Note: This was written for one of my final master’s program courses. It may not exactly be as casual as my other book reviews and probably sounds a bit too academic. My apologies! I plan on hopefully editing this piece later. But if you’d enjoy reading a piece of student coursework, feel free to read on! 🙂
In Ted Chiang’s most recent publication, Exhalation, published in May 2019, the author’s second collection of short stories delivers another set of fiction which has been meet with welcoming reception. This is with rightful reason: Each story in Exhalation delivers an abundance of philosophical considerations, wisdom, and poignant insight about the world we live in, making it a book worth reading (and savoring) for ages to come. Ted Chiang’s science fiction stories have put him on the map as a prominent writer of the genre since 1991, with many stories winning renowned awards for the writing of science fiction and another, “The Story of Your Life” (1998), earning his writing a place in film as the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival (“Chiang, Ted”).
In Exhalation, Chiang flourishes in his ability to take classic concepts – such as time travel, the unethical violations of artificial intelligence, and free will/predestiny – and make them “new” for the reader, often framing his stories in a way that directly involves the reader and mankind as a whole. In addition, Chiang’s smart and direct style of writing brings technical ideas, which may otherwise be jargon-heavy, down to earth, creating highly engaging and pleasing fiction that takes readers’ minds into worlds deeply creative and thought-provoking.
One of Chiang’s most prominent stories in the collection is “The Lifecycle of Software Objects.” While it is the collection’s longest story, it also deals with a popular and relevant topic of our time, something which movies ranging from Blade Runner to Ex Machina (and countless other books and films) have explored: artificial intelligence. However, how Chiang manages to somehow expand this topic in a new and unique way is nothing short of sheer genius.
The story details a virtual environment in which the story’s human protagonist, Ana Alvarado, a former zookeeper, becomes employed by training a tech company’s latest virtual “pets” known as “digients.” People can log into the online world and buy a digient, much like one can care for a virtual pet in video games and phone apps today. However, the difference is that these “digients” have been created to have the ability to talk and think, and it is up to the owner to grow their digient’s abilities. The result of this is an unfortunate demise where many digient owners become exasperated by the unpredictable results of their digients and consequently “suspend” them. When the tech company eventually shuts down, Ana, her former co-worker and friend, Derek, and a handful of other people, stay loyal to the idea of caring for their digients, until they are faced with a choice to compromise their digients’ physical agency in order to help transfer them from their abandoned virtual world to the new, populated virtual world so that the digients are no longer lonely and miserable.
The story poses questions of one’s attachment to an artificially intelligent creation and the ethics involved upon treatment of AI beings. Still, what sets Chiang’s story apart from other AI – related stories is that the popular science-fiction concept of artificial intelligence becomes here a matter of “raising” an AI being as one would a child or even a pet. As Chiang explains in his story notes, “I was […] interested in the idea of emotional relationships between humans and AIs, and I don’t mean humans becoming infatuated with sex robots.” The story relates this interest by focusing on the relationships that constitute growth and character in an AI and, inversely, the growth and character of the dedicated digient owners such as Ana and Derek.
Even when sex does play a role in the story, Chiang explores the concept of robots and sex through a lens of ethics. As the digients are ultimately sold to a tech company which creates sex robots, with the prospect that they will be programmed to enjoy sex, the question beckons as to whether this element is enough to constitute a digient’s happiness (and agency) if they are given no choice to either enjoy or not enjoy sex or even who they can enjoy sex with. In the end, it is up to the digient owners to consider this as they deliberate the decision to sell their digients to this new company. Moreover, they struggle with this, not only because of the apparent unethical implications involved, but also because of the relationships they have created with their digients in a non-romantic, yet loving way. Chiang’s “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” unravels a unique philosophical leaning that can become glazed over or unexplored in many other fictions about AI, creating a rewarding reading experience that is one of the pinnacles of Exhalation.
In a smartly devised manner, Chiang saves his other lengthy and equally thought-provoking story, “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” to finish the collection. Like “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” it maintains themes not unfamiliar to the realm of science fiction by exploring free will and the concept of parallel universes. Chiang creates a one-of-a-kind, multi-layered framework that delves deep into the question of whether one’s actions affect other dimensions or whether a knowledge of other dimensions is cause for certain actions. The people of the fictional society in “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” have access to tablets which allow them to see and speak to their parallel selves. This has resulted in feelings of anger, anxiety, and depression for many of the individuals who become addicted to the tablets, as they will often see their “para self” living out a better life than they themselves are living. On many levels, the story explores how different characters affect and are affected by the knowledge contained in the tablets. Overall, the story creates a plot and ideological realm unmatched for in originality and depth within the topic of parallel dimensions.
