
“Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (2008) - monort
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/
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imh
Having just watched Black Mirror and Westworld, I was totally bummed about how
much near-future sci-fi is so goddamned depressing. Yesterday I decided to
reread a story I love, "The Lifecycle of Software Objects," coincidentally
also by Ted Chiang. It's a nice AI story that you can get through in one
sitting. Highly recommend.

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

~~~
wyager
That might be my favorite Ted Chiang story overall. Unfortunately Hollywood
couldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, so I'm not expecting a movie out of it
any time soon. His biblical fiction is quite good as well, and I could see
them getting movie adaptations.

~~~
bangonkeyboard
I'm not sure that "Lifecycle" is less palatable to mainstream Hollywood than
"Hell Is the Absence of God", but would be thrilled to be wrong.

~~~
wyager
I think Absence could be done as a cool horror movie, kind of like Legion but
not shitty and more existential.

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AceJohnny2
First story by Chiang I read years ago, and loved it. Took me a while to
remember who it was by when I looked for it again later.

I assume it's coming up because the movie Arrival [1] is based on Chiang's
"Story of you Life" [2]?

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Your_Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Your_Life)

~~~
huxley
A sizeable contingent of Hacker News readers love Ted Chiang's stuff so it's
not uncommon for links to his stories to surface on HN from time to time, but
I think you're correct that Arrival's success has revived interest in his
older stuff.

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j_s
Futher discussion just over a week ago, where _Exhalation_ was called "one of
the best SF stories ever written", and several other recommendations were
made:

Ted Chiang on Seeing His Stories Adapted and the Ever-Expanding Popularity of
SF

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13053377](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13053377)

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gumby
A friend just gave me a book of TC stories and I'm really enjoying them!

Arrival was, well it was a Hollywood movie, but I was so glad to see linguists
in a film I had to see it and enjoy it.

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StavrosK
The site is down for me, here's a mirror:

[https://www.pastery.net/skwyyr/](https://www.pastery.net/skwyyr/)

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quanticle
Another favorite Ted Chiang short story: "The Merchant and the Alchemist's
Gate". To me, it's one of the few stories that manage to incorporate time
travel and still have it be meaningful while avoiding paradoxes.

~~~
bangonkeyboard
What's great is that it's a straight sci-fi story that could be dropped into
the Zipes adaptation of One Thousand and One Nights and none would be the
wiser.

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ajmurmann
This is one of my favorite short stories and such a fantastic metaphor for
climate change.

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wyager
I think you may have not entirely understood where he was going with that.
It's a metaphor for entropy. It's actually a much more poignant and beautiful
topic than something as short-term and universally inconsequential as climate
change on earth.

~~~
syncsynchalt
Also a metaphor for the Simulation Hypothesis!

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stared
Ted Chiang's stories on Kindle (including "Exhalation", "The Merchant and the
Alchemist's Gate" and "The Lifecycle of Software Objects"), if on-screen
reading is tiresome:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbhdyer9qfpexcm/Stories%20accessib...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbhdyer9qfpexcm/Stories%20accessible%20online%20-%20Ted%20Chiang.mobi?dl=1)

