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Ted Chiang

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Ted Chiang
Chiang in 2011
Chiang in 2011
BornPort Jefferson, New York
OccupationFiction writer, technical writer
CitizenshipUnited States
EducationBrown University (BS)
Period1990–present
GenreScience fiction, fantasy
Notable worksTower 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)
Ted Chiang
Traditional Chinese姜峯楠
Simplified Chinese姜峰楠
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinJiāng Fēngnán
Wade–GilesChiang1 Feng1-nan2
IPA[tɕjáŋ fə́ŋnǎn]

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]

Early life, family and education

Ted Chiang was born in 1967 in Port Jefferson, New York.[3] His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (姜峯楠).[4] Both of his parents were born in Mainland China and immigrated to Taiwan with their families during the Chinese Communist Revolution before emigrating to the United States.[5] His father, Fu-pen Chiang, is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University.[6]

Chiang graduated from Brown University with a computer science degree.

Career

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]

As of July 2002, he was working as a technical writer in the software industry and resided in Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle.[7] Chiang was an instructor at the Clarion Workshop at UC San Diego in 2012 and 2016.[8]

Chiang has published eighteen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2019.

Reception

Critic John Clute has written that Chiang's work has a "tight-hewn and lucid style... [which] has a magnetic effect on the reader".[9]

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.[10]

Awards

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[11] 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.[12]

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

Republication

His novelette The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate (2007) was also published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The Great Silence[13] was included in The Best American Short Stories anthology for 2016.

Works

Short stories

Collections

Film

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.[25][26]

Personal life

As of 2016, Chiang lives in Bellevue, Washington with his partner, Marcia Glover.[27]

References

  1. ^ Chiang's awards, Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
  2. ^ "Ted Chiang". Institute for Advanced Study, University of Notre Dame. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  3. ^ "Ted Chiang". Internet Speculative Fiction Database (Summary Bibliography). Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  4. ^ a b "The Legendary Ted Chiang on Seeing His Stories Adapted and the Ever-Expanding Popularity of SF". Electric Literature. July 18, 2016.
  5. ^ Rothman, Joshua (January 5, 2017). "Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  6. ^ Fan, Christopher T. (5 November 2014). "Melancholy Transcendence: Ted Chiang and Asian American Postracial Form". Post45.
  7. ^ "An Interview with Ted Chiang". SF Site. July 2002. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  8. ^ "Clarion at UC San Diego Graduates and Instructors". Clarion. Archived from the original on 2008-04-27. Retrieved December 9, 2016.
  9. ^ Chiang, SF Encyclopedia.
  10. ^ "Silicon Valley Is Turning Into Its Own Worst Fear". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  11. ^ "2011 Hugo and Campbell Awards Winners". Locus. Retrieved August 21, 2011.
  12. ^ "Chiang". fantasticmetropolis.com. Archived from the original on 2008-04-02.
  13. ^ "The Great Silence by Ted Chiang". Electric Literature. October 12, 2016.
  14. ^ "Fantastic Metropolis » Division by Zero". 2011-11-21. Archived from the original on 2011-11-21. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  15. ^ "Understand - a novelette by Ted Chiang". 2014-05-27. Archived from the original on 2014-05-27. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  16. ^ Chiang, Ted (June 2000). "Catching crumbs from the table". Nature. 405 (6786): 517. doi:10.1038/35014679. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 10850694.
  17. ^ "Seventy-Two Letters by Ted Chiang". Archived from the original on 2001-08-02. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  18. ^ Chiang, Ted (July 2005). "What's expected of us". Nature. 436 (7047): 150. Bibcode:2005Natur.436..150C. doi:10.1038/436150a. ISSN 1476-4687.
  19. ^ "Fantasy and Science Fiction: Fiction". 2008-02-14. Archived from the original on 2008-02-14. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  20. ^ "Exhalation". Lightspeed Magazine. 2014-04-29. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  21. ^ "Subterranean Press Fiction: The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang". 2018-06-07. Archived from the original on 2018-06-07. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  22. ^ "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang — Subterranean Press". 2014-02-22. Archived from the original on 2014-02-22. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  23. ^ "e-flux journal 56th Venice Biennale — SUPERCOMMUNITY – The Great Silence". e-flux Supercommunity. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  24. ^ "Exhalation by Ted Chiang". Penguin Random House.
  25. ^ "Jeremy Renner Joins Amy Adams in Sci-Fi 'Story of Your Life'". The Hollywood Reporter. 6 March 2015.
  26. ^ 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 17 August 2016.
  27. ^ "How a Bellevue writer's short story became a major new film". The Seattle Times. 2 November 2016. Retrieved 2019-06-10.
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