Ted Chiang (born 1967) is an American Speculative Fiction writer. Among his works are the eight stories published as Stories of Your Life and Others and the novellette The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate.
The film Arrival is based on his story "Story of Your Life."
He is not related to the 1970s kung-fu star, David Chiang.
His works provide examples of:
- Seventy-Two Letters:
- Call-Back: The story begins with the protagonist recounting his first toy golem that would march in a straight line, and how he could copy and edit the nomenclature inside it for different effects. In the finale, he manages to escape a hired assassin by writing out the same nomenclature to get a larger golem to hold a door shut, saving himself.
- Fantastic Science: The study of the power of names, or "nomenclature", is a legitimate science, routinely employed to manufacture Golems, and reproductive biology is based on preformationism (organisms develop from miniature versions of themselves). There are also nods to historical "scientific" beliefs that have been disproven in the real world but are true in this universe, such as maternal impressions (the belief that if a mother suffered emotional shocks during pregnancy, such as being frightened by an animal, the child would be born disabled), and there are background references to fantastical organisms (unicorns, elemental sprites, and mermaids, amongst others) existing in this world.
- There's an interesting borderline case in the story's references to catastrophism (the theory that Earth's geology was shaped by sudden, violent events such as major floods). This theory is no longer the scientific consensus in real life, but in-universe, catastrophism is presented as an idea that's still being disputed, with characters uncertain about whether its claims are true. So it's possible that catastrophism is true within the story, or that it's an in-universe example of Fantastic Science that will (as in reality) eventually be discarded.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite the fact that nomenclature and the manufacture of golems or homunculi have a major role in this world's society, it is otherwise nearly identical to the real Victorian era.
- Never Was This Universe
- Our Homunculi Are Different: All human beings are formed when a homunculus from a man's semen merges with a woman's ovum, gaining a soul and beginning to grow into a person. Each homunculus is also filled with infinitesimally smaller homunculi, recursively, to allow reproduction. Homunculi can be extracted and will grow in size but not sophistication if given proper nutrients. Scientists discover that there is a limit to the number of recursions, threatening the extinction of humanity.
- Ransacked Room: The protagonists' office at the factory is wrecked by the Metalworkers Union that is threatened by his invention of a Golem that could replace them. This is both to intimidate him and to destroy any schematics or records he had about the golem.
- Exhalation:
- Apocalyptic Log: The end reveals the story was this, written to whomever discovers their dead civilization.
- Constructed World: The characters live in a universe consisting of a huge cavity filled with argon, with chromium walls.
- The End of the World as We Know It: The robots are powered by air pressure. The protagonist discovers that the air pressure in their enclosed world is slowly equalizing, meaning they are condemned to stop functioning eventually.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Completely mechanical robots powered by air pressure, but they have emotions and helping each other refill their artificial lungs is quite the social activity.
- The Wall Around the World: The robots have nothing that can drill or otherwise pierce the chromium wall containing their world, so they have no way to discern if they're part of a larger universe or not.
- Story of Your Life:
- Outliving One's Offspring: A pretty interesting, if no less tragic, example. Through learning Heptapod B, Louise end up being able to foresee the future, including the fact that her daughter, who is not even conceived yet, will die at the age of 25 in a rock climbing accident.
- Starfish Aliens: The Heptapods are described as looking like a "barrel suspended at the intersection of seven limbs...[they were] radially symmetric." They are also described to have two mouths, one on top of their bodies for talking and one on the underside for eating (and presumably for pooping).
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The short story continually alternates between Louise's account of her attempts to communicate with the Heptapods and vignettes of her yet unborn daughter's life, spanning from birth to her death at age 25.
- Hell Is the Absence of God:
- Deconstruction: Of Christianity.
- Our Angels Are Different: Angels are completely inhuman Eldritch Abominations whose irruption in the mortal plane causes all kinds of upheavals.
- God Is Evil: Or, in any case, he follows a Blue-and-Orange Morality.
- Good Is Not Nice: There are support groups for people harmed by angel apparitions.
- Mundane Afterlife: Heaven is very much like life except that you live it in your eternal body, which is your earthly body fixed up. Hell is like Heaven, except that you spend your eternal afterlife knowing that you made the wrong choices, and will never get out.
- The Life Cycle of Software Objects:
- Abandon Ware: Neuroblast Digients and their food software both become this after Blue Gamma goes under, being released for free for any remaining enthusiasts. Later on Data Earth itself becomes this, which is a problem for the Neuroblast Digients who can't exist on the wider web without prohibitively expensive custom software.
- Digital Avatar: Humans use these to interact with their Digients, as well as others in Cyber Space. One Digient customer complains that his Digient isn't learning fast enough, and the support staff point out that his avatar is a humanoid pile of money and lacks the facial expressions the Digients are raised to respond to.
- This is also Inverted with the Robot Suits, which allow Digients to explore the real world.
- Griefer: One breaks into the Neuroblast private island and shows them footage of himself torturing a digient. Ana makes the pivotal choice to suspend her digient Jax until the griefer is removed, breaking a promise she made never to suspend him.
- Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: This is one of the few options available to Neuroblast Digients that want to make money. They're not as good as other Digients at analysis or clerical work, but their advanced emotional intelligence from years of training makes them valuable as digital lovers. However, all their human owners are disgusted by this idea.
- Raised by Robots: Inverted. Digients are virtual robots that are raised by human interaction, becoming more emotionally and intellectually intelligent with more interaction. Digients without human interaction become "Feral" and spend their days wandering randomly instead of socializing.
- Sense Freak: Digients that use a robot body to explore the "outer world" are fascinated by their sense of touch, because Data Earth surfaces only have a shape and a friction value.
- Uncanny Valley: Deliberately averted by Derek, the artist for the mascot Digients, who wanted them to seem cute and approachable but not too animal-like.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: This is the final tension in the story, where both Derek and Ana have opposing views on how to handle their maturing Digients. Derek decides to allow his digients Marco and Polo to be (consensually) modified so they experience human sexuality. Ana favors keeping her digient Jax innocent, even at cost to her own health.
- Tower of Babylon
- Give Me a Sign: After the nasty business with The Great Flood, everyone's nervous because Yahweh hasn't indicated whether he approves of the tower or not. When the protagonist ends up back on the ground he realizes it was because mankind wasn't going anywhere.
- The Great Flood: It happened, and everyone is worried the tower may goad Yahweh into unleashing another one.
- Impossibly Tall Tower: It takes months to climb to the top of the tower, meaning it's in the ballpark of a hundred miles tall. Which makes it literally impossible, since it's built from clay brick.
- Never Was This Universe: Some Biblical events such as The Great Flood happened, and Egypt and other Bronze Age civilizations exist as they did on our Earth, but this is a Flat World at the center of Babylonian cosmology.
- Star Scraper: In a more literal sense than usual — one of the stars actually crashed into the tower. It was about the size of a camel and made of iron. It was recovered and kept hidden in a temple on the ground.
- Tower of Babel: It's a retelling in a universe that operates as the ancient Babylonians believed. The story begins when the tower has reached so high it found the ceiling of the world, and the protagonist is a miner asked to start digging through to heaven.
- Wrap Around: When the protagonist becomes separated from the rest of the miners and climbs through a series of caves, he thinks he's ascending into heaven. He comes out on the ground a few miles from the tower's base.
