![]() At the other end of the scale lengthwise is “The Lifecycle of Software Objects”, an 110-page novella about “digients”, souped-up Tamagotchis in shared online virtual worlds that are sold to people as pets. (Who’s a pretty borg, then?) “What’s Expected of Us” is even shorter: a three-page speculation about what would happen to human mental health if it were conclusively proved that there is no such thing as free will. The weakest piece is “The Great Silence”, a five-page squib based on the idea that we’ve been looking in the wrong place in our search for alien intelligence, and should have been talking to, er, parrots. It feels like damning the book with faint praise to say so, but isn’t that exactly how short-story collections generally work? A couple are excellent, most are good, a couple don’t really work. That said, there is an inevitable danger in accelerating SF hype into hyperspace. ![]() There are enough classic Chiang shorts to make this collection something special Now is the time for the rest of us to discover his unique imagination.” That “rest of us” is, perhaps, ill-judged (don’t you rest-of-us me, sunshine: I’ve been reading Chiang for decades), but there’s no denying that it is an appealing prospect. “In the world of the science-fiction short story Chiang’s work is legendary. Picador’s advance publicity for this, only his second collection, betrays a certain excitability. ![]()
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