found a couple of anomalies where the author has truly stepped out of convention (K-Pax, and Starman, for example) but, on the whole, aliens only give us conflict, tension, gore, destruction, advancement of technology, or reflect mankind’s shortcomings. If you have this as a context for reading The Story of Your Life, all will be well.

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Every character in Chiang’s short story is an alien, even if not in the truest sense. Human characters are invested with super-human attributes: the ability to assimilate alien language and its repercussions; vastly superior technical skills; and simplistic two-dimensionality. For that reason they appear as caricatures, echoes of real people, and they do not engage as they should, as they must. Beyond that small problem, there is one other and, beyond that, brilliance.

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The other small problem is the voice used by Chiang in almost all of his stories. It is lame. It lacks character and depth. Some reviewers call it ‘flat’. Chiang breaks a lot of rules in his fiction: his characterisation is weak, his language is precise but lifeless, he frequently relies on ‘info-dumping’ (whereby characters’ dialogue or direct address is all about the knowledge required to underpin the premise of the story), his scientific content is too technical and too detailed yet inadequately realised, every character speaks using the same voice, etc. Can we forgive him? Yes. His work is magnificently dystopian and ingenious, the kind of writing that, as Edward Cummings may have said, gives ‘the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question’.

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Oh and, by the way, if you’ve yet to see the movie adaptation (Arrival), be prepared for a very much pared down version of events, with a very much less intelligent focus (well, what did you expect?). You may have already read our review.

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Read Chiang. Make up your own mind. His writing doesn’t subscribe to ‘normal’ standards for fiction and, if it did, it would lose something of its perspicacity. He is a very clever writer who will not appeal to all. If you like his style, you will wish that he wrote a great deal more. On the shoulders of this success (film and re-publication of his short story collection), perhaps he will.