Some excellent stories. "Understand" was riveting, the build up and philosophical considerations such fun to read. The eponymous story is what Arrival was based on, the story being infinitely more complex—how can we communicate? With each other? Our children? The other? The alien? Really wonderful. Hell is the Absence of God was a fascinating more radical, or maybe just more committed, Book of Job. Excellent writer.

Short stories, of course some better than others. The best few were great — Hell Is the Absence of God, Story of your Life, particularly. But most were worth my time. ( )

2.72 stars/average per story

Tower of Babylon 2.5
A fictional reimagining of the Tower of Babel, had God not mixed up the languages of the people on earth. The author wrote as if all humans are righteous and have pure motives. I really wasn’t all that interested in this one, but I kept reading because I wanted to see how the author would treat the Biblical account.

Understand 4.75
My favorite in the whole book, most of this story is pretty much my dream reality, about artificially increasing the body’s capacity to think, understand, reason. Sadly, there were many instances of my Lord’s name used flippanty, so I had to knock down the rating a tiny amount.

Division by Zero 1.5
There are several instances of profanity, the topic isn’t terribly interesting, and divorce is justified due to illness. Ugh.

Story of Your Life 3.5
The story that inspired the movie The Arrival, one of my favorites. I liked the movie better than the book, at the end of the day, but this is still good. Plus, it was fun to see how different and alike the book and adaptation were.

Seventy-Two Letters 2.5
Somewhat interesting to read, but the religious/Biblical references that have been twisted did not sit well with me.

The Evolution of Human Science 1.5 I know from my notes that this is about two very different races in the future, and that I wished it had been longer, with more thought-provoking content... but I honestly can’t remember anything about it.

Hell Is the Absence of God 1.0
In this story, Chiang envisions a world where people can see where there loved ones go after death - heaven or hell, angels cause more problems than not, God is not merciful, just, loving, or anything Good. This was the most spiritually offensive piece of the bunch.

Liking What You See: A Documentary 4.5
One of my favorites, about a technology that makes it possible for people to have a less-pronounced reaction to physical beauty. I like how Chiang looked at this issue from multiple, truly diverse, perspectives. ( )

4 - Tower of Babylon
The ending was kind of forseeable, but this kind of sciencefiction-mindbendyness in this kind of setting was very nice.

3 - Understand
This story was just too short I think. Because everything went so quick I got the feeling that the absurd amount of interesting twists just kind of got lost in the pace.

3 - Division by Zero
Very interesting idea, I just wish Chiang had taken in further into the real world.

5 - Story of Your Life
This story illustrates the brilliance of Ted Chiang. He takes mindbendyness one step further and puts it in a very emotionally gripping story without being pretentious or unbelievable.

3 - Seventy-Two Letters
I like the point Chiang was making here, I just didn't really like the story he put it in.

4 - The Evolution of Human Science
Again, too short for my tastes, but this time not because it felt incomplete but because I would have liked to read more of it.

5 - Hell Is the Absence of God
I remember grinning a lot during my read of this story. The idea of this story is just so wonderfully out-there and it was beautifully executed. The deeply personal approach was exactly what this story needed.

5 - Liking What You See: A Documentary
I don't think this was the best story in the bundle, but it really resonated with me. It made something which I kind of already felt and made it very clear and in-your/my-face. Also the format is very innovative. ( )

The eponymous story is quite good. Many of the rest are more sketches ( )