“The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”: Oh buddy.

The academia of the piece overshadowed any interesting speculations that Chiang might have made.

“Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny”: I didn’t care for this one. The prior complications of raising the digients seemed real and valid, but the stakes of the final decision that needed to be made about the future of the digients felt false or contrived. It seems like a non-issue based on truths explained elsewhere in the story. The frustrating part is that the tension of the ending falls flat. Even the digients (digital pets that have AI) have fully formed personalities. This story had the most developed world and human characters. This short story was my favorite of the bunch (until the ending). Chiang has a way of picking an object or idea that seems insignificant and exploring all possible implications of said object in truly surprising ways. “The Lifecycle of Software Objects”: This one is the most frustrating stories due entirely to the ending. It manages to pack in a fair amount of philosophical questions before hitting the reader with a wonderfully comic ending. “What’s Expected of Us”: This one is a very short story about the nature of free will in a world where little clickers that light up before you click them are ubiquitous. The main scientist through which the story is told takes a very mature take on all of his discoveries which is a lesson for us in our analysis of our place in this world. A group of air-powered beings discovered that their current form of existence or existence at all is at risk. “Exhalation”: A wonderfully meditative twist to the problem of a perpetual motion machine. The philosophical questions of free-will are not fully explored in this story, but this story does kick start a series of stories that will explore similar themes. I especially enjoyed the “Arabian Nights” style of retelling stories within a story. “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”: An interesting and novel take on time travel. No story feels out of place or like an intruder. Chiang created a collection of stories that all meshes together. Collectively, each story forced upon a small crisis of identity in how I relate to technology in my own world, and I am a more self-aware person for it. Below is a short review of each story but over-all, Exhalation: Stories made me think. Exhalation: Stories is a collection of short sci-fi stories written by Ted Chiang.

Ted chiang omphalos