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Ted Chiang

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Ted Chiang
Chiang in 2011
Chiang in 2011
Native name
姜峯楠
Born1967 (age 57–58)
Port Jefferson, New York, U.S.
Occupation
  • Fiction writer
  • technical writer
Alma materBrown University (BS)
Period1990–present
GenreScience fiction, fantasy
Notable works‟Tower of Babylon” (1990)
‟Story of Your Life” (1998)
‟Hell is the Absence of God” (2001)
Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)
‟The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” (2007)
Exhalation: Stories (2019)
Notable awardsSee list
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese姜峯楠
Simplified Chinese姜峰楠
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinJiāng Fēngnán
Bopomofoㄐㄧㄤㄈㄥㄋㄢˊ
Wade–GilesChiang1 Feng1-nan2
IPA[tɕjáŋ fə́ŋnǎn]

Ted Chiang (Chinese: 姜峯楠; pinyin: Jiāng Fēngnán; 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] He has published the short story collections Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) and Exhalation: Stories (2019). 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 from 2020 to 2021.[2] Chiang is also a frequent non-fiction contributor to the New Yorker, where he writes on topics related to computing such as artificial intelligence.

Early life and education

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Ted Chiang was born in 1967 to a Taiwanese American family in Port Jefferson, New York.[3] His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (姜峯楠; Jiāng Fēngnán).[4] Both of his parents are Taiwanese waishengren who were born in mainland China and migrated to Taiwan with their families during the retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan 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 (d. 2019) was a librarian.[7] Chiang also has a sister who is a physician.[7]

Chiang grew up in Long Island and, at age 15, began submitting science fiction stories to magazines.[8] He later recalled, "When I was a kid, my intention was to become a physicist. That was a perfectly respectable career choice for the son of an engineer. I figured I would be a fiction writer on the side, and that, I think, is perfectly acceptable to Asian parents".[7] In 1989, he graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree after choosing to study computer science over physics.[9][10] As an undergraduate, Chiang continued to write sci-fi stories, though they were ultimately unpublished.[8]

Personal life

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As of 2016, Chiang lives in Bellevue, Washington, with his long-time partner, Marcia Glover,[11] whom he met while they both were working at Microsoft. She worked as an interface designer and then a photographer.[5]

Career

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After attending and graduating from the Clarion Workshop in 1989 Chiang sold his first story, "The Tower of Babylon", to Omni magazine,[12] and was awarded a Nebula Award for it in 1990.[5] His later stories have won numerous other awards, making him one of the most-honored writers in contemporary science fiction. Chiang's first short story collection, Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) was published in 2002 by Tor Books and comprises his first eight stories. The collection was reprinted in 2016 as Arrival to coincide with the adaptation of "Story of Your Life" as the film Arrival.[13][14]

As of July 2002, Chiang was working as a technical writer in the software industry and resided in Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle.[15] He was an instructor at the Clarion Workshop at UC San Diego in 2012 and 2016.[16]

Chiang's second short story collection, Exhalation: Stories was published in May 2019 by Alfred A. Knopf.[17] Chiang has published eighteen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2019. In 2022, Chiang became a Miller Scholar in the Santa Fe Institute.[18][19]

In 2023, Chiang was named one of Time's 100 most influential people in AI.[20]

Writing style and influences

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Chiang has said Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke inspired him when he was young,[21] while the works of Gene Wolfe, John Crowley and Edward Bryant were his creative influences in college.[22]

Chiang has said that one of the reasons science fiction writing interests him is that it allows him to make philosophical questions "storyable".[22] He enjoys reading explanatory story notes by authors, and includes them in his own 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".[23]

Reception

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Critic John Clute has written that Chiang's work has a "tight-hewn and lucid style... [which] has a magnetic effect on the reader".[24] 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.[25] 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."[26]

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".[27]

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.[28]

Awards

[edit]

Ted Chiang has won or been nominated for several awards for several of his works.

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.[29]

Chiang was inducted into the the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2020. In 2024, Chiang won the PEN/Malamud Award for "excellence in the art of the short story"[30][31][32] and the American Humanist Association's Inquiry and Innovation Award.[33]

Work Year & Award Category Result Ref.
Tower of Babylon 1991 Locus Award Novelette Nominated [34]
1991 Hugo Award Novelette Nominated
1991 Nebula Award Novelette Won
1991 SF Chronicle Award Novelette Nominated [35]
1992 Astounding Award for Best New Writer Won
1998 Premio Ignotus Foreign Story Nominated [36]
Division by Zero 1992 Locus Award Short Story Nominated
Understand 1991 Asimov's Readers' Poll Novelette Won [37]
1992 Locus Award Novelette Nominated
1992 Hugo Award Novelette Nominated
1994 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's Award Foreign Short Story Won
Story of Your Life 1998 Otherwise Award Honor
1998 HOMer Award Novella Nominated [38]
1999 Locus Award Novella Nominated
1999 Hugo Award Novella Nominated
1999 Theodore Sturgeon Award Short Science Fiction Won
2000 Nebula Award Novella Won
2001 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's Award Foreign Short Story Won
2002 Seiun Award Translated Short Story Won
Seventy-Two Letters 2000 Sidewise Award for Alternate History Short Form Won
2001 Theodore Sturgeon Award Short Science Fiction Finalist [39]
2001 World Fantasy Award Novella Nominated
2001 Hugo Award Novella Nominated
2001 Locus Award Novella Nominated
2002 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's Award Foreign Short Story Won
Catching Crumbs from the Table (aka: The Evolution of Human Science) 2001 Locus Award Short Story Nominated
Hell Is the Absence of God 2002 Hugo Award Novelette Won
2002 Locus Award Novelette Won
2002 Theodore Sturgeon Award Short Science Fiction Finalist [40]
2003 Nebula Award Novelette Won
2004 Seiun Award Translated Short Story Won
2005 Premio Ignotus Foreign Story Nominated [41]
2013 Kurd Laßwitz Award Foreign Work

(Translated as Die Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes)

Won
Liking What You See: A Documentary 2002 Otherwise Award Honor
2003 Theodore Sturgeon Award Short Science Fiction Finalist [42]
2003 Locus Award Novelette Nominated
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate 2007 BSFA Award Short Fiction Nominated
2008 Hugo Award Novelette Won
2008 Nebula Award Novelette Won
2008 Theodore Sturgeon Award Short Science Fiction Finalist [43]
2008 Locus Award Novelette Nominated
2009 Seiun Award Translated Short Story Won
Stories of Your Life and Others 2003 Locus Award Collection Won
2007 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire Foreign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short Stories Nominated [44]
2017 Washington State Book Award Fiction Nominated
Exhalation 2008 BSFA Award Short Fiction Won
2009 Hugo Award Short Story Won
2009 Locus Award Short Story Won
2010 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire Foreign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short Stories Won [45]
2011 Seiun Award Translated Short Story Nominated
2019 Ray Bradbury Prize Finalist
2021 Ignotus Awards Foreign Short Story Won [46]
Exhalation (Collection) 2019 Bram Stoker Award Fiction Collection Nominated
2019 Goodreads Choice Awards Science Fiction Nominated [47]
2020 Locus Award Collection Won
2021 Shelley Award The Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work Won [48]
2021 Grand prix de l'Imaginaire Foreign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short Stories Nominated [49]
The Lifecycle of Software Objects 2011 Hugo Award Novella Won
2011 Nebula Award Novella Nominated
2011 Locus Award Novella Won
2012 Seiun Award Translated Short Story Won
2013 Premio Ignotus Foreign Story Nominated
2014 FantLab's Book of the Year Award Translated Novella/Short Story Nominated
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling 2014 Locus Award Novelette Nominated
2014 Hugo Award Novelette Nominated
2016 Premio Ignotus Foreign Story Nominated [50]
Arrival 2017 Hugo Award Dramatic Presentation - Long Form Won
Omphalos 2020 Hugo Award Novelette Nominated
2020 Theodore Sturgeon Award Short Science Fiction Finalist [51]
2020 Seiun Award Translated Short Story Nominated
2020: Ignyte Award Novelette Finalist [52]
2020 Locus Award Novelette Won
Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom 2020 Hugo Award Novella Nominated
2020 Nebula Award Novella Nominated
2020 Seiun Award Translated Short Story Nominated
2020 Locus Award Novella Nominated
It's 2059, and the Rich Kids are Still Winning 2020 Locus Award Short Story Nominated


