11 KiB
[RT][Repost] Everything by Ted Chiang
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Author: u/blazinghand Chaos Undivided*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2q3tj1/rtrepost_everything_by_ted_chiang/
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Score: 28
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Created: 2014-12-22T21:08:40
Post:
Ted Chiang is an author noteworthy for his excellent rational science fiction. I consider his work to be some of the most relevant to this subreddit. He pretty much exclusively writes short stories, and they're all amazing. Many of you will have read his writing, but I feel like since it has been some months since the last "Everything by Ted Chiang" post, it's time for a new post to show our new readers some of the very best this genre has to offer.
The first story of his I read was Exhalation, the story of a scientist who isn't afraid to face the truth. I cried at the end, because the beauty of the story was too much for me. Read it first, and you will end up reading the rest of his work.
Many of his short stories are in a collection for sale on Amazon, or you can read them online. One short story, The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling is not in that collection, but is available online and generally considered an excellent rationalist work.
I highly recommend all of Ted Chiang's stories.
/u/Prezombie recommends two sites with podcasted audiobook versions of Ted Chiang's works.
Thanks to /u/Tasty_Yogurt and /u/CalebJohnsn for finding links, and /u/embrodski for inspiring this thread.
Comments:
u/xamueljones [+4] My arch-enemy is entropy (9 hours later)
Thank you for showing me links to his stories. I've been finding more and more of his writings to read, but there's always just one more story of his I missed.
For people first learning about rationalist fiction, I consider Ted Chiang's works to be the first thing one should read, then Eliezer's short fiction stories as a warm-up before hitting them with the epic length ones like HMPOR, Luminosity, Worm, and Ra. The finale is, of course, a lifetime membership on /r/rational as one of our minions to scour the Internet for more rationalist gems.
u/blazinghand [+1] Chaos Undivided (21 hours later)
I agree that Ted Chiang is probably the first thing people should read to get into rationalist fiction. When I want to get someone interested in this genre, I link them to the online version of Exhalation without explaining that it's explicitly a rationalist story. If they like Exhalation then I lend them Stories of Your Life and Others and we see where things go from there.
Chiang's stories are a good introduction because in addition to being well-written, they're not fanfic. Fanfiction automatically turns some people off from the genre. If you're trying to convince someone to enjoy a new type of literature, and the example you're showing them is fanfiction, you're actually trying to convince someone to enjoy two new types of literature and are fighting a two-front war. Once you start getting into a long explanation that sounds like "yes, some fanfic is awful, well, ok, most fanfic is awful, but this fanfic is ok," you're already well past Belorussia and heading into Moscow in December. Things aren't going great.
u/None [+4] (22 hours later)
The fact that Chiang's work is considered rationalist fiction confirms my suspicion that "rationalist fiction" really only means: "fiction that some rationalists enjoy".
I really don't see what do his stories have in common with MoR and other core-rationalist works. They don't try to demonstrate any principles of proper thinking, the characters sometimes are scientifically-minded and sometimes they are not, sometimes they act intelligently and sometimes they flail around, the stories seem to be designed to get a strong emotional response from the reader rather than teach anything. You could almost say they are religion-flavored as much as they are rationality-flavored. If Chiang's stories are an example of a genre other than the sci-fi, I don't know what it is. There are lots of authors (like Watts, or Asimov or many others) I'd call rationalist authors before I'd call Chiang that.
u/embrodski [+6] (22 hours later)
Here's the way I put it over at my blog earlier in the year:
When he writes, Ted Chiang dissects our universe. He keeps cutting until he finds something interesting, one little bit of reality that captures his interest. He then removes this piece, studies it, and alters it ever so slightly to create a unique and fascinating premise for a story. Then he surgically re-inserts this altered bit, re-composes reality, and finally creates the story that would arise naturally from that little bit of the universe being different. And as you examine this story, you can see reflected in its surfaces and vertices what the original piece of our world was. By presenting us a story where that piece is different, it brings light to how that original piece shapes our own reality.
