书名：Stories of Your Life and Others你一生的故事

作者：Ted Chiang特德·姜 

出版社名称：Vintage 

出版时间：2016 

语种：英文 

ISBN：9781101972120 

商品尺寸：13.2 x 2.3 x 20.3 cm 

包装：平装 

页数：304与外星人的第1次接触，从学习他们的“语言”开始——Stories of Your Life and Others《你一生的故事》选择了这个所有外星题材小说和电影都避而不谈的话题，从研究七肢桶的语言开始，了解他们对世界的认知。不同于人类对于“因”与“果”的线性认知，他们能同时感知所有事件——过去、现在与未来于他们并无区别。那么，学会了他们的语言，是否就能预知未来？假若这个未来是悲观的呢？

特德·姜是为世界科幻界认可的华裔科幻作家，自1990年创作《巴比伦塔》至今，只出版了十五篇短篇或中篇小说，却四获星云奖，四获雨果奖，三获轨迹奖，三获日本科幻大奖，此外还有英国科幻协会奖、斯特金奖和坎贝尔奖，真正是“拿奖拿到手抽筋”。之前《轨迹》杂志的票选中，20世纪优秀长中篇、21世纪优秀短中篇及21世纪优秀短篇三个榜单的第1名都是特德·姜的作品，21世纪短中篇的第二名也由他霸占。他的作品充满对人性的反思和对价值观的拷问，科学性、故事性与文学性兼备。 媒体评论 “特德·姜将值得用于一部长篇小说的点子、才智、鲜活的想象和少见的洞察力凝结在短篇小说中。读者一定要反复捧读，每一次都能获得极大的阅读快感。”——大卫·布林 “特德的短篇小说极具震撼力，科幻味非常地道！不读特德·姜，就不会了解科幻。”——格雷格·贝尔 “为了让大脑正常运转，我一直建议人们每年读52本书。但如果你只有时间看一本，那么，就是眼前的这一本《你一生的故事》。”——朱诺·迪亚斯 “特德·姜未出版一部长篇小说，便已获得盛名。这在当代科幻作家中极为罕见。他繁复的故事充盈着创造力和无法抗拒的吸引力。”——埃伦·达特洛 Includes “Story of Your Life” the basis for the major motion picture Arrival Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today’s most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic. Review “A swell movie adaptation always sends me to the source material, so Arrival had me pick up Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others lean, relentless, and incandescent.” —Colson Whitehead, GQ “Chiang writes with a gruff and ready heart that brings to mind George Saunders and Steven Millhauser, but he’s uncompromisingly cerebral.” —The New Yorker “Blend[s] absorbing storytelling with meditations on the universe, being, time and space.... raises questions about the nature of reality and what it is to be human.” —The New York Times “Shines with a brutal, minimalist elegance. Every sentence is the perfect incision in the dissection of the idea at hand.” —The Guardian “Meticulously pieced together, utterly thought through, Chiang’s stories emerge slowly... but with the perfection of slow-growing crystal.” —Lev Grossman, Best of the Decade: Science Fiction and Fantasy, Techland “Ted Chiang is one of the best and smartest writers working today. If you don’t know his name, let’s fix that. Now.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves “Ted Chiang astonishes. You must read him.” —Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble “United by a humane intelligence that speaks very directly to the reader, and makes us experience each story with immediacy and Chiang’s calm passion.” —China Mieville, The Guardian “Ted is a national treasure... each of those stories is a goddamned jewel.”—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing “Confirms that blending science and fine art at this length can produce touching works, tales as intimate as our own blood cells, with the structural strength of just-discovered industrial alloys.”—Seattle TimesStories of Your Life and Others《你一生的故事》集结了特德·姜早期的八篇作品：代表作《你一生的故事》、处女作《巴比伦塔》以及《领悟》《除以零》《七十二个字母》《人类科学之演变》《地狱是上帝不在的地方》《赏心悦目》——一个语言学家学会了一门外星语言，彻底改变了她的世界观。过去、现在、未来，在她眼前同时展开。为了离上帝更近，人类伐木烧砖，拉车砌塔，经过无数个世代的辛劳，终于建成一座巍峨耸立于天地之间的通天塔。只要一小瓶药水，就能拥有超人智慧，这个诱惑无人能挡。可惜超人不止一个，荡气回肠的超人对决之后，领悟终极的智慧。任何数字除以零，都不会得出一个有意义的结果。两个人的感情除以零，结果是什么？在一个“名字驱动一切”的世界，命名师们玩转七十二个字母，寻找人类种族繁衍的密码。当人类的所有科学研究仅仅局限在解读后人类的科研成果时，这种研究是否还有存在的必要？妻子在天使下凡时去世，丈夫却必须学习如何热爱上帝，以便死后与妻子团聚……

