Ivia’s Reviews > Exhalation > Status Update

Anxiety Is The Dizziness Of Freedom is a strange title for this last story. Being able to communicate with alternate selves in parallel universes leads to... people discovering who they are, and who they want or don't want to be. What an interesting way to examine the consequence of choice on the self, and the existence or illusion of free will.

Omphalos is an old story told in a way I've never seen before. The framing device of prayer is very effective at guiding us through Dorothea's experience as her faith, backed by evidence, is tested. Her world is on the line between familiar and strange that Chiang tiptoes across so wonderfully.

Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling is an incredible play on the dichotomy between the cold truth of a recording of what happened, and the warm subjectivity of individual recollection, how that warmth can be deceiving, but even the bare facts can be twisted to suit a bias.

Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling is an incredible play on the dichotomy between the cold truth of a recording of what happened, and the warm subjectivity of individual recollection, how that warmth can be deceiving, but even the bare facts can be twisted to suit a bias.

Dacey's Patent Automated Nanny is a weird one. I can see the themes of parental responsibility/affection and child psychology and attachment theory at play, but something about the tone and structure hit me the wrong way. Extremely likely this is a Me Problem.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects is... long. It's fully 30% of the total page count. It has some interesting moments, and it poses real questions we're going to have to face wrt AI and the ethics of its development, but... It really felt dragged out, the whole one-sided romance thing is so overdone, and the ending didn't grab me like most of Chiang's work has so far. Hope the rest of the stories are better.

What's Expected Of Us is even shorter than most of the stories in this sort of collection, but I'll be danged if it isn't effective at making you think.

Exhalation is brilliant. I was more than eager to get from one word to the next, and lowkey terrified to turn the page. I found this one really creepy-unsettling, very... atmospheric.

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate is leaving me with this strange sensation... It kind of feels like there's a lesson there, waiting for me, but I'm not ready to integrate it. For now, it has some great thought-experiment points, and "you can't change the past, but you can seek to understand it more fully" isn't a bad takeaway.