I finished reading Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others last night. It's a collection of short stories, which I usually don't read, but this one has pretty stellar reviews on Amazon.com (which means it has to be good, right?) and one of the stories is the base of the movie Arrival, which looked interesting from the previews (which means the whole book has to be good, right?).
Well, I wasn't a big fan. Based on the movie previews, the movie is a huge departure from the story, which consists of aliens who set up camp in tents, learn to communicate with Americans, then leave. Seriously -- that's all that happens. The most exciting part of that story is... well, there actually aren't any exciting moments.
Several of the short stories experiment with space and time, and there's a pretty interesting story about a man who is disinterested in God for his entire life until the moment before his death, in which he suddenly realizes the vast and incomprehensible love of God, only to be destined for hell and suffer miserably because he learned, too late, what he was missing out on by turning his back on God.
The stories aren't connected to each other, and I was forcing myself through the book just so I could finish it. Maybe I'll someday find some short stories that I love to read, but I don't connect with many of them. The comics are about the only collection of short stories I like to read.
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