Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang

Alfred A. Knopf, 2019

ISBN 978-1-101-94788-3

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

The answers to some of the most intriguing questions about human thought and behavior are so complex that they have remained central to storytelling for hundreds of years. Ted Chiang’s Exhalation is a fascinating collection of science fiction short stories that raises many ideas related to these questions through thought-plots, reporter-narrators, and both ancient and modern elements of storytelling.

Chiang’s ability to spark the imagination and engage the reader in deep thought leads to entertainment of the highest order. The opening story, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” is reminiscent of the Arabian Nights and tells overlapping tales of time travel that show the interconnectedness of people’s stories with a surprising twist on the definition of alchemy. The title story “Exhalation” and “Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny” focus on the human elements of robots and machines and what they share with their human creators. Readers are introduced to a robot society about to be extinguished as the narrator ponders the end of time and to the creator of a mechanical nanny who hopes to raise rational children by eliminating the emotional aspects of child rearing. “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” the longest story, engages the reader in the lives of digital entities and their owners, including discussions about setting emotional boundaries for these “digients,” parental strategies for the owners, and determining digients’ maturity and readiness for certain experiences.

Two other stories show characters reflecting on the serious developments in life that have come about through technological innovation. “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling” considers the negative effects of assistive technology on people who have access to videos of their entire life. In a parallel plot line in the same story, a character from Tivland is being taught to write for the first time and struggles with the contrast between the culture’s prized oral tradition and their doubts about the quality and truth of written stories. “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom” takes a look at paraselves who can be contacted for a limited time through prisms and suggests the fallout that might occur if we see our lives lived out in other versions that might not conform to our picture of ourselves. The examination of truth in storytelling continues in “Omphalos” in which an archaeologist who examines the first creations of God, trees without rings and mummies without bellybuttons, defines science as a search for truth and purpose but develops doubts that lead to a crisis of faith. Finally, in “The Great Silence,” the narrator reflects on the divine as it manifests in sound or the loss of sound that is the extinction of a species. Interestingly, it is a parrot that points out the human process leading to greatness as a creative force originating in myths, imagination, and aspirations.

This collection of stories is so effective because it taps into what is familiar and applies it to what is unfamiliar, thus revealing the layers of thought which are at work in any human endeavor but particularly in those involving science and what Chiang calls the “technology of writing.” The stories are a goldmine of allusions to scientific, literary, and religious thought such that the more a reader can bring to them, the richer the experience of reading. By bringing the craftsmanship and truth that he writes about to his own storytelling, Ted Chiang creates a collection that deserves to be read more than once. Highly recommended

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Editor’s note:  Exhalation: Stories was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection.