2023-06-27 07:00:53
I live convinced that, along with horror, science fiction is currently one of the most complex literary genres to cover for any writer. In a world that is increasingly resembling what our ancestors imagined the future to be, it is not easy to build a story with enough hook that manages to escape the usual tropes. The modern reader has advanced considerably in his sophistication to the point that it is not enough to throw an alien invasion in his face to please him. Today, stories with more elegance and gray matter are required, texts that not only entertain, but also manage to question you and make you reflect. And this Ted Chiang has understood like no other.
What is most particular in the case of Ted Chiang is that his literary production is relatively scant for how far his letters have come, since throughout his three-decade career he has only produced around 20 science fiction short stories. And this is because, behind each one of them, there is a meticulous work of scientific documentation, since within his body as a writer the souls of a physicist, a philosopher and an engineer also cohabit. All versions of his own curiosity that simmer exquisite tales of technological advances gone awry, seemingly simple events that force us to ask existential questions, and cosmic events that expose us to haunting moral questions.
Without knowing it, in 2016 many of us were exposed to this original narrative cocktail with “Arrival”, a film with multiple Oscar nominations that adapted “The Story of Your Life” to the big screen, the most successful story by Ted Chiang and in which , despite having a plot that revolves around the landing of an alien ship, the least important of all are the Martians, since the focus is on different theories of linguistic relativism and on the effects that learning the alien language have in the scientist who contacts space visitors. A spectacular masterpiece nerdlike an episode of Black Mirror on steroids.
Not surprisingly, his collection of short stories “Exhalation” was among the best books of 2019 for The New York Times and became one of my most stimulating readings so far this year. From there I highlight “The Truth of the Fact, the Truth of the Feeling” about how the oral tradition is dying in the near future where people can incorporate video cameras into their retinas; “Exhalation” about the posthumous testimony of an android who dissects his own brain to understand why his race is thinking slower and slower and, my personal favorite and the shortest in the book, “What is Expected of Us” about how a simple toy that unmasks the illusion of free will manages to drag humanity into the philosophical abyss.
Definitely, Ted Chiang is the future of premium science fiction, one that is sculpted with the patience of a potter and, although late, is worth the wait.
#Ciencia #ficción #premium