Ryan Matejka’s Reviews > Stories of Your Life and Others > Status Update

Seventy-Two Letters was a bore, to be honest. I had no interest in the details of how this alternate reality functioned, based on magical text writing, and the story was primarily interested in that. Furthermore, I'm starting to see a pattern in these short stories, in that Chiang is far more interested in the technical details of a concept than the story it produces, and I am the opposite.

Story of Your Life is great, of course. I love this muted look at the idea of a predetermined universe. I need to rewatch Arrival.

Division by Zero was interesting, albeit not incredibly gripping to me. I feel as though I must be missing a deeper subtextual meaning, but perhaps missing it is the surest sign that it didn't connect with me.

"Unfinished" was lovely. I've never seen the word gestalt used so many times in my life.

The first short story, Tower of Babylon, was great. Feels like it could be an actual historic story from the flat-earth times or something. Awesome read from start to finish.