In addition to Chiang’s insightful workings of otherwise common science fiction topics, Chiang’s Exhalation also shows his masterful use of perspective. He is unafraid to navigate the perspectives of people from different walks of life. This ability to write from different perspectives is genuine and causes the reader to feel invested in what each story has to offer. In “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” Chiang takes up the perspective of Fuwaad ibn Abbas, a Muslim man who becomes enrapt with the idea of a time traveling mechanism built by a local merchant; In “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling,” Chiang’s narrator is a single father who comes to terms with the reality of the frayed relationship between him and his daughter; “The Great Silence” is narrated by a parrot; and “Omphalos” is told from the perspective of a woman of devout religion who is also an archaeologist. While this is a widely varied combination of vantage points – and there are others, including those written in focalized third-person perspectives – none of these feel contrived or inauthentic. Chiang unbiasedly takes up each perspective with a sure-footed sense of control that keeps the reader interested in each story and trusting of every narrator, all of which allows each story’s ideas to be at the forefront, without the distraction of inconsistencies. By expertly and creatively handling each perspective, Chiang explores the effects that technology and science have in a universal sense.
In fact, one of Chiang’s best stories is the short but daring “The Great Silence.” In the story, the parrot narrator demonstrates how scientific advancements impact something as seemingly small as the parrot species. As humans look to the highly advanced telescope, Arecibo, to “hear across the universe” in hopes of finding extraterrestrial life, the parrot expresses the futility of such an endeavor in a poignant and heartfelt manner: “But I and my fellow parrots are right here. Why aren’t they interested in listening to our voices? We’re a nonhuman species capable of communicating with them. Aren’t we exactly what humans are looking for?” (Chiang 231). The parrot’s questions and its observations serve as a powerful commentary on the tendency for human beings to overlook what is right in front of us. One could not help but sympathize with Chiang’s parrot who reveals the ironic ignorance and/or denial that scientific advancement can sometimes bring about.
Finally, one cannot boast of Exhalation’s numerous and wonderful aspects without comment on Chiang’s style of writing that makes it all possible in the first place. At once both simple and neat, Chiang’s writing style is also welcoming without ever “dumbing down” the information used to wander the philosophical and technical realms of his stories’ ideas. Chiang does not alienate his readers, even those who may not perceive themselves as acquainted with science-fiction.
In the title story, “Exhalation,” for example, the protagonist uses complicated technology in order to dissect his own head and understand how the story’s species operates cognitively. The protagonist uncovers the many mechanisms that reside in the brain: “But at last the cognition engine itself was exposed, supported on a pillar of hoses and actuating rods leading down into my torso” (Chiang 46). While this is not a scenario any reader would be acquainted with, Chiang imaginatively creates an entirely new brain anatomy for the species of the story and manages to have it all make sense to the reader. Rather than Chiang’s stories, such as this one, being dense or confusing, there is only room for intrigue and fascination, and, more importantly, the philosophical ideas presented in his work which the sci-fi elements all point towards.
While it is easy to be enthralled by nearly every aspect of Chiang’s collection, one regret is that some of his stories can leave one craving more (and this is ironically a good thing, too!). As much as “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” is one of the collection’s hallmark stories, it ends abruptly and with little to no closure for the AI species and the characters of Ana and Derek which the reader has become so invested in. “Omphalos” ends in a similar way when the the archaeologist is at a crossroads, struggling to maintain faith in God after reading an academic paper that disproves her religious beliefs. The ending of this story, while beautiful in its design and structure as a prayer to God, is somewhat anti-climactic. One longs for a second part that can explain a little bit more about what the narrator will believe in the end. These stories all have a good amount of length yet feel slightly unsatisfying by their conclusions, and if Chiang does this for a purpose, to leave the reader with a sense of loss, this stylistic choice can be held in high regard.
Still, most of Chiang’s stories have a gratifying, optimistic tone which makes it difficult to be satisfied with the endings of these two stories in particular. For example, in “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” after Fuwaad ibn Abbas navigates the time portals created by a merchant in an attempt to alter the event of his wife’s death, which he blames himself for, he realizes that it is not possible. What he learns instead is that “nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough” (Chiang 35). With this conclusion, and others that end on an equally hopeful note, Chiang brings a closure that is far from cheesy or even predictable, creating instead moments of powerful depth and life-lessons.
If you know little to nothing about science-fiction, you are in good hands with Ted Chiang’s Exhalation. If you are a science-fiction aficionado, the same is true. Because, above all, Chiang’s writing is simply good writing that is hard to beat. Exhalation is a work that will stand the test of time. It is a work that will make you think hard about difficult topics, as Chiang both challenges and invites. Yet, it is also a work that will make you feel, because, as Chiang is so keen to show, the advancement of technology, and that of mankind, cannot really advance without compassion and empathy.
Note: Here’s some Works Cited info in case you are interested.
Works Cited
Chiang, Ted. Exhalation. Kindle ed., Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.
“Chiang, Ted.” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. 24 Feb. 2020, http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/chiang_ted.
Thanks for checking out today’s (oddly formatted but hopefully somewhat mind-enriching) post. Overall, I just loved this books so much.
Stay safe, and happy reading! 🙂
Tirza Reads 