Ted Chiang, the science fiction genius behind blockbuster film Arrival
New Hollywood production is about to bring widespread recognition to Chinese American sci-fi writer who’s been a niche superstar up till now for his complex, thoughtful and futuristic stories
Chiang is sometimes described as a literary science fiction writer, but that’s a lazy label in which “literary” means “good” – a fairer one would be to say that Chiang is the Platonic ideal of a science fiction writer: his writing displays no particular interest in style, and yet it shines with a brutal, minimalist elegance. Every sentence is the perfect incision in the dissection of the idea at hand.
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The quantum event about to flip Chiang from niche superstar to widespread recognition is the movie Arrival, an adaptation of his 1998 short story Story Of Your Life. A linguist assists the US military in its “first contact” with an alien race and, as she learns their language, her own perception of reality is altered by it.
It is an exploration of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that Chiang – who was born in New York state to Chinese parents but now lives in Seattle – reflects in the text’s shifting tense structure. On the surface, Story Of Your Life may seem an unlikely candidate for the Hollywood mill. But with director Dennis Villeneuve at the helm, fresh from his tour de force crime thriller Sicario, and on his way to directing the as yet untitled Blade Runner sequel, there’s every indication Arrival will capture the essence of Ted Chiang’s storytelling on screen.
But why stop here, Hollywood? Chiang’s 2002 short story Hell Is the Absence of God is a restrained, brilliant demolition of fundamentalist religious belief that explores the possibilities of a reality where biblical angels roam suburbia. The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, which scooped both the Hugo and Nebula awards, is a Silk Road fantasy about a simple merchant who stumbles upon a gateway to the future in the market place of old Baghdad.