Stories of Your Life and Others

Thinking In Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows My 17 year old son bought it for me for my birthday. I've been enjoying it a lot. I do in fact like thinking in systems and learning more about it, and reading it in a more generalized fashion than I tend to in the computer science world has provided a refreshing perspective. It's all very approachable, nothing very complex, but gives names and discreet patterns to things I intuitively understood but previously wouldn't articulate easily. Definitely one of my favourite gifts in a long time. Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang I read bits of this to my wife at night occasionally. One of the first trips we went on together was camping on a little island, and I had Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami) with me which I suggested I read to her in the evening. She really liked it and I've done it since. I wish I did it more often. Anyway, Stories of Your Life and Others is a wonderful collection. I've read it a few times, not always completely, and I enjoy it. Story of your life is the standout. It's what the movie Arrival is based on, which I consider one of the best scifi movies of all time. It's a beautiful story.…

I consolidated the comments for my reference later. Someone else might also find it useful: # Fiction Books Recommended for Programmers (HN Thread 46128404) ## Adrian Tchaikovsky - *Children of Time* — Science Fiction (Evolution, Space Opera) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-tim... (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-time) ## Rick Cook — Wizardry Series - *Wizard’s Bane* — Fantasy, Programming/Magic Mashup https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112616.Wizard_s_Bane - *Wizardry Series (overview)* https://www.goodreads.com/series/43084-wiz ## James P. Hogan - *Inherit the Stars* — Hard Science Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/743568.Inherit_the_Stars - *Code of the Lifemaker* — Sci-Fi, Artificial Life https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/296722.Code_of_the_Lifem... (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/296722.Code_of_the_Lifemaker) - *The Two Faces of Tomorrow* — AI, Hard Science Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218017.The_Two_Faces_of_... (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218017.The_Two_Faces_of_Tomorrow) ## D. F. Jones — Colossus Trilogy - *Colossus* — AI, Classic Sci-Fi Thriller…

'Stories of your Life and Others' and 'Exhalation' - by Ted Chiang. In his short stories, he introduces advanced concepts from mathematics, philosophy, and computer science in a way that’s subtly woven into captivating narratives.

Several immediately come to mind. Short stories: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (Ken Liu); Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation (Ted Chiang); The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) Novels: The Monk (Matthew Gregory Lewis); Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

Easily these (so far): This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (actually now one of my all-time favorites, without regard to genre. Just amazing) Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky The Book of Strange New Things - Michael Faber Ted Chiang's short story collections (Exhalations and Stories of your life and others) Daemon - Daniel Suarez The City and the City - China Miéville Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (this one still haunts my dreams at times) We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) - Dennis Taylor (just finished this series for book club) Galatea 2.2, The Overstory, Bewilderment, The Gold Bug Variations - 4 different books, all by Richard Powers - what can I say, the man is a genius and a treasure Eifelheim - Michael Flynn - ok, this book can be a slog at times, but it is very rewarding for those who persevere, and has stuck in my brain for many years Chocky - John Wyndham - A quiet, delightful surprise Providence - Max Barry - This book flows like a movie. It will make a great movie. I found myself LITERALLY out of breath a couple of times Hench: A Novel - Natalie Zina Walschots - Quirky, memorable…

Ted Chiang's sci-fi short story collections like Stories Of Your Life and Others is fantastic. It features the story that the feature length film Arrival from a few years ago was based on, among other great stories.

I heartily second Ted Chiang. He is an expert at the craft of the short story despite it being his first whole compilation that was published. Short stories have historically been the way science fiction was popularized starting in the early 1900s. Novels and series would develop out of those successful shorts or if an author becomes successful enough.

Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds Wireless - Charles Stross Stories of your life and others - Ted Chiang Moonrise - Ben Bova Last Plane to Heaven - Jay Lake Best of Greg Egan - Greg Egan

If you haven't read Ted Chiang's short stories yet, do so. His first collection (Stories of Your Life and Others) was my favourite, but his more recent one (Exhalation) was also very good (the title story, Exhalation, is gorgeous). Stories of your Life is what the movie Arrival was based on and (as ever) the story was better than the movie. As far as sci-fi novels, I have pretty generic tastes for this crowd: Dune, The Dispossessed, The Martian. The Crying of Lot 49 is one of my favourite books. Not exactly sci-fi but close.

Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others is the best, single-author collection of short stories I've ever read. If you like that, you might also enjoy The Lifecycle of Software Objects, an absolutely heartbreaking novella about simulated children, and his follow-up collection Exhalation. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is fantastic, and it's follow-up, Speaker for the Dead is even better, and my favorite science fiction novel of all time. They won back to back Hugo and Nebula awards. Card is a polarizing figure for his outspoken political opinions, but if ever the art should be separated from the artist, it's Speaker, which is an incredible exploration of empathy and responsibility, in addition to being a gripping, action-packed, science-literate read. Many more in this series, if you get into it.…

For fun and/or lighthearted, I enjoyed: Stanislaw Lem: Cyberiad, The Futurological Congress, Tales of Pirx the Pilot; Steven Paul Leiva: Traveling in Space; Ted Chiang: Stories of your Life; John Scalzi: Old Man's War (and sequels)

Deep Thinking really sounds fun! I agree, The Dictator's Handbook is really good, but sometimes really repetitive and it takes a bit of dedication to finish it. As for my current one, I'm really enjoying Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others.

Here are the ones I'd be willing to recommend, in reverse chronological order of when I read them. I read 59 total. Listen to books on tape while working out has maybe doubled my reading rate. Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy - Great book on how the Mongol Empire came to be, who Genghis was, and it put the whole thing in perspective for me in a useful way. The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch - What it says on the tin. Actually a good overview how some important technologies interrelate. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction - How to be wrong less often. Based on the Good Judgement Project results. The Three-Body Problem - Decent enough science fiction but extra interesting because it's science fiction from a different culture. Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants - A history of things that go boom. Engaging writing and I learned things about chemistry. The Traitor Baru Cormorant - I'm nominating this for a Hugo. It tells you it's going to stab you in the gut but when it does you don't see it coming. Plus high quality scheming and speculation on economics, society, and empire.…

Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of short stories by Ted Chiang. The stories explore wildly different topics, but every one of them is amazing. Someone on HN had recommended The Box by Marc Levinson. It's a history of the shipping container. That sounds dreadfully prosaic, but the book is well written and the shipping container's influence on our modern global economy cannot be overstated. Not reading per se, but Dan Carlin's WWI podcasts on the Hardcore History blog are well worth listening to. http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/

Your opinion is very good. The "and then something magic happens" solution in fantasy is what really turns me off. But in SF it is sometimes hard to distinct magic from plausible albeit far fetched science. Is FTL possible given the science of tomorrow, or magic? If you want to have (imho) really, really good SF, chec out Ted Chiang. Very low production, but he takes science in SF very seriosly. His collection of short stories is some of the best I've ever read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_of_Your_Life_and_Others Somebody else mentioned Anathem. And if one want deep mathematics mixed with wild ideas, language theory I strongly recommend it. It is hard to get going (at least it was for me). But very rewarding. Probably the best read the last year. Finally, if one really wants to go the "no magic" route. I strongly recommend Netptunes Brood by Charles stross. The book is based on the idea that FTL is not possible, and as a consequence how the economics behind interstellar migration and stable exchange currencies works. Bitcoing and slow money. Just that somebody actually has been considering the finance structure behind generation ships makes it worth reading.…

a couple favorites: classic: The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brian recent scifi: Stories of your life and others (short stories) by Ted Chiang

Here's a few I've really liked that have a broader subject matter than only what you asked for. I figure that if you like to read you'd like these books. --- NON-FICTION --- Darkness Visible A Mathemematician's Apology Omnivore's Dilemma Fermat's Enigma The Code Book Born to Run Judgement of Paris Siddhartha Killing Pablo The Victorian Internet Lone Survivor I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman Papillon Into Thin Air Born on a Blue Day Touching the Void Got Fight The Conquest of Happiness --- FICTION --- Switch Bitch Lost Horizon The Cuckoo's Egg The Simlarillion The Time Traveler's Wife The Alchemist The Count of Monte Cristo A Canticle for Leibowitz Neverwhere My Uncle Oswald Stories of Your Life and Others Invisible Cities Life of Pi Atlas Shrugged --- WALL STREET / FINANCE --- When Genius Failed Liar's Poker Buffett (Lowenstein) Bull! Black-Scholes and Beyond (textbook) Fixed Income Securities (textbook) The Road to Serfdom The Smartest Guys in the Room Fortune's Formula The Fourth Turning Inside the House of Money --- ENTREPRENEURSHIP / COMPUTERS (non-textbook) --- Masters of Doom It's Not About the Bike Dot. Bomb Founders at Work The PayPal Wars…