Reddit reviews Stories of Your Life and Others

The story is called "Story of Your Life" and it is in a semi-eponymous collection titled "Stories of Your Life and Others". The book is fantastic; there a couple other stories within ("Hell is the Absence of God" and "Tower of Babylon") that would also make for great movies.

Currently reading "The Story of Your Life and Others", and enjoying every page. Each short story is beautifully written and reads like a Black Mirror episode. One of the best books I've read this year.

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. Really interesting short stories with a heady sci-fi bend. The movie Arrival was based on one of them.

Children of Time and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovksy both have strong sociological themes. If you enjoy these books you might also want to check out Semiosis: A Novel by Susan Burke.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov is about the fall and rise of a galactic empire. It is a bit dated in terms of science fiction but a classic in the genre.

Exhalation and Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang are collections of short stories and some of them contain strong sociological themes around communication and intersubjective understanding.

A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge also have some interesting speculative sociology.

Hominids: Volume One of The Neanderthal Parallax by Robert J. Sawyer also contains interesting speculative anthropology and sociology (but not a very interesting plot IMO) and is also worth a read.

Dude if you're going to link related literature, at least include "Understand" which to me, must've been the inspiration for the screenplay (unfortunately I could only find an audio version, cheesily read.) "Understanding" can also be found in the collection "Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang.

Stories of Your Life is the original title before the film.

Really good! For me it was like discovering Arthur C Clarke all over again.

One thing that grinds my gears about this whole thread is that just because an idea is similar doesn't mean its plagiarism.

I'm a writer myself, and one book that really helped me when I was in college is called "Steal Like An Artist" which essentially explains how nothing is original, so whatever you think you're crazy cool idea is, it's probably been done before. So with that in mind, it asks you to explore the idea of taking what you love and enjoy, and using that as inspiration for your own work to make it unique.

I would actually not be surprised if Charlie Brooker read this story at some point in his life and thought "Wow! What a cool story! This would make a great screenplay!" And kept that in mind when digging for ideas. That's just how artists work, and so rather than criticize it for plagiarism, looking at it as inspired by the original material and it's own, unique, modern take on it.

As a sort of side example-- one of my favorite movies of all time is Arrival, which is based on a short story from 2002 called "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang (which I actually only just realized was published in 1998 and that kinda blows my mind). The short story is way different than the movie, yet it still executes the same idea. I'd check out the short story collection by him if you get a chance cause there's a lot of really neat stories (I've got some basic scripts written for "Hell is the Abscence if God" and "Liking What You See: A Documentary", the latter of which could totally be a Black Mirror episode)

here you go...apologize for U.S. link if not in the states

Is included in the collection [Stories of Your Life and Others]
(https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0/131-9278839-0652413?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=9HN4HP0T37EJBMAEMEHW)
A shame [the novelette] (https://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Alchemists-Gate-Ted-Chiang/dp/1596061006) is not longer available.

the book describes it as "when you go to a wedding, you already know whats going to happen, but there is value in going through the process". So it was mentioned that the aliens perhaps lack free will, but that it doesn't take away from the experience of actually experiencing those things. Her ability to change course or not wasn't specifically addressed i think. The short story is only like 20 pages, you should read it. The other stories in the book are equally as interesting, read them all!

https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486663622&sr=8-1&keywords=story+of+your+life

I really loved those newer ones you mentioned too! It Comes at Night was an especially fun approach to a zombie movie. The Sicario director, Denis Villeneuve, did a great job adapting the short story by Ted Chiang called Story of your Life into his movie Arrival.

The last movie that really gripped me as something different and interesting was the new South Korean movie Parasite. The director is always really interesting in the way he weaves horror, comedy, and drama together. The Host was another one of his that really got me hooked on his films. The VVitch was another recent scary movie that my partner and I really like for how heavy and dark its atmosphere is.

Stories of Your Life and Others

Really amazing collection of sci-fi short stories. Thought-provoking and intelligent, but also entertaining and easy to read. Ted Chiang writes female characters really well

https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122/

The stories of you life and others https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122/

Well so much depends on everything. Some basic suggestions:.

Contemporary Science Fiction:
Ted Chaing, Stories of Your Life and Others his short stories are science fiction gems. https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122.

Classical: Vladimir Nabokov Short Stories, amazing prose. Though English was his second language he wrote a good number, especially the later half, in English, often challenging themes from dubious narrators.
https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679729976.

International Fiction: Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore, reductionist, clean prose, with symbolic/metaphorical imagery that blends hard-boiled noir, Japanese animism, and surrealism. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400079276/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_RxntybB7PYK93

Post Modern: Roberto Bolano, 2666: A Novel, perhaps the odd relative of Murakami in structure if not style. Sometimes rambling, though powerful prose with surrealist moments within graphic and "visceral" scenes. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312429215/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ZAntybTW2XXJX.

Deconstructionism: Mark Danieleski, House of Leaves, carefully crafted entangled adventure horror of a story, explained in the footnotes of an essay, edited by a tattoo artist, written by a blind man of a homemade video of a house gone awry. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375703764/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_XMntyb3RT3RKQ

A start

It's entitled: "Story of Your Life"
If any one is wondering.
https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487778369&sr=8-1&keywords=story+of+your+life

Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others is great and includes the short story that The Arrival was based off of.

I keep seeing Ken Liu's name pop up everywhere and I've read The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. I didn't like all of the short stories but The Paper Menagerie was definitely the best.

I also think Greg Egan's Axiomatic is worth reading too.

All of these books are categorized under science fiction.