This isn't true of every story, but it is true of many. And the latter ones moreso. This feels like a rationalist-sorta thing to do, even if perhaps the story itself doesn't fit the criteria we commonly use to classify things as rationalist.
u/blazinghand [+2] Chaos Undivided (23 hours later)
I agree. After I read things by Ted Chiang I am a better rationalist. I guess that's what it comes down to for me.
u/1watt1 [+1] (a month later)
When he writes, Ted Chiang dissects our universe. He keeps cutting until he finds something interesting, one little bit of reality that captures his interest. He then removes this piece, studies it, and alters it ever so slightly to create a unique and fascinating premise for a story.
Link to this review please /
u/embrodski [+2] (a month later)
u/1watt1 [+1] (a month later)
Lovely, thank you :)
u/blazinghand [+1] Chaos Undivided (22 hours later)
It's probable we're using different definitions for what goes in this subreddit, so a direct discussion of whether Chiang's work belongs here would result in us talking past each other. I propose we talk about, in general, what sort of literature belongs here instead, then transition back to talking about Chiang. This way, we'll address the source of our disagreement. How does that sound?
I think things that belong here are things with acceptably good worldbuilding that involve characters reacting internally consistently/reasonably within the world that's constructed-- this should apply to both protagonists and antagonists. I think asspulls of character abilities and features of the world should generally be avoided, and characters shouldn't act unusually stupid, unless that character is in fact unusually stupid.
All of that is required, plus at least one more thing like exploring an idea or deconstructing a world, or teaching me something about how to think, even if I don't want to.
I think something like a character flailing around, assuming that that's what someone would actually do, is fine. I think a character not being scientifically-minded, assuming that they're not in fact a scientist, is fine. I don't even think that being religion-flavored (see: Hell is the Absence of God) is at odds with being a rational work. Ted Chiang constructs in that short story a world that takes certain religious ideas to their logical extremes, and although his character is entirely driven by emotion and love for his wife, and it's a world with a literal heaven, hell, angels, etc, none of that makes it non-religious.
I also liked The Truth of the Fact, the Truth of the Feeling and after reading that I really am a lot more critical about what I remember and don't remember. I'm pretty sure I'm actually a better rationalist because I read that work, a work featuring a character who acts on his emotions and is pretty irrational. A work doesn't have to be about a rationalist to be a rationalist work.
I also think that even by your somewhat more stringent definition, Exhalation is a rationalist work. The character doesn't flail around, acts intelligently, demonstrates hella principles of proper thinking, and is literally a scientist for whom making a scientific discovery is the big deal. Perhaps we could compromise on "Ted Chiang is an excellent writer, and some of his stuff is rationalist even if it isn't all rationalist"?
u/None [+2] (23 hours later)
I'm actually pretty ok with people submitting lots of very different stories here, basically whatever they happen to like. We are nowhere near the point where too many submissions would become a problem. (Maybe I should also mention that I really, really like Chiang's work and that it's possibly my favorite thing on this sub, and nothing I said about it should be interpreted to mean that it's not worth reading.)
It's just that when people confidently talk about the existence of a genre I want there to be a sort of neatly defined, distinct cluster of works that form it, otherwise I start feeling iffy, and I worry that if we stretch the boundaries far enough to include the entire Chiang's output, we'll end up with a definition so wide, that it will include every single serous, thoughtful book ever written, except maybe the ones that are extremely poorly written or outlandishly po-mo. I fear that some people go: "I really liked this sandwich! Therefore it must be a Rationalist Sandwich, a shining example of the Rational Cuisine!" and then they proceed to use the word "rational" to mean "that which I like". I'm weary about the dilution of meaning.
I agree that Truth of Fact and Liking What You See feel pretty rationalist (even in the narrow sense), because they are centered around characters struggling with their biases and it can make you examine your own thoughts.
u/Cruithne [+2] Light Sith epistemologist (3 days later)
Ted Chiang is one of my favourite authors, I can't recommend him enough. He's a brilliant writer, and he seems incredibly knowledgeable about a lot of things, even accounting for the fact that he chose what to mention in his writing. I'd strongly recommend The Story of Your life and Others and Understand. Understand is a good example of a super-intelligent character being written well, and the limits of super-intelligence actually being explored.
The Story of Your Life and Others draws parallels between linguistics and physics, and it touches strongly upon the concepts of free will and determinism. It's about first contact with truly alien aliens who visit Earth.
u/None [+2] (5 days later)
I read Exhalation in a short story collection. What a fantastic story. Thanks for reposting, I'll be looking up more of his work.