Works

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Short stories

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Collections

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Non-fiction

[edit]

Lectures

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  • Ted Chiang on the Future, MoMA PS1, July 8, 2013[73]
  • Imaginary Science and Magic in Fiction, Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, November 2020[74]

Film

[edit]
Main article: Arrival (film)

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.[75][76]


References

[edit]
  1. ^ Chiang's awards, Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
  2. ^ "Ted Chiang". Institute for Advanced Study, University of Notre Dame. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
  3. ^ "Ted Chiang". Internet Speculative Fiction Database (Summary Bibliography). Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  4. ^ Klein, Ezra (March 3, 2023). "人工智能真正的恐怖之处" [The Imminent Danger of A.I. Is One We’re Not Talking About]. The New York Times (in Chinese). Retrieved February 14, 2025. Translated from The Imminent Danger of A.I. Is One We’re Not Talking About.
  5. ^ a b c Rothman, Joshua (January 5, 2017). "Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  6. ^ Fan, Christopher T. (November 5, 2014). "Melancholy Transcendence: Ted Chiang and Asian American Postracial Form". Post45.
  7. ^ a b c Yeh, James; Millionaire, Tony (December 2, 2019). "An Interview with Ted Chiang". The Believer. No. 128. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  8. ^ a b Clark, Taylor (January 4, 2015). "The Perfectionist". The California Sunday Magazine. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
  9. ^ "Ted Chiang interviewed - infinity plus non-fiction". Infinity Plus. 2002. Archived from the original on December 1, 2022. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  10. ^ Smith, Andy (2020). "Alien Worlds: A new book of short stories from award-winning author Ted Chiang '89". Brown Alumni Magazine. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  11. ^ Macdonald, Moira (November 2, 2016). "How a Bellevue writer's short story became a major new film". The Seattle Times. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  12. ^ McCarron, Meghan (July 18, 2016). "The Legendary Ted Chiang on Seeing His Stories Adapted and the Ever-Expanding Popularity of SF". Electric Literature.
  13. ^ "ARRIVAL (STORIES OF YOUR LIFE MTI)". Chapters-Indigo. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  14. ^ Ted Chiang (2016). Arrival: originally published as – Stories Of Your Life And Others. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0525433675.
  15. ^ "An Interview with Ted Chiang". SF Site. July 2002. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  16. ^ "Clarion at UC San Diego Graduates and Instructors". Clarion. Archived from the original on April 27, 2008. Retrieved December 9, 2016.
  17. ^ "Exhalation: Stories". Publishers Weekly.
  18. ^ "Ted Chiang joins SFI Miller Scholars | Santa Fe Institute". www.santafe.edu. January 30, 2023. Retrieved June 18, 2023.
  19. ^ "Ted Chiang. Macrocosm in Miniature" (PDF). Extraterritorial. 2. SFI Press. 2023. Retrieved June 18, 2023.
  20. ^ "TIME100 AI 2023: Ted Chiang". Time. September 7, 2023. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  21. ^ "Ted Chiang, interviewed by Gavin J. Grant". IndieBound. Archived from the original on April 7, 2017.
  22. ^ a b McCarron, Meghan (July 18, 2016). "The Legendary Ted Chiang on Seeing His Stories Adapted and the Ever-Expanding Popularity of SF". Electric Literature. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  23. ^ Orr, Niela (December 2, 2019). "An Interview with Ted Chiang". The Believer (magazine). Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  24. ^ Chiang, SF Encyclopedia.
  25. ^ Oates, Joyce Carol (May 6, 2019). "Science Fiction Doesn't Have to Be Dystopian". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  26. ^ Watts, Peter (November 30, 2016). "Changing Our Minds: "Story of Your Life" in Print and on Screen". No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  27. ^ Brady, Amy (August 20, 2019). "Barack Obama's 2019 Summer Reading List". Chicago Review of Books. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  28. ^ "Silicon Valley Is Turning Into Its Own Worst Fear". BuzzFeed News. December 18, 2017. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
  29. ^ "Chiang". fantasticmetropolis.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2008.
  30. ^ "Science Fiction Author Ted Chiang Honoured with the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Story Writing". Times Now. June 12, 2024. Retrieved June 12, 2024.
  31. ^ "Ted Chiang has won the PEN/Faulkner Foundation's short story prize". Literary Hub. June 12, 2024. Retrieved June 12, 2024.
