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Stories of Your Life and Others

Written by: Ted Chiang
Narrated by: Abby Craden, Todd McLaren
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Publisher's Summary

This new edition of Ted Chiang's masterful first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, includes his first eight published stories. Combining the precision and scientific curiosity of Kim Stanley Robinson with Lorrie Moore's cool, clear love of language and narrative intricacy, this award-winning collection offers listeners the dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar.

Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change-the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens-while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story (the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival), a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection. A clever pastiche of news reports and interviews chronicles a college's initiative to "turn off" the human ability to recognize beauty in "Liking What You See: A Documentary." With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty and constant change, and also by beauty and wonder.

©2002 Ted Chiang (P)2014 Tantor
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What the critics say

"Chiang writes seldom, but his almost unfathomably wonderful stories tick away with the precision of a Swiss watch-and explode in your awareness with shocking, devastating force." ( Kirkus, Starred Review)

What listeners say about Stories of Your Life and Others

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyed most of the stories

loved the first story a lot and a few of the others. I would say "understand" and the final story both felt more like ideas than stories. I would say that's my largest issue with the book as a whole. It spends a lot of time explaining the idea to you so you understand the implications of what's going on, but I enjoyed most the stories which actually had things happening in them. "understand" was really a low point for me. it's so focused on the authors musings on the way someone who is gaining intelligence would think. it really fits I to the Ender's game style of sci Fi where the protagonist is a genius and is in a battle of mental wills with someone else, where they are both predicting each other's moves and we are reading about their thoughts that they have in 3 seconds over the course of a couple minutes of the recording. even though I mostly mentioned negatives I loved this book a lot and it had cool ideas.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Robotic performance

The female performer sounds so robotic that it ruined the experience. Not sure if it is a technical issue but it really ruined a good book.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant

I was turned onto this by my brother. I listen to a ton of Audiobooks (click on my name to see my Listener Page) and this is a legitimately great SciFi short compendium. Very intelligent stories incorporating strikingly clever Science Fiction ideas.

The reading (from multiple performers) is necessarily variable, but overall nearly flawless. This is a 10/10 production.

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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I read Liking What You See

I read "Liking What You See" for a required reading. It was so thought-provoking. I thought for sure I'd feel leaning more toward one direction on Cali, but I was left delightfully conflicted. Being able to see so many well-rounded perspectives enhanced the division within the plot--it made the debate and struggle realistic.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Bad narrators, pretty good stories

This short story collection features some really cool ideas but the two middling narrators make most of them feel like a soulless slog.

Stick with the physical copy, if anything.

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