
"Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang [pdf] - gwern
http://www.ime.usp.br/~jstern/miscellanea/General/Chiang98.pdf
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impostervt
I highly recommend his collection, "Story of your Life, and others". Probably
the best SF collection by a single author I've ever read.

[http://amzn.com/1931520720](http://amzn.com/1931520720)

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huxley
The novella "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is a great longer Ted
Chiang piece, hard to find nowadays but Starship Sofa did an audiobook reading
of it (starts at about 2:03 mark):

[http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2008/03/23/aural-
delights-n...](http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2008/03/23/aural-delights-
no-15-ted-chiang/)

They also did a good one of "Exhalation":

[http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2009/02/27/starshipsofa-
bsf...](http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2009/02/27/starshipsofa-bsfa-
nominee-2008-ted-chiang/)

[got a 404 on Exhalation but found it on Escape Pod:
[http://escapepod.org/2009/04/10/ep194-exhalation/](http://escapepod.org/2009/04/10/ep194-exhalation/)
]

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gommm
Thank you, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate was really enjoyable. I found
it on archive.org
[http://web.archive.org/web/20080214145811/http://www.sfsite....](http://web.archive.org/web/20080214145811/http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/fiction/tc01.htm)

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osipovas
My personal favourite by Ted Chiang is The Lifecycle of Software Objects. I'm
certain a technology paralleling the digients will arrive.

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mercurial
It just blew my mind. It's well written, and one of these thought-provoking
pieces you keep thinking about for quite a while. In a very different setting,
but still bubbling with interesting ideas, consider Blindsight [1] by Peter
Watts. It's available for free online (CC-licensed) and well worth your time.

1:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_\(Watts_novel\))

~~~
cmnzs
I also thoroughly enjoyed Blindsight. Truly a book that keeps you thinking.

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musesum
Funny, I read Software Objects, after Blindsight. Is there some kinda
speculative fiction digraph that we're all following? My reading graph was
build via Goodreads.

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moyix
You might also enjoy Greg Egan, particularly something like Diaspora. Or if
you're in the mood for short stories, the collection "Axiomatic" is chock-full
of fantastic ideas.

Edit: Just noticed Axiomatic is available in Kindle format for $3 USD, which
is well worth it for 18 amazing stories:
[http://amzn.com/B00FDWOBZA](http://amzn.com/B00FDWOBZA)

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gwern
See also: Lagrangians, the Principle of Least Action, Greg Egan's "Infinite
Assassins", and _Qualia the Purple_

~~~
edanm
Could you perhaps give links to these? Some of them don't easily come up with
a quick Google search.

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networkjester
I loved "Understand" by Ted Chiang; thanks for sharing this one!

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packetslave
Hmm, a PDF hosted on a random personal web site at a University in Brazil.
Seems legit.

Can we please not post links to stolen (presumably-)copyrighted materials
here?

If you'd like to compensate the author, consider buying the collection it's
published in: [http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-
Chiang/dp/193...](http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-
Chiang/dp/1931520720)

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crapshoot101
Story of Your Life is one of the greatest short stories I've ever read. I
don't think there's an author in sci-fi who I hope writes a full length novel
more than Chiang.

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hammadfauz
The Heptapods in the story, they're 'right-brain' thinkers! Brilliant story.

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dgabriel
I cried like a baby when I read this.

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Aloha
holishitwow.

That was really good.

