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If Ted Chiang is very, very unlucky, he'll suffer from the Curse of Asimov for
the rest of his life.
Asimov wrote 'Nightfall', probably one of both the best and best-known SF short
stories when he was a mere stripling of 21. He subsequently wished he'd written
it much later in his career as everything he did after, no matter how good,
was measured against its success.
I have no idea how old Ted Chiang is, but with his first published short story,
'Tower Of Babylon' he won a Nebula Award. Given that he's won another two since
(plus a Hugo, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and the John W Campbell Award
for Best New Writer while we're at it) the chances are that a) he's one hell
of an over-active overachiever and b) that he'll be remembered for a lot more
than simply that in future years.
Inevitably, though, it's 'Tower Of Babylon' that opens this collection of eight
of Chiang's short stories, novelettes and novellas. It's probably still the
best thing he's written, too. A re-telling of the Hebrew myth of the Tower,
which in its original form told of a structure so high that it took a year to
climb it and whose builders wouldn't mourn a man who fell from the top to its
death but would weep over the loss of a brick back to the earth. Not only is
all this a lot more compelling than the far more widely-known Old Testament
version, but Chiang fills the legend with real wonder, his protagonist, Hillalum,
going on to discover fundamental aspects about the nature of God's universe.
Concepts of God and religion are never far from the surface of Chiang's best
work. In 'Hell Is The Absence Of God', the Old Testament allegories burst to
life and angelic visitations are suddenly manifest alongside glimpses through
the roads and pavements of a very pragmatically dull hell. That one won another
Nebula, too. As did 'Stories Of Your Life', wherein a linguist studying an alien
language starts thinking like the aliens she's studying and becomes decoupled
from the linear concepts of time. Then there's '72 Letters', a gloriously rich
steampunk stew, wherein Victorian scientists animate golems with 72 Hebrew letters
and empirical research is based around alchemical and kabbalistic texts.
Even the misfiring stories and, there are a couple it has to be admitted, are
never less than intriguing. When he's good, which he is particularly when he's
exploring the interface between science and religion, he's a stupendously readable
and thought-provoking writer. One of the best collections of the past decade.
Andy Stout |
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