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Ted Chiang



"Division By Zero"
© Full Spectrum # 3, 1991
Stories Of Your Life And Others, 2002
--short story : 1992 Locus /7
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ idea award

"Hell Is The Absence Of God"
© Starlight # 3, ed. P. Hayden, 2001
Stories Of Your Life, 2002
--novelette : 2002 Hugo W
--shortlist : 2003 Sturgeon
--novelette : 2003 Nebula W
--novelette : 2002 Locus W


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Ted Chiang
"Seventy-Two Letters"
© Vanishing Acts, ed. E. Datlow, 2000
Stories Of Your Life And Others, 2002
--novella : 2001 Hugo
--novella : 2001 World Fantasy
--shortlist : 2001 Sturgeon
--novella : 2001 Locus /4
--short form : 2001 Sidewise W
--foreign short story : 2001 Hayakawa W
--translated short story : 2002 Seiun W

--/ third place sf story
--/ idea award
--/ wonder award
--/ style award


I found this story a bit long and tedious, but these are probably the only faults in what turned out to be intriguing and entirely unique tale. The concept here is that Names (words) are truly powerful tools capable of creating or modifying reality – this is an important idea in ancient Hebrew culture, starting from Adam, who named (defined, co-created) all the animals in the Garden of Eden. In this story we have some ultimate "incantations" helping robots to achieve their peak performance, but of course, meddling with these building blocks of the Universe leads to the deeply disturbing results. If you remember, a similar idea was the basis for Arthur Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God", but Chiang gives it a highly sophisticated and learned makeover, creating another classic tale from the Genesis-old spiritual know-how.

Very impressive mixture of high-flight science fiction and meta-physical and meta-spiritual conjecture, which is really hard to do without overdoing it... but Chiang succeeds spectacularly (and garners a plethora of awards in the process).

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"Story Of Your Life"
© Starlight # 2, ed. P. Hayden, 1998
Stories Of Your Life And Others, 2002
--novella : 1999 Hugo
--winner : 1999 Sturgeon W
--short list : 1999 Tiptree
--novella : 1999 Locus /10 (tie)
--novella : 1999 HOMer
--novella : 2000 Nebula W
--foreign short story : 2001 Hayakawa W
--translated short story : 2002 Seiun W (tie)

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ idea award
--/ style award


"Tower Of Babylon"
© OMNI, Nov 1990
Stories Of Your Life And Others, 2002
--novelette : 1991 Hugo
--novelette : 1991 Nebula W
--novelette : 1991 Locus /4
--novelette : 1991 SF Chronicle /2

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award


"Understand"
© IASFM, Aug 1991
Stories Of Your Life And Others, 2002
--novelette : 1992 Hugo
--novelette : 1992 Locus /13
--novelette : 1992 Asimov's Reader Poll W
--foreign short story : 1994 Hayakawa W
--foreign short story : 1995 Seiun

--/ third place sf story
--/ adventure award
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award
--/ style award
--/ emotion award


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"SF&F Reading Experience" is part of "Dark Roasted Blend / Thrilling Wonder" family of sites. We try to highlight the most entertaining and rewarding science fiction and fantasy, with emphasis on memorable reader experience, not necessarily general acceptance by the critics. Have fun, and delve into our extensive ratings and reviews!

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