Drew’s Reviews > Arrival > Status Update

Liking What You See: A Documentary ***** Chiang redeemed himself to me with this final story, the finest one in the collection, in my opinion. The author explores what it would like for people to see everyone without the distraction and prejudices of their relative attractiveness. This new procedure “doesn’t interfere with one’s visual perception, only with the ability to recognize what one sees.”

Hell Is The Absence of God: Nonsensical and bleak. This book is really starting to annoy me. *

The Evolution of Human Science: What does the future hold for ordinary humans when metahumans have far surpassed our ability to understand their discoveries? ***

Seventy-Two Letters: Strange and esoteric, frustrating for me. **

Story of Your Life: Two stories told simultaneously, a woman
/mother interacting with an alien species and reminiscing to/about her daughter. This story is an absolutely fascinating discussion on the nature of time, communication, memory, and love. *****

Understand: A first person narrator describes the event that destroyed his brain, then his recovery and enhancement that made him a superhuman with no peers…until he meets another both like and very different from himself, and the inevitable literal battle of wits…to the death.

Tower of Babylon: Hillalum and his band of miners joins a team of men scaling the impossible heights of the Tower of Babylon to penetrate the Vault of Heaven and (spoiler alert) finds that it’s a round trip.