Book Review: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sometimes you need to read something that stretches you. Or at least, I do. Because reading is such a vital part of my life, and something to which I give such a large portion of my time, I try to read things on occasion that push me to think outside of myself. It’s been a long while since I found a book that did that as successfully as Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others. I felt as if I were trying to keep my head above water the entire time I was reading it, but in the best way possible. Chiang raises some truly profound moral, theological, and philosophical questions, and he does so in a way that doesn’t lead you to any specific conclusion. Sometimes it’s enough to think and to question, and Chiang’s stories give readers the freedom to do just that. It was completely unclear what type of worldview he was writing from, which I actually loved. More than one of these stories had some heavy religious connotations, but felt neither like proselytization or a subtle ridicule of believers. That is a very difficult balance to strike in one story, let along an entire collection. I am in awe of Chiang’s mind, and was equally awed by every single story housed in this book. …