Sometimes, when you're reading a story, you don't feel like you're being taught. You feel like you're being entertained. Sometimes, you're definitely being taught, and told, rather than shown. The broad concepts and black-mirror-esque tales that Chiang tells in his anthologies, particularly, "Exhalation", is gripping, terrifying, entertaining, and made me contemplate the nature of my own existence more than I care to admit. (Or omit, if you want a Freudian slip)
I got to know Chiang from the film Arrival. After all, it was based on one of the short stories in his prior anthology, "Stories of Your Life, and others", and the written form pleased me much more than the film. The film pleased me a lot, so... that's a great achievement.
Back to Exhalation. While only have nine short stories, it manages to explore themes of time travel, alternate realities, digital avatars entering the real world, artificial intelligence, mechanical intelligence, and dare I say, the musings that humans have in each and all of these topics.
My favourite tale in the book was the last one: Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom. Set in a near-future world where a device called a "prism" has become commonplace. Prisms allow people to communicate with alternate versions of themselves in parallel universes that branched off at the moment the prism was activated.
The narrative follows several characters, primarily focusing on Nat, who works at a store selling used prisms. The story explores how the existence of these devices affects people's lives, decisions, and mental health.
It is gripping and has a brutal twist, ending on a contemplative note. What it manages to do is to question the very nature of the universe, and challenge the reader to make a decision about whether you're into free-will, or believe in a deterministic universe. There's also the ethics of having awareness of other dimensions, and cautionary tales, about the general / army people who tried to see what would happen in an alternate reality if they started a war... or other things.
The other side of the "branch", the parallel is presented with a large amount of compassion, with much of the story centred around a group for addicts of the prisms.
So, starting at the end, I loved this story; and while I fell asleep reading the last two pages due to fatigue, it was no way a reflection of the level of entertained I was.
The other story that I enjoyed thoroughly was written from the perspective of a bird. "The Great Silence" is a short story about a parrot's views on humanity, and its impending extinction. It muses on the search for extra-terrestrial life, when the parrot alleges it is just as, if not more intelligent than anything that might exist in the universe.
Two other stories jumped out at me in the book, too: the titular "Exhalation" tells to the story of a bio-mechanical race of people that only function due to to pressurised vessels, who discover that "time" is slowing down.
It's a wonderfully written, careful existential tale and makes you think about things such as your own body and mind slowing down as you age.
The opening tale "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" may alienate some due to to its middle-eastern, Medieval setting, with its formalities, complex timelines, and elements of mysticism; but it is nonetheless thought provoking and entertaining.
If you are conscious, can read, and are interested in things that make you think, make you reflect, and make you wonder, then Chiang's short stories, particularly those in "Exhalation" are something you should read.
I am sad that there isn't another collection of tales by Chiang, but I will certainly be awaiting the next.