Exhalation: Stories

by Ted Chiang

Completed: December 15, 2020

• Science fiction
• 352 pages
• ISBN: 9781101947883
• Goodreads page

★★★★

…experience is algorithmically incompressible.

Hassan lived the happiest of lives until he was overtaken by death, breaker of ties and destroyer of delights.

Pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don’t. The reality isn’t important; what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.

People are made of stories. Our memories are not the impartial accumulation of every second we’ve lived; they’re the narrative that we assembled out of selected moments.

Inclined to give a rating somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. 4 because it’s just a joyful read. Relatively ‘easy’ to read and devour quickly, but with lots of small little ideas that are explored in interesting ways. But 3 because I didn’t come away feeling like it ‘changed my life’ or anything like that, and the small little ideas that are explored aren’t always sufficiently nuanced.

All book cover images are from Goodreads unless specified otherwise.