Fun fact: it got made into the film Arrival.
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Yes, I read it as part of a collection of his short stories. I enjoyed the philosophical conundrums in all of them.
That collection is great.
“Liking What You See: A Documentary” really stuck with me. I think about it a lot when I see what people have done to themselves due to Hollywood, marketing, beauty industry, instagram, TikTok, etc.
Apparently AMC has rights to make a series about that one. I haven’t heard anything about it for years.
Understand or Tower of Babylon were probably my favorites, after Story of Your Life. I loved the cat and mouse game towards the end of Understand, the shirt was such a brilliant concept. Limitless could have been so much better of a movie.
This is making me want to go back and read them again. They seem like the kind of stories I might get even more out of the second time around.
I think most of Chaing’s work really needs multiple reads. Especially Story of Your Life, because of obvious reasons. Having the context of the full picture makes the smaller aspects fuller.
I decided to watch Arrival tonight. It’s great so far! I’m glad they captured the sense of awe and uncertainty well. I’m about halfway through (intermission now - taking a snack break).
On that note, I completely recommend the second compilation of other short stories, Exhalation.
It’s amazing that he wrote these stories over decades, publishing them one at a time in sci-fi periodicals as an “amateur”. All the while he had a day job as a Technical Writer.
Many writer wrote short stories in periodicals while working on another job before they made it big.
Stephen King published many short stories while working in a laundromat and later as a teacher early in his career.
