed it so much that I just purchased
"Stories of your Life and Others".

~~~
Analemma_
Same! People have been telling me for a while to read Ted Chiang and I kept
putting it off, but Arrival was good enough that I figured it was time to bump
him to the head of the queue. My brother says the short story is better than
the movie: same basic idea but without the intrusive Hollywood tropes, so I'm
looking forward to it.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
Thanks for this- I read "Understand" around the mid-'90s in a Greek
translation. I lost the copy of the magazine that it was printed in so I could
not remember the name of the author, besides the fact that it was Asian. I did
remember the story though and the title. I just had a look at Chiang's page on
wikipedia and found it there :)

------
wyager
If you're looking for similar stories, I think the ultimate trifecta of "whoa
dude" sci-fi authors is Ted Chiang, Charlie Stross, and Greg Egan. Chiang and
Egan are a bit more high-concept. One of my favorite things about Egan is that
a number of his "one big lie" sci-fi stories come with a list of scholarly
citations.

~~~
another
I would add Peter Watts.

We shouldn't restrict this club to authors that provide citations, but he does
satisfy that criterion as well.

------
Yhippa
Has anybody read _Story of Your Life_ and then seen _Arrival_? I'm curious to
know how close it is to the book before I shell out the dough to see it in the
theaters.

~~~
jessriedel
To expand on what others have said (spoilers):

The movie basically cuts physics completely out of the story (no principle of
least action, no diffraction), which makes the continuing presence of Ian
awkward since he doesn't have much to do. I thought this was disappointing but
inevitable; general audiences don't want a 20 minute physics lesson at the
theater.

Less understandable for me was that the film also eliminated any of the
functional interaction for how Louise (or any linguist) would go about
learning a previously unknown language by interacting with a native speaker.
All of the guess-and-check, experimental structure that goes into this lingual
interaction is gone from the film. The humans and aliens talk/grunt to each
other, look confused, and then Louise just periodically declares out loud that
she's figured things out. In the book, laymen can at least get a hint of how a
linguist (and physicist!) thinks and solves problems, but the audience learns
nothing like this in the film.

Finally, the film has unambiguous communication backwards in time, violating
the known laws of physics. I've talked to people say they saw this in the
original short story, but I think a careful reading shows that, though the
narrator adopts a framing of fatalism/predestination, none of the real-world
events described by the narrator actually require retro-causation. In the film
(spoiler!), Louise literally use memories of the future to figure out what
telephone number to dial.

Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren't as bad as they could be, but still
distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully one-
dimensional rude hawkish general who inexplicably wants to attack the enemy in
every situation?

~~~
curtis
_Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren 't as bad as they could be, but
still distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully
one-dimensional rude hawkish general who inexplicably wants to attack the
enemy in every situation?_

It's been a long time since I've read the short story, but to me the alien
contact part of the story wasn't really the primary point, it was primarily a
tool to tell the actual story.

However, in the movie adaptation, the alien contact story has been elevated in
importance to be co-equal with the, umm, other part of the story. I think
that's a reasonable thing for the movie adaptation to do.

The downside of the alien contact plot in the movie, is, as you say pretty
trope-y, but if you think of it as a plot device to get to the real meat of
the story, then maybe that's not such a big deal.

------
Animats
"Ever-expanding popularity of SF?"

If all the vampire/werewolf/zombie/paranormal/magic stuff was pulled out of
the SF section, SF would be much smaller. (More of that is in "Teen Paranormal
Romance", which at peak had six cases at the local Borders.) It's not that SF
is more popular, it's that its definition has broadened.

------
mad44
[SPOILER ALERT] If you found the ideas in this book about time and fate and
freewill, you will also enjoy TimeQuake by Kurt Vonnegut from 1997. Highly
recommended.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timequake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timequake)

------
mucker
I've only read Chiang's, "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" which was
up for a Hugo a few years ago. I voted against it since it was bland. Are any
of his other stories better?

------
waterphone
After decades of reading many authors who I love, Ted Chiang jumped right up
into the top few before I was even finished reading _Stories of Your Life and
Others_.

------
nullnilvoid
My first reaction of SF is San Francisco, not Science Fiction. Am I the only
here?

