:INFO
The Short Story Collection That Sets the Genre Standard
Ted Chiang publishes slowly and the world is better for it. Exhalation contains nine stories and each one is built around a single idea taken to its absolute logical conclusion. The title story, about a pneumatic creature who performs surgery on its own brain to understand what air is, is fifteen pages long and contains more genuine philosophical inquiry than most novels twice its length. I read it three times before moving to the next story.


:COUNTER.half
368 Pages
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9 Stories

:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Ted Chiang]
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. But I am from there.


:JOURNEY
Reading Exhalation
5 Mathematical perfection
5 Most devastating
5 Most original
4 Quietly brave

:NOTE
Reading Ted Chiang slowly is the correct pace. One story a week lets each idea settle before the next one arrives. Rushing through this collection is a waste of it.


:POLL
Which story from Exhalation stayed with you the longest?
Exhalation, the title story
The Great Silence
Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom
Something else from the collection entirely