I shared this with a friend who grew up native in an Arabic-speaking country. After finishing it, he said he'd like to read it again but in the original Arabic. He'd interpreted it as authentic from his native storytelling culture.
I read both collections after, like others, getting introduced to Ted Chiang because of Arrival, and both rank highly among my favorites. Chiang can write some beautiful prose (best exemplified by "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate") and excels at taking a single interesting idea and taking it somewhere fascinating. With very few exceptions, his stories don't have real characters - they're just named tools to express ideas - but that works well with the kind of stories he writes.
Highlights for me from Exhalation:
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - beautifully written story in the style of Arabic literature
The Lifecycle of Software Objects - resonated strongly with me due to its criticism of the software industry, and raises great ethical questions about AIs
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling - I was intrigued by the Tiv tribe's concepts of truth, and blown away when I later found out that "mimi" and "vough" are real concepts and not Chiang's imagination
Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom - a great and plausibly seeming examination of the psychological and social effects of communicating with alternate realities
Funny the last 3 are also among my highlights, but I would venture that they’re specifically good examples of Chiang’s ability to do character work. In various ways, they give a marvelously detailed and lyrical picture of people evolving over time, dealing with and coming to peace with circumstances and adversity.
