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Ted Chiang

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Nationality
  
American

Role
  
Fiction writer

Name
  
Ted Chiang


Subject
  
Software

Period
  
1990–present

Education
  
Brown University

Ted Chiang The fiction of Ted Chiang Why you should read his stories

Occupation
  
Fiction writer, technical writer

Genre
  
Science fiction, fantasy

Notable works
  
"Tower of Babylon" (1990) "Story of Your Life" (1998) Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)

Awards
  
Hugo Award for Best Short Story

Nominations
  
World Fantasy Award for Best Novella

Books
  
Stories of Your Life and Others, The Lifecycle of Software, The Merchant and the A

Similar People
  
Daniel Abraham, George R R Martin, David Eddings, Joss Whedon, Albert Camus

Understand by ted chiang part 1 of 4


Ted Chiang (born 1967) is an American science fiction writer. His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (姜峯楠).

Contents

Ted Chiang httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

His work has (as of 2013) won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and four Locus awards. His short story "Story of Your Life" was adapted to a film called Arrival in 2016.

Ted Chiang Ted Chiang EXPO 1 New York

Ted chiang on the future


Early life and career

Chiang was born in Port Jefferson, New York. Both of his parents were born in China, but immigrated to Taiwan with their families during the Communist Revolution before immigrating to the United States. He graduated from Brown University with a computer science degree and in 1989 graduated from the Clarion Writers Workshop. He currently works as a technical writer in the software industry and resides in Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle.

Critic John Clute has written that Chiang's writing has a "tight-hewn and lucid style ... [which] has a magnetic effect on the reader."

Awards

Although Chiang has published only fifteen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2015, he has won a string of prestigious 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 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); and a Hugo Award and Locus Award for his novella "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (2010).

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.

In 2013, his collection of translated stories Die Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes won the German Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for best foreign science fiction.

Chiang's first eight stories are collected in Stories of Your Life and Others (2002). His novelette "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (2007) was also published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

"The Great Silence", Chiang's latest story, was selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories anthology for 2016, which is a rare honor for stories and authors that fall under the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres.

Works

  • "Tower of Babylon", Omni, 1990 (Nebula Award winner)
  • "Division by Zero", Full Spectrum 3, 1991 (available online)
  • "Understand", Asimov's Science Fiction, 1991 (available online)
  • "Story of Your Life", Starlight 2, 1998 (Nebula Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award and Seiun Award winner)
  • "The Evolution of Human Science" (also known as "Catching Crumbs from the Table"), Nature, 2000 (available online)
  • "Seventy-Two Letters", Vanishing Acts, 2000 (Sidewise Award winner) (available online)
  • "Hell Is the Absence of God", Starlight 3, 2001 (Hugo Award, Locus Award, Nebula Award and Seiun Award winner)
  • "Liking What You See: A Documentary", Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002
  • "What's Expected of Us", Nature, 2005 (available online)
  • "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", Subterranean Press, 2007 and F&SF, September 2007 (Nebula Award, Hugo Award and Seiun Award winner (available online)
  • "Exhalation", Eclipse 2, 2008 (BSFA, Locus Award, and Hugo Award winner) (available online)
  • "The Lifecycle of Software Objects", Subterranean Press, July 2010 (Locus Award, Hugo Award and Seiun Award winner) (available online)
  • "Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny", The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer) June 2011
  • "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling", Subterranean Press Magazine, August 2013 (available online)
  • "The Great Silence", e-flux Journal, May 2015 (Included in The Best American Short Stories, 2016) (available online)
  • Collections

  • Stories of Your Life and Others (Tor, 2002) (Locus Award for Best Collection), republished as Arrival (Picador, 2016)
  • Film

    A film adaptation by Eric Heisserer of "Story of Your Life", titled Arrival and directed by Denis Villeneuve, was released in 2016 to a critical and commercial success. It stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.

    Teaching

    Chiang was an instructor at the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop at UC San Diego in 2012 and 2016.

    References

    Ted Chiang Wikipedia