Ted Chiang | |
---|---|
Born | 1967 (age 56–57) Port Jefferson, New York, U.S. |
Occupation | Fiction writer, technical writer |
Education | Brown University (BS) |
Period | 1990–present |
Genre | Science fiction, fantasy |
Notable works | ‟Tower of Babylon” (1990) ‟Story of Your Life” (1998) ‟The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” (2007) Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) Exhalation: Stories (2019) ‟Hell is the Absence of God” (2001) |
Ted Chiang | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 姜峯楠 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 姜峰楠 | ||||||||||
|
Ted Chiang (born 1967) is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula awards,four Hugo awards,the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer,and six Locus awards. [1] His short story "Story of Your Life" was the basis of the film Arrival (2016). He was an artist in residence at the University of Notre Dame in 2020–2021. [2] Chiang is also a frequent non-fiction contributor to the New Yorker Magazine ,most recently on topics related to computer technology,such as artificial intelligence.
Ted Chiang was born in 1967 in Port Jefferson,New York. [3] His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (姜峯楠;Jiāng Fēngnán). [4] Both of his parents were born in Mainland China and immigrated to Taiwan with their families during the Chinese Communist Revolution before immigrating to the United States. [5] His father,Fu-pen Chiang,is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University. [6] His mother was a librarian. [7]
Chiang graduated from Brown University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science. [8] [9] [10]
Chiang began submitting stories to magazines in high school. After attending the Clarion Workshop in 1989 he sold his first story,"The Tower of Babylon",to Omni magazine, [4] and was awarded a Nebula Award for it in 1990. His later stories have won numerous other awards,making him one of the most-honored writers in contemporary science fiction.
As of July 2002 [update] ,he was working as a technical writer in the software industry and resided in Bellevue,Washington,near Seattle. [11] Chiang was an instructor at the Clarion Workshop at UC San Diego in 2012 and 2016. [12] In 2022,Chiang became a Miller Scholar in the Santa Fe Institute. [13] [14]
Chiang has published eighteen short stories,novelettes,and novellas as of 2019. [update]
In 2023,Chiang was named one of Time's 100 most influential people in AI. [15]
Chiang has said Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke inspired him when he was young, [16] while the works of Gene Wolfe,John Crowley and Edward Bryant were his creative influences in college. [10]
Chiang has said that one of the reasons science fiction writing interests him is that it allows him to make philosophical questions "storyable". [10] He enjoys reading story notes by authors,and himself includes them with his short story collections. He considers these not the "precise response to 'How did you get the idea?,' but it's a way to answer the reader if they knew what the best question to ask [about the story] was". [17]
Critic John Clute has written that Chiang's work has a "tight-hewn and lucid style... [which] has a magnetic effect on the reader". [18] Critic and poet Joyce Carol Oates wrote that Chiang explores "conventional tropes of science fiction in highly unconventional ways" in "teasing,tormenting,illuminating,thrilling" fashion,comparing him favorably to Philip K. Dick,James Tiptree Jr. and Jorge Luis Borges. [19] Writer Peter Watts has praised Chiang's work,writing:"We share a secret prayer,we writers of short SF. We utter it whenever one of our stories is about to appear in public,and it goes like this:Please,Lord. Please,if it be Thy will,don’t let Ted Chiang publish a story this year." [20]
Former US president Barack Obama included Chiang's short story collection Exhalation in his 2019 reading list,praising it as the "best kind of science fiction". [21]
Chiang has commented on "metacognition,or thinking about one’s own thinking" being something most humans,but neither animals nor current AI,are capable of,and that capitalism erodes the capacity for this insight,especially for tech company executives. [22]
Chiang has won the following science fiction awards for his works:a Nebula Award for "Tower of Babylon" (1990);the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992;a Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Award for "Story of Your Life" (1998);a Sidewise Award for "Seventy-Two Letters" (2000);a Nebula Award,Locus Award,and Hugo Award for his novelette "Hell Is the Absence of God" (2002);a Locus Award for his short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others (2003);a Nebula and Hugo Award for his novelette "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (2007);a British Science Fiction Association Award,a Locus Award,and the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Exhalation" (2009);a Hugo Award [23] and Locus Award for his novella "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (2010);a Locus Award for his short story collection Exhalation:Stories (2020);and a Locus Award for his novelette "Omphalos" (2020).
