Book Club Guide

Exhalation

by Ted Chiang · 2019 · Short Stories

Key themes

Consciousness, memory and what it means to be a self across time
The ethics of new technologies — and the obligations they create
The universe's thermodynamic fate and the creatures who think about it

About this book

Beautifully reasoned science-fiction stories about time, free will and meaning; cerebral and humane.

Published in 2019, Exhalation is Chiang's second collection. He works slowly and publishes perhaps a story a year, but virtually everything he has published has won major awards. He holds degrees in computer science and works as a technical writer.

Discussion questions

The title story imagines pneumatic beings powered by compressed air who eventually discover the thermodynamic limit of their existence. What is Chiang saying through this allegory — about consciousness, entropy and the knowledge of mortality?
Chiang's stories often turn on a single rigorous scientific or philosophical premise. How does this method work — and what does rigorous speculation add that less carefully constructed SF cannot?
'Story of Your Life' — the basis for the film Arrival — features a linguist who learns to perceive time non-linearly. How does Chiang use this concept to ask questions about determinism, love and loss?
The ethical questions in the stories (should we use technology that changes memory? should we create conscious beings?) are presented without easy resolution. What is Chiang's relationship to these dilemmas — does he think there are answers?
Chiang publishes very rarely — the collection covers work from over twenty years. Does this selectivity show in the quality — and does it change how you value individual stories?