ReadEdenWhich Ted Chiang collection should you read first?
There is no required order
Ted Chiang has published two author collections: Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation. They do not form a series, and every story stands on its own. You can start with either book or even choose one story from the contents.
Begin with Stories of Your Life and Others if you came from Arrival
“Story of Your Life”, the source for Denis Villeneuve's film Arrival, follows linguist Louise Banks as she tries to communicate with visitors whose language alters the shape of the problem. The rest of the collection moves through different ideas rather than extending that plot.
Choose Exhalation for the later work
Exhalation appeared seventeen years after the first collection. Its nine stories include time portals, artificial beings, digital creatures and devices that reveal the consequences of another possible choice. Several are longer and allow one idea to change under pressure rather than simply deliver a twist.
A simple decision
Choose Stories of Your Life and Others for the literary source of Arrival and Chiang's earlier range. Choose Exhalation for artificial intelligence, alternative choices and his later work. If the first one suits you, the second is waiting without any continuity to remember.