特德·姜（Ted Chiang），美国华裔科幻作家，当代优秀的科幻作家之一。1967年生，毕业于布朗大学计算机专业，参加过“科幻黄埔”号角写作班，现为自由程序师。自1990年发表处女作《巴比伦塔》至今，只出版了十五篇短篇或中篇小说，却让他捧回了包括星云奖、雨果奖、坎贝尔奖在内的几乎所有科幻大奖的奖杯。

Ted Chiangwas born in Port Jefferson, New York, and holds a degree in computer science. In 1989 he attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Workshop. His fiction has won four Hugo, four Nebula, and four Locus awards, and he is the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Stories of Your Life and Others has been translated into ten languages. He lives near Seattle, Washington. Tower of Babylon巴比伦塔

Understand领悟 Division by Zero除以零 Story of Your Life你一生的故事 Seventy-Two Letters七十二个字母 The Evolution of Human Science人类科学之演变 Hell Is the Absence of God地狱是上帝不在的地方 Liking What You See: A Documentary赏心悦目 Story Notes注释 Acknowledgments致谢 Were the tower to be laid down across the plain of Shinar, it would be two days’ journey to walk from one end to the other. While the tower stands, it takes a full month and a half to climb from its base to its summit, if a man walks unburdened. But few men climb the tower with empty hands; the pace of most men is slowed by the cart of bricks that they pull behind them. Four months pass between the day a brick is loaded onto a cart, and the day it is taken off to form a part of the tower.

Hillalum had spent all his life in Elam, and knew Babylon only as a buyer of Elam’s copper. The copper ingots were carried on boats that traveled down the Karun to the Lower Sea, headed for the Euphrates. Hillalum and the other miners traveled overland, alongside a merchant’s caravan of loaded onagers. They walked along a dusty path leading down from the plateau, across the plains, to the green fields sectioned by canals and dikes, None of them had seen the tower before. It became visible when they were still leagues away: a line as thin as a strand of flax, wavering in the shimmering air, rising up from the crust of mud that was Babylon itself. As they drew closer, the crust grew into the mighty city walls, but all they saw was the tower. When they did lower their gazes to the level of the river-plain, they saw the marks the tower had made outside the city: the Euphrates itself now flowed at the bottom of a wide, sunken bed, dug to provide clay for bricks. To the south of the city could be seen rows upon rows of kilns, no longer burning. As they approached the city gates, the tower appeared more massive than anything Hillalurn had ever imagined: a single column that must have been as large around as an entire temple, yet rising so high that it shrank into invisibility. All of them walked with their heads tilted back, squinting in the sun. Hillalum’s friend Nanni prodded him with an elbow, awestruck. “We’re to climb that? To the top?” “Going up to dig. It seems... unnatural” The miners reached the central gate in the western wall, where another caravan was leaving. While they crowded forward into the narrow strip of shade provided by the wall, their foreman Bell shouted to the gatekeepers who stood atop the gate towers. “We are the miners summoned from the land of Elam.” The gatekeepers were delighted. One called back, “You are the ones who are to dig through the vault of heaven?” “We are.” The entire city was celebrating. The festival had begun eight days ago, when the last of the bricks were sent on their way, and would last two more. Every day and night, the city rejoiced, danced, feasted. Along with the brickmakers were the cart-pullers, men whose legs were roped with muscle from climbing the tower. Each morning a crew began its ascent; they climbed for four days, transferred their loads to the next crew of pullers, and returned to the city with empty carts on the fifth. A chain of such crews led all the way to the top of the tower, but only the bottommost celebrated with the city. For those who lived upon the tower, enough wine and meat had been sent up earlier to allow a feast to extend up the entire pillar.