A review by cyborgforty
Exhalation by Ted Chiang

5.0

I was going to rate this 4 stars because I did like "Stories of Your Life and Others" better---I still do---but the "twist" ending of "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" had me bump it up. My favorite story was "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom," though I started with "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" because that's the one I'd heard most about previously. I just love the frankness of Ted Chiang's writing style. These stories are so deeply conceptual while feeling so everyday. Also not that it matters but I did enjoy the leading women in these stories. Probably the best female sci-fi characters I've seen written by a man in a hot second---because they are written like normal human beings!