  32. ^ "Chiang Wins PEN/Malamud Award". Locus Online. June 12, 2024. Retrieved June 13, 2024.
  33. ^ Humanist, The (August 22, 2024). "Meet the 2024 Humanist Awardees". TheHumanist.com. Retrieved August 26, 2024.
  34. ^ https://www.sfadb.com/Locus_Awards
  35. ^ https://www.sfadb.com/Science_Fiction_Chronicle_Readers_Poll_1991
  36. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?71+1998
  37. ^ https://www.sfadb.com/Asimovs_Reader_Poll_1992
  38. ^ https://www.sfadb.com/HOMer_Awards_1999
  39. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?41+2001
  40. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?41+2002
  41. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?71+2005
  42. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?41+2003
  43. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?41+2008
  44. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?25+2007
  45. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?25+2010
  46. ^ https://www.sfadb.com/Ignotus_Awards_2021
  47. ^ https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-science-fiction-books-2019
  48. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?110+2021
  49. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?25+2021
  50. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?71+2016
  51. ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?41+2020
  52. ^ https://ignyteawards.fiyahlitmag.com/current-finalists/2020-results/
  53. ^ "Fantastic Metropolis » Division by Zero". November 21, 2011. Archived from the original on November 21, 2011. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
  54. ^ "Understand - a novelette by Ted Chiang". May 27, 2014. Archived from the original on May 27, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
  55. ^ Chiang, Ted (June 2000). "Catching crumbs from the table". Nature. 405 (6786): 517. doi:10.1038/35014679. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 10850694.
  56. ^ Chiang, Ted (July 2005). "What's expected of us". Nature. 436 (7047): 150. Bibcode:2005Natur.436..150C. doi:10.1038/436150a. ISSN 1476-4687.
  57. ^ "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang — Subterranean Press". February 22, 2014. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
  58. ^ "e-flux journal 56th Venice Biennale — SUPERCOMMUNITY – The Great Silence". e-flux Supercommunity. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
  59. ^ "Exhalation by Ted Chiang". Penguin Random House.
  60. ^ "The ED SF Project: "Frankenstein's Daughter" by Maureen McHugh: An Appreciation by Ted Chiang". Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  61. ^ "Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 23 | Small Beer Press". Small Beer Press | Really rather good books. November 1, 2008. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  62. ^ "Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26 | Small Beer Press". Small Beer Press | Really rather good books. November 18, 2010. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  63. ^ words, Ted Chiang Issue: 31 October 2011 289 (October 31, 2011). "Introduction to "Particle Theory"". Strange Horizons. Retrieved May 11, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  64. ^ "If Chinese Were Phonetic". The New Yorker. May 9, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  65. ^ Chiang, Ted (December 18, 2017). "Silicon Valley Is Turning Into Its Own Worst Fear". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved June 4, 2023.
  66. ^ "What If Parents Loved Strangers' Children As Much As Their Own?". The New Yorker. December 31, 2017. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  67. ^ Chiang, Ted (March 30, 2021). "Why Computers Won't Make Themselves Smarter". The New Yorker.
  68. ^ "Publication: The Art and Science of Arrival". www.isfdb.org. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  69. ^ "Publication: The History of Science Fiction: A Graphic Novel Adventure". www.isfdb.org. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  70. ^ Chiang, Ted (February 9, 2023). "ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web". The New Yorker.
  71. ^ Chiang, Ted (May 4, 2023). "Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?". The New Yorker.
  72. ^ Chiang, Ted (August 31, 2024). "Why A.I. Isn't Going to Make Art". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  73. ^ Ted Chiang on the Future, retrieved May 11, 2023
  74. ^ Ted Chiang "Imaginary Science and Magic in Fiction", retrieved May 11, 2023
  75. ^ "Jeremy Renner Joins Amy Adams in Sci-Fi 'Story of Your Life'". The Hollywood Reporter. March 6, 2015.
  76. ^ Zutter, Natalie (August 8, 2016). "Your First Look at Arrival, the Adaptation of Ted Chiang's Novella Story of Your Life". TOR. tor.com. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
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