Exhaltation – Ted Chiang

Ted Chiang writes stories around big - and philosophically difficult - ideas. Gripping stories.

The most-common theme is that of free will: In “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”, time travel is possible, and the past cannot be changed. What does free will mean if you can go back in time and talk to your earlier self - and it won’t make a bit of difference?

“Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” is a more-mature and more-thoughtful take on alternative worlds than Niven’s “All the Myriad Ways”. What does free will mean if your important decisions are demonstrably the results of a coin toss?

“What’s Expected of Us” is short and creepy. It is written around the simplest plot device the author could offer that could demonstrate that there is no free will.

These stories stay with the reader. Others include

Exhalation - about artificial beings dying from a local analog to the heat death of the universe.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects - about artificial intelligences that require real parenting in order to become real adults.

The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling - in which your whole life becomes searchable.

Omphalos - placed on a world in which creationism is demonstrably true. (Trees of the right age were created without rings. Preserved human bodies of the right age lack navels.)