Stories of your life: and Others is a short story collection, which contains eight science fiction- / speculative fiction short stories. So far I have only finished four of these stories, but ever since finishing story number four, Story of your Life, I can´t stop thinking about it (there´s an upcoming movie adaption of this story as well and I cannot wait to see it).
Story of your Life tells the story of Louisa Banks, a linguist, who is assigned to make first contact with an alien species. Additionally we get glimpses of Louisas relationship with her daughter thorughout the narrative.
Okay, the bare facts of this short story may not sound that interesting. But how Ted Chiang explores the limits and possibilities of language and how certain kinds of language and thought patterns define, how we experience the world and our place in it, is remarkable. And the ending is just mind blowing. I will definitely have to do a reread of this one.
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