Chiang turned down a Hugo nomination for his short story "Liking What You See:A Documentary" in 2003,on the grounds that the story was rushed due to editorial pressure and did not turn out as he had really wanted. [24]
In 2013,his collection of translated stories Die Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes won the German Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for best foreign science fiction.
Year | Organization | Award title,category | Work | Result | Refs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1991 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "Tower of Babylon" | Nominated | |
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novelette | Won | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
1992 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Short Story | "Division by Zero" | Nominated | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "Understand" | Nominated | ||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
1999 | James Tiptree,Jr. Literary Award Council | James Tiptree Jr. Award | "Story of Your Life" | Nominated | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
2000 | Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novella | Won | ||
2001 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Short Story | "The Evolution of Human Science" | Nominated | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novella | "Seventy-Two Letters" | Nominated | ||
World Fantasy Convention | World Fantasy Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
2002 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "Hell Is the Absence of God" | Won | |
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Won | |||
2003 | Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novelette | Won | ||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Collection | Stories of Your Life and Others | Won | ||
James Tiptree,Jr. Literary Award Council | James Tiptree Jr. Award | "Liking What You See:A Documentary" | Nominated | ||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
2008 | British Science Fiction Association | BSFA Award, Best Short Fiction | "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" | Nominated | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novelette | Won | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Won | |||
2009 | British Science Fiction Association | BSFA Award, Best Short Fiction | "Exhalation" | Won | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Short Story | Nominated | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Short Story | Won | |||
2011 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novella | "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" | Won | |
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Won | |||
2014 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "The Truth of Fact,the Truth of Feeling" | Nominated | |
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
2017 | World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation,Long Form | Arrival | Won | |
2020 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novella | "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" | Nominated | |
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Collection | Exhalation:Stories | Won | ||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Short Story | "It's 2059,and the Rich Kids are Still Winning" | Nominated | ||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "Omphalos" | Won | ||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Nominated |
The screenwriter Eric Heisserer adapted Chiang's story "Story of Your Life" into the 2016 film Arrival . Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the film stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. [50] [51]
As of 2016, Chiang lives in Bellevue, Washington with his long-time partner, Marcia Glover, [52] whom he met while both were working at Microsoft. She worked as an interface designer and then a photographer. Chiang goes to the gym three times per week and enjoys video games. [53]
Robert Silverberg is an American author and editor, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand Master of SF. He has attended every Hugo Award ceremony since the inaugural event in 1953.
John Joseph Vincent Kessel is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. He is a prolific short story writer, and the author of four solo novels, Good News From Outer Space (1989), Corrupting Dr. Nice (1997), The Moon and the Other (2017), and Pride and Prometheus (2018), and one novel, Freedom Beach (1985) in collaboration with his friend James Patrick Kelly. Kessel is married to author Therese Anne Fowler.
Kelly Link is an American editor and author of short stories. While some of her fiction falls more clearly within genre categories, many of her stories might be described as slipstream or magic realism: a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and realism. Among other honors, she has won a Hugo award, three Nebula awards, and a World Fantasy Award for her fiction, and she was one of the recipients of the 2018 MacArthur "Genius" Grant.
The Seiun Award is a Japanese speculative fiction award given each year for the best science fiction works and achievements during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the Science Fiction Fan Groups’ Association of Nippon, the awards are given at the annual Japan Science Fiction Convention. It is the oldest SF award in Japan, being given since the 9th Japan Science Fiction Convention in 1970.
Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky is an American author who works primarily in speculative fiction genres, writing under the name Elizabeth Bear. She won the 2005 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Tideline", and the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for "Shoggoths in Bloom". She is one of a small number of writers who have gone on to win multiple Hugo Awards for fiction after winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
Paolo Tadini Bacigalupi is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell, Compton Crook, Theodore Sturgeon, and Michael L. Printz awards, and has been nominated for the National Book Award. His fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction, and the environmental journal High Country News. Nonfiction essays of his have appeared in Salon.com and High Country News, and have been syndicated in newspapers, including the Idaho Statesman, the Albuquerque Journal, and the Salt Lake Tribune.
Mary Robinette Kowal is an American author and puppeteer. Originally a puppeteer by primary trade after receiving a bachelor's degree in art education, she became art director for science fiction magazines and by 2010 was also authoring her first full-length published novels. The majority of her work is characterized by science fiction themes, such as interplanetary travel; a common element present in many of her novels is historical or alternate history fantasy, such as in her Glamourist Histories and Lady Astronaut books.
"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is a fantasy novelette by American writer Ted Chiang, originally published in 2007 by Subterranean Press and reprinted in the September 2007 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. In 2019, the novelette was included in the collection of short stories Exhalation: Stories.
"Tower of Babylon" is a science fantasy novelette by American writer Ted Chiang, published in 1990. The story revisits the tower of Babel myth as a construction megaproject, in a setting where the principles of pre-scientific cosmology are literally true. It is Chiang's first published work.
"Exhalation" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ted Chiang, about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It was first published in 2008 in the anthology Eclipse 2: New Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Jonathan Strahan. In 2019, the story was included in the collection of short stories Exhalation: Stories.
"Hell Is the Absence of God" is a 2001 fantasy novelette by American writer Ted Chiang, first published in Starlight #3, and subsequently reprinted in Year's Best Fantasy 2, and in Fantasy: The Best of 2001, as well as in Chiang's 2002 anthology, Stories of Your Life and Others.
Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of short stories by American writer Ted Chiang originally published in 1998, and later in 2002 in a collection of short stories by Tor Books. It collects Chiang's first eight stories. All of the stories except "Liking What You See: A Documentary" were previously published individually elsewhere.
The Best Science Fiction of the Year #12 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the twelfth volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in paperback by Pocket Books in July 1983, and in hardcover by Gollancz in the same year.
Rachel Swirsky is an American literary, speculative fiction and fantasy writer, poet, and editor living in Oregon. She was the founding editor of the PodCastle podcast and served as editor from 2008 to 2010. She served as vice president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2013.
Ann Leckie is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Her 2013 debut novel Ancillary Justice, in part about artificial consciousness and gender-blindness, won the 2014 Hugo Award for "Best Novel", as well as the Nebula Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the BSFA Award. The sequels, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, each won the Locus Award and were nominated for the Nebula Award. Provenance, published in 2017, and Translation State, published in 2023, are also set in the Imperial Radch universe. Leckie's first fantasy novel, The Raven Tower, was published in February 2019.
This is a list of the published works of Aliette de Bodard.
Sam J. Miller is an American science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction author. His stories have appeared in publications such as Clarkesworld, Asimov's Science Fiction, and Lightspeed, along with over 15 "year's best" story collections. He was finalist for multiple Nebula Awards along with the World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards. He won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for his short story "57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides." His debut novel, The Art of Starving, was published in 2017 and his novel Blackfish City won the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award.
Exhalation: Stories is a collection of short stories by American writer Ted Chiang. The book was initially released on May 7, 2019, by Alfred A. Knopf. This is Ted Chiang's second collection of short works, after the 2002 book Stories of Your Life and Others. Exhalation: Stories contains nine stories exploring such issues as humankind's place in the universe, the nature of humanity, bioethics, virtual reality, free will and determinism, time travel, and the uses of robotic forms of A.I. Seven tales were initially published between 2005 and 2015; "Omphalos" and "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" are originals.
"Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" is a science fiction novella by American writer Ted Chiang, initially published in 2019 collection Exhalation: Stories. The novella's name quotes a proverb by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in his work The Concept of Anxiety. An abridged version of the novella was also published under the title "Better Versions of You" in the literary supplement to The New York Times.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)