{"id":2879,"date":"2020-10-09T18:31:02","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T18:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/?p=2879"},"modified":"2020-10-09T18:31:02","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T18:31:02","slug":"book-log-14-exhalation-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/?p=2879","title":{"rendered":"Book Log #14 – Exhalation: Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exhalation: Stories<\/em> by Ted Chiang [Little Shop of Stories?]<\/p>\n

I don’t remember when I read this. I assume I picked it up at Little Shop of Stories as an impulse purchase, there’s no record I purchased it at Amazon or had it on my wishlist. Additional evidence is that this was one of the best books I’ve ever read, and that more often comes from the curated selection at LSOS.<\/p>\n

I talked about this book to anyone who would listen, and there are only a handful of books I can say that about. And what’s amazing is I didn’t write about it here. So I’m rectifying that mistake.<\/p>\n

I can’t find my copy, but that is almost certainly because I forced someone to borrow it.<\/p>\n

This is an amazing collection of literary science fiction stories. The writing is smooth and flawless and the ideas are fun and clever. <\/p>\n

The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate<\/em> is one of the best time travel stories I’ve ever read — the problem of suspense in time travel narratives is difficult to come by, but this story’s convention works perfectly for that. The setting is also unique, almost reading like an Aesop’s Fable.<\/p>\n

Exhalation<\/em>, from which the book’s title is taken, is an amazing bit of hard science world building.<\/p>\n

It’s been a while, but I don’t remember there being a weak one in the bunch. Funny, poignant, interesting… this book’s got it all. <\/p>\n

Go read it. Now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang [Little Shop of Stories?] I don’t remember when I read this. I assume I picked it up at Little Shop of Stories as an impulse purchase, there’s no record I purchased it at Amazon or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[513,511],"tags":[520],"class_list":["post-2879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-little-shop-of-stories","tag-book-log-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2880,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions\/2880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}