2008 books

14) Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002
Superlatives have been heaped on the writing of Ted Chiang, many of which I would agree with, and it's hard not to add to them. He is probably the best short-form SF writer out there, even though his output over nearly twenty years amounts to just a handful of short stories and a few novellas/novelettes. Quality over quantity. Ideas that are, for the most part, thoroughly and patiently explored. Characterisation that generally speaking doesn't suck. An acute mind that can be glimpsed behind the words, one that knows the importance of structure and can at the same time impart a living sense of wonder. However (and maybe there has to be a however), with the notable exception of the completely perfect 'Story of Your Life', he seems to have an imperative to give his stories the correct endings instead of those that would deliver a more satisfying emotional punch. Take 'Understand', a story that accelerates to a high order of van Vogtian overdrive and ends with a supermind that, realising it has been beaten, just shuts down. Or the dry, scientific ending to 'Seventy-Two Letters', or the last words of 'Division by Zero' which just leave the reader hanging, uncomfortably so. But given the originality of his ideas this is just quibbling because for the most part there is brilliance here, exemplified by 'Hell is the Absence of God' and the Sturgeon Award-winning 'Story of Your Life', a jaw-dropping novella that encompasses alien linguistics, time perception and true love, and never gives up its authentic emotional heart. It delivers on every level and hits you like a nova, the way Delany at his best once could, and I've thought about this story more than almost any other since first reading it. Anthologies as good as this are rare indeed.