Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Knopf, 368 pages, $25.95 (c2019)

“Exhalation” is not a mystery.

Instead, it is a collection of stories with a science fiction veneer. The stories are meditations on what it means to be human, the construct of time, what purpose a lifetime serves, and what-if. They are ingenious, sorrowful, illuminating. Ted Chiang writes with a philosopher’s pen and an artist’s heart.

I am impressed by Chiang’s collection. I recommend it to anyone waiting to step beyond and to do so within